The Min Min Lights

Desert Center and Adamski's Meeting

On 20 November 1952 the Polish-American author George Adamski drove into the desert near this hamlet with six companions and, by his account, met a man from Venus called Orthon — fair-haired, in a one-piece suit, communicating by gesture and telepathy. His companions, he said, watched from a distance and signed a statement. The book Flying Saucers Have Landed appeared in 1953 and became an international bestseller; the whole contactee genre begins with it. Adamski's photographs of the Venusian craft were later matched against domestic hardware of the period — in particular the hood of a chicken brooder lamp. He maintained the account to the end.