Scoriton Affair

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Scoriton Affair

As he later told the story, on April 24, 1965, at about 5:30 in the late afternoon, Ernest Arthur Bryant, a resident of Scoriton, Devonshire, England, saw a flying saucer approach. It stopped near to him, and a door opened. Three beings appeared and beckoned to him. He approached the saucer. Two of the three beings appeared to be nonhuman, but the third seemed to be a youth in his teens. The youth spoke with an accent that Bryant thought might be Russian and called himself Yamski. He said that he was from Venus, and then remarked that he wished Des was there, as he would understand what was happening. At the close of their conversation, he said that in a month he would return and bring proof of Mantell.

Ufologists who would eventually hear the story immediately associated Yamski with George Adamski, the controversial flying saucer contactee who had died on April 23, 1965. Adamski was of Polish background and had a noticeable accent. If this were Adamski, he would have immediately lost the signs of his aging. Adamski had a friend Desmond Leslie with whom he had written his first book. Captain Thomas F. Mantell, piloting an F-51, had been killed when he began chasing what he thought was a flying saucer. According to Bryant, the saucer returned in June and left some items, including several pieces of metal that could have possibly come from an F-51.

He reported the story to the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), and an investigation was launched. The various items Bryant turned over to the two investigators proved to be mundane and of no relation to the F-51. In spite of problems with the story, one of the investigators, Eileen Buckle, rushed into print with a book. Shortly thereafter, Bryant unexpectedly took ill and died from a brain tumor. The other investigator, Norman Oliver, visited his widow. She reported that she was familiar with the story in the book as her husband has presented it to her first as the script for a science fiction novel. It was only after the investigation was well along that she realized her husband was trying to sell the story as a real event. She indicated that the supposed items related to Mantell had been purchased at a naval surplus store.

Alice Wells, head of the Adamski Foundation, dismissed the Scoriton story from the beginning, as did Desmond Leslie. Between their rejection and Oliver's uncovering of the hoax, few remained to support Bryant except Buckle. It is remembered amid the many UFO hoax attempts primarily because it extends, however briefly, the entertaining story of George Adamski.