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Space Brothers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the comic and anime, see Space Brothers (manga). For British trance act, see The Space Brothers.

"Space Brothers" is a term first used in the 1950s to describe benevolent spacefarers who had supposedly contacted Earthlings. While early 'Space Brothers' were often "Aryan" or Nordic space travelers, later examples such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial featured gray-skinned Space Brothers with distinctly non-human bodies.[1] : 30 [2]

By the late 1980s, stories of Space Brothers had begun to be supplanted by tales of malevolent Gray Aliens who conduct alien abductions and cattle mutilations.[3] : 97 [4]

Benevolent space traveler claims

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See also: Contactee

Even before the 1947 flying disc craze, occultists and spiritualists had claimed contact with space travelers. In the 1940s and 50s, people in the Contactee movement described meeting benevolent space travelers who were Nordic in appearance. By 1954, the supposed benevolent extra-terrestrials were being called 'Space Brothers' in the popular press. By the 1970s, stories like Betty Hill's contact with 'Space Brothers' began to be replaced by Barney Hill's store of abduction by Grays.

"Nordics"

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Main article: Nordic spacefarers

Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, claimed she was in contact with benevolent beings with advanced technology and powers. According to Theosophy teachings, these "Masters of Ancient Wisdom" or "Ascended Masters" were variously alleged to reside in exotic locales such as Atlantis, Lemuria, Thule, Agartha, Shambala or even the Etheric plane.

Blavatsky taught that the "most evolved"[5] root race were the "Aryans" -- an ethnic label that, for her, included people from India; But by the mid-1940s, the term "Aryan" had come to connote a Nordic appearance of blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin.[6] Students of Theosophy like Meade Layne and George Adamski began to claim contact with advanced "Nordic"-looking beings from Mars, Venus, or Etheria. Adamski's followers soon reported their own claims of contact and interplanetary travels with friendly "Space Brothers", including such figures as Howard Menger, Daniel Fry, George Van Tassel, and Truman Bethurum. The message of Adamski and his fellow contactees was one in which the other planets of Earth's solar system were all "inhabited by physically handsome, spiritually evolved beings who have moved beyond the problems of Earth people".[7]

In contrast with the "Nordic" Space Brothers, other sources imagined Space Nazis.[8]

The term "Space Brothers"

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In the 1953 book he co-authored with Adamski, Desmond Leslie describe Adamski's extra-terrestrial visitor as "a living spiritual being, a man like ourselves, a human brother from another globe of existence".[9]

On December 24, 1954, Chicago area resident Dorothy Martin was covered in a wire service story about her expectation to be soon rescued from Planet Earth by "Space Brothers".[10] Press reports in the following days confirm the prophesized rescue failed to happen.[11] The moniker came to be used by believers in benevolent extra-terrestrials and flying saucers.[12] [13] [14] [15] [16] By 1966, Adamski's alleged extra-terrestrial contacts were described as "Space Brothers".[17]

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As early as 1951, The Day The Earth Stood Still featured a benevolent space visitor who lands at Washington D.C. in a flying saucer. Wounded by trigger-happy soldiers, Klaatu escapes the hospital and begins rooming at a boarding house where he befriends a young boy. Before departing, Klaatu addresses an assembled audience to share a planet-wide warning about the dangers of aggression, violence, and war.[18]

1959's The Cosmic Man similarly saw a space brother issuing a warning to humanity. Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth", broadcast in 1968, featured an extraterrestrial human named Gary Seven who travels to Earth to avert nuclear war.[19]

External videos
video icon Easy Rider (1970) UFO scene

The 1970s saw the Space Brothers discussed briefly in Jack Nicholson vehicle Easy Rider .[20] Jack Nicholson's character relays a theory of Space Brothers who are "People just like us. From within our own solar system. Except that their society is more highly evolved. I mean, they don't have no wars, they got no monetary system, they don't have any leaders; because, I mean, each man is a leader. I mean, each man - because of their technology, they are able to feed, clothe, house, and transport themselves equally and with no effort." The content was derived from a secretary on the project who was a believer in Space Brothers.[21]

In 1977, the Spielberg science-fiction blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind told the tale of a contactee who gets to join friendly Gray Aliens aboard their spacecraft.[1] The director returned to the theme in the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. [1]

In 1984, cult classic The Brother from Another Planet saw a Space Brother who is mistaken for an African-American.[22] Also in 1984, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension featured benevolent aliens who appear and sound Jamaican.[23] 1987 comedy Real Men told of a CIA agent on a quest to meet with benevolent aliens offering a way to heal Earth's dying ecosystem.[24] The 2000 stoner comedy Dude, Where's My Car? saw protagonists interacting with a variety of factions vying for possession of an alien artifact; One faction, explicitly called "Nordic", are revealed to be benevolent.[25]

Contrast with later UFO conspiracy theories

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This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2025)

By the 1980s, stories of benevolent Space Brothers had begun to be supplanted by conspiracy theories of malevolent Grays responsible for alien abductions and cattle mutilations.[3] : 97 

References

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  1. ^ a b c Barkun, Michael (15 August 2013). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27682-6.
  2. ^ Gulyas, Aaron John (11 May 2013). Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist: Alien Contact Tales Since the 1950s. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-0168-7.
  3. ^ a b Michael Barkun (4 May 2006). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. University of California Press. pp. 86–. ISBN 978-0-520-24812-0. Archived from the original on 26 June 2014. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
  4. ^ Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained. Ed. Una McGovern. Chambers, 2007. pp. 489–490. ISBN 0-550-10215-9.
  5. ^ While many 19th-century popular discussions imagined evolution as a process leading towards a singled idealized goal, the concept of "most evolved" is not a scientific term.
  6. ^ Allen, Charles (15 November 2023). Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth. Hachette India. ISBN 978-93-5731-266-0.
  7. ^ Clarke, Dave (2007). The Flyingsaucerers: A Social History of UFOlogy. Alternative Albion. p. 28. ISBN 978-1905646005.
  8. ^ Tucker, S. D. (15 June 2017). Space Oddities: Our Strange Attempts to Explain the Universe. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-6263-3.
  9. ^ Flying Saucers Have Landed, p. 170
  10. ^ "Expects Rescue Tonight by Her 'Space Brothers'". The Muskegon Chronicle. 24 December 1954. p. 3.
  11. ^ "Outer Space 'Brothers' Fail Group". Anderson Herald. 26 December 1954. p. 5.
  12. ^ "1956-03-11 Early writers 'advance agents". The Springfield News-Leader. 11 March 1956. p. 30.
  13. ^ "On 'Space Brothers'". Corpus Christi Caller-Times. 29 January 1958. p. 14.
  14. ^ "Space Folk Unflustered by Skeptics". The Kansas City Star. 30 June 1958. p. 1.
  15. ^ "Space Folk Unflustered by Skeptics part 2". The Kansas City Star. 30 June 1958. p. 4.
  16. ^ "British Writer Finds "It Takes All Kinds to Make a Flying Saucer Convention". The Virginian-Pilot. 9 August 1959. p. 31.
  17. ^ "Talk of the Town". The Bangor Daily News. 15 July 1966. p. 5.
  18. ^ Clary, David A. (22 January 2001). Before and After Roswell: The Flying Saucer in America, 1947-1999. Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 978-1-4628-4129-5.
  19. ^ Chavkin, Dan; McGuire, Brian (3 August 2021). Star Trek: Designing the Final Frontier: How Midcentury Modernism Shaped Our View of the Future. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-68188-562-9.
  20. ^ McGilligan, Patrick (January 26, 1996). Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393313789. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved December 22, 2021 – via Google Books.
  21. ^ Hill, Lee (25 July 2019). Easy Rider. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-83871-550-2.
  22. ^ Lewis, James R. (December 1, 2000). "UFOs and Popular Culture: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Mythology". Bloomsbury Publishing USA – via Google Books.
  23. ^ Chude-Sokei, Louis (December 29, 2015). "The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics". Wesleyan University Press – via Google Books.
  24. ^ Weiner, David J.; Gale, Thomson (March 19, 1991). "Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever, 1991". Visible Ink – via Google Books.
  25. ^ Halperin, Shirley; Bloom, Steve (February 4, 2011). "Reefer Movie Madness: The Ultimate Stoner Film Guide". Abrams – via Google Books.

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