George Washington Van Tassel (March 12, 1910 – February 9, 1978) was an American

contactee Contactees are persons who claim to have experienced contact with extraterrestrials. Some claimed ongoing encounters, while others claimed to have had as few as a single encounter. Evidence is anecdotal in all cases. As a cultural phenomenon, c ...

ufologist Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and ...

and author.

Early life

Van Tassel was born in

Jefferson Jefferson may refer to: Names * Jefferson (surname) * Jefferson (given name) People * Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), third president of the United States * Jefferson (footballer, born 1970), full name Jefferson Tomaz de Souza, Brazilian foo ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

in 1910, and grew up in a fairly prosperous middle-class family. He finished high school in the 10th grade and held a job at a small municipal airport near

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

; he also acquired a

private pilot license A private pilot licence (PPL) or, in the United States, a private pilot certificate, is a type of pilot licence that allows the holder to act as pilot in command of an aircraft privately (not for remuneration). The licence requirements are dete ...

. At age 20, he moved to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, where at first he worked as an automobile mechanic at a garage owned by an uncle. While pumping gas at the garage, he met Frank Critzer, an eccentric loner who claimed to be working a mine somewhere near

Giant Rock Giant Rock is a large freestanding boulder in the Mojave Desert near Landers, California, and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms (location ). The boulder covers {{convert, 5800, sqft, m2 of ground and is seven stories hig ...

, a 7-story boulder near

Landers, California Landers is an unincorporated community in the High Desert region of the Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, Southern California. Landers' population, as of 2017, is 2,982 people. Its residents are sometimes referred to as "Landroids"—an ...

in the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

. Frank Critzer was claimed by others to be a German immigrant During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, however, he was born in the US. Critzer was under suspicion as a German spy and killed himself by a dynamite explosion during a police siege at the Rock in 1942. Upon receiving news of Critzer's death, Van Tassel applied for a lease of the small abandoned airport near Giant Rock from the Bureau of Land Management, and was eventually given a Federal Government contract to develop and maintain the airstrip. Van Tassel became an aircraft mechanic and flight inspector who at various times between 1930 and 1947 worked for

Douglas Aircraft The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting p ...

, and Lockheed. While at Hughes Aircraft he was their Top Flight Inspector. In 1947, Van Tassel left

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

's booming

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...

industry to live in the desert with his family. At first, he lived a simple existence in the rooms Frank Critzer had dug out under Giant Rock. Van Tassel eventually built a new home, a café, a gas station, a store, a small airstrip, and a

guest ranch A guest ranch, also known as a dude ranch, is a type of ranch oriented towards visitors or tourism. It is considered a form of agritourism. History Guest ranches arose in response to the romanticization of the American West that began to occur ...

beside the Rock.

Integratron

George Van Tassel started hosting group

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally cal ...

in 1953 in a room underneath Giant Rock, excavated by Frank Critzer. That year, according to Van Tassel the occupant of a space ship from the planet Venus woke him up, invited him on board his space ship, and both verbally and telepathically gave him a technique for rejuvenating the human body. In 1954, Van Tassel and others began building what they called the "Integratron" to perform the

rejuvenation Rejuvenation is a medical discipline focused on the practical reversal of the aging process. Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes in order to slow ...

. According to Van Tassel, the Integratron was to be a structure for scientific research into time, anti-gravity and at extending human life, built partially upon the research of

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
''

Georges Lakhovsky Georges Lakhovsky (born Georgei Lakhovsky; russian: Георгий Лаховский; 17 September 1869 – 31 August 1942) was a Russian-French engineer, author, and inventor. Life Lakhovsky's controversial medical treatment invention, the ...

. Van Tassel described the Integratron as being created for scientific and spiritual research with the aim to recharge and rejuvenate people's cells, "a time machine for basic research on rejuvenation, anti-gravity and time travel". The domed wood structure has a rotating metal apparatus on the outside he called an "electrostatic dirod". Van Tassel claimed it was made of non-

ferromagnetic Ferromagnetism is a property of certain materials (such as iron) which results in a large observed magnetic permeability, and in many cases a large magnetic coercivity allowing the material to form a permanent magnet. Ferromagnetic materials ...

materials: wood, concrete, glass, and fibreglass, lacking even metal screws or nails. The Integratron was never fully completed due to Van Tassel's sudden death a few weeks before the official opening. In recent times some people who visit the unfinished Integratron claim to be rejuvenated by staying there, and experiencing "sound baths" inside.

Conventions and organizations

Van Tassel was a classic 1950s

in the mold of

George Adamski George Adamski (17 April 1891 – 23 April 1965) was a Polish-American author who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he displayed numerous photographs in the 1940s and 1950s that he said were o ...

Truman Bethurum Truman Bethurum (August 21, 1898 – May 21, 1969) was one of the well known 1950s UFO or alien "contactees"- individuals who claimed to have spoken with people from other inhabited planets and entered or ridden in their spacecraft. Background B ...

Daniel Fry Daniel William Fry (July 19, 1908 – December 20, 1992) was an American contactee who claimed he had multiple contacts with an alien and took a ride in a remotely piloted alien spacecraft on July 4, 1949. He was born in Verdon Township, Minneso ...

Orfeo Angelucci Orfeo Matthew Angelucci (''Orville Angelucci'') (June 25, 1912 – July 24, 1993) was an American author, lecturer, and so-called contactee - known for his claims that he had experiences with extraterrestrial beings. He lectured extensively on th ...

and many others. He hosted "The Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention" annually beside the Rock, from 1953 to 1978, which attracted at its peak in 1959 as many as 10,000 attendees. Guests trekked to the desert by car or landed airplanes on Van Tassel's small airstrip, called Giant Rock Airport. Over the years, every famous contactee of the period appeared personally at these conventions, and many more not-so-famous ones. References often state that the first and most famous contactee, George Adamski, pointedly boycotted these conventions; however, Adamski did, in fact attend the third convention, held in 1955, where he gave a 35-minute lecture and was interviewed by

Edward J. Ruppelt Edward James Ruppelt (July 17, 1923 – September 15, 1960) was a United States Air Force officer probably best known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). He is generally ...

, once head of the Air Force ''

Project Blue Book Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, O ...

''. It was apparently the only such convention Adamski ever attended. Van Tassel founded a metaphysics research organization called The Ministry of Universal Wisdom, and The College of Universal Wisdom to codify the spiritual revelations he was now regularly receiving via communications with the people from Space.

Death

George Van Tassel died in Santa Ana while printing a publication and visiting friends.

Publications

Van Tassel's book, ''I Rode A Flying Saucer'' (1952, 1955), recounts his claims of receiving "cosmic wisdom" from "Solgonda" and a large number of other people from space. Among his other works are ''Into This World and Out Again'' (1956), ''The Council of Seven Lights'' (1958), ''Religion and Science Merged'', and ''When Stars Look Down''.

References

Sources

* Lewis, James R., editor, ''UFOs and Popular Culture'', Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2000. . * Ronald D. Story, editor, ''The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters'', NY, NY:

New American Library The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publishe ...

, 2001. .

External links

"A Brief History of Giant Rock Covering the Last 90 Years (1887–1977)"
, integratron.com; accessed 2 July 2017.

ufoevidence.org; accessed 2 July 2017. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Tassel, George 1910 births 1978 deaths 20th-century American writers 20th-century apocalypticists American UFO writers Writers from California Channellers Contactees History of the Mojave Desert region People from Jefferson, Ohio People from San Bernardino County, California Ufologists UFO religions