Truman Bethurum (August 21, 1898 – May 21, 1969) was one of the well known 1950s UFO or alien "

contactees 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 ...

"- individuals who claimed to have spoken with people from other inhabited planets and entered or ridden in their spacecraft.

Background

Bethurum was born in Gavilin, California, and in the early 1950s worked as a truck driver and a mechanic on a desert road-building crew. He later became a self-proclaimed spiritual advisor.

Claims

In 1953, Bethurum first published magazine and newspaper ( Redondo Beach ''

Daily Breeze The ''Daily Breeze'' is a 57,000-circulation daily newspaper published in Hermosa Beach, California Hermosa Beach (''Hermosa'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Beautiful") is a beachfront city in Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of Calif ...

'', September 25, 1953) accounts of being contacted on eleven separate occasions beginning in July, 1952 by the humanoid crew of a landed space ship near

Mormon Mesa Mormon Mesa is a mesa between the Virgin River and the Muddy River in Clark County, southern Nevada. In the south above the confluence of the Muddy and Virgin Rivers, it rises to a height of 1893 feet (577 meters). It extends northward to the f ...

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 ...

of southern Nevada, and repeatedly conversing with its beautiful and voluptuous female captain, Aura Rhanes. Bethurum claimed the saucer and its crew, who spoke colloquial English, came from "the planet Clarion", which was allegedly on the other side of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

and thus could not be seen from the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. Bethurum's 1954 book, ''Aboard a Flying Saucer'', gave many details of his suffering at the hands of skeptics and wrote a great deal about the purported Captain Rhanes, Clarion and its people.

Responses

Serious UFO researchers and investigators dismissed Bethurum and the other 1950s contactees as

charlatan A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through false pretenses, pretense or deception. Synonyms for ''charlatan ...

s and con-artists. The majority of contactees of this period became (or already were) leaders in new paradigm movements to, in their view, inform and educate people about extraterrestrial intelligent life; in addition to Bethurum, some of the better-known contactees of the 1950s included

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 of ...

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

George Van Tassel George Washington Van Tassel (March 12, 1910 – February 9, 1978) was an American contactee, ufologist and author. Early life Van Tassel was born in Jefferson, Ohio in 1910, and grew up in a fairly prosperous middle-class family. He finished h ...

, Gabriel Green,

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

George King George King may refer to: Politics * George King (Australian politician) (1814–1894), New South Wales and Queensland politician * George King, 3rd Earl of Kingston (1771–1839), Irish nobleman and MP for County Roscommon * George Clift King (184 ...

. Bethurum made it known that the space people had asked him to consider creating a place of learning for those who were interested in considering the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life, with Bethurum as facilitator. The ''Sanctuary of Thought'', a philosophical group, was subsequently created near Prescott, Arizona. Bethurum claimed to possess physical evidence of extraterrestrial existence (which he never produced) such as unique items given to him by Captain Aura Rhanes.

Later writings

Some of Bethurum's later books include ''The Voice of the Planet Clarion'' (1957), ''Facing Reality'' (1958), and ''The People of the Planet Clarion'' (1970), published after his death in

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 1969. The first 44 pages of the posthumous book are an autobiography of Bethurum covering his life up to 1953. Artist

Columba Krebs Annabell Krebs Culverwell (June 13, 1902 – April 9, 1998) was an American painter. She took the name Columba when signing her paintings and writings, probably related to the constellation Columba, which is the focal point of several Egyptian py ...

, who assisted Bethurum in writing three of his books, wrote the afterword. According to Krebs, Bethurum was so obsessed with Captain Rhanes, he hired a secretary who physically resembled his description of the sexy alien.

Divorce

Bethurum's second wife, Mary, divorced him in 1955, citing jealousy over Captain Aura Rhanes in the divorce petition. Bethurum often remarked in his later lectures that his wife divorced him due to jealousy over the beautiful Captain. In 1960, Bethurum remarried a third time, the wedding taking place at George Van Tassel's annual ''

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 ...

Spacecraft Convention'' near Landers.

References

External links

Overview of 1950s Contactees

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bethurum, Truman UFO religions Contactees 1898 births 1969 deaths