Cedric Allingham

Cedric Allingham was a British contactee of the 1950s, whose claims to have encountered the pilot of a Martian spacecraft were published in 1954 as "Flying Saucer from Mars".Allingham, C. "Flying Saucer from Mars", London: Frederick Muller, 1954. An American edition was published in 1955 (New York: British Book Center) as well as a 1969 German translation ("Fliegende Untertasse vom Mars", Wiesbaden: Ventla, 1969) and even a Japanese version (空飛ぶ円盤実見記, "Soratobu enban jikkenki", Tōkyō : Kōbunsha, 1955)]

Later writers have speculated that not only were Allingham's experiences fabricated, but that Allingham himself never existed, being an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a well-known media figure.

'Biography' of Allingham

Allingham's book stated that he had been born in 1922 in Bombay, and educated in England and South Africa. He had taken up amateur astronomy while posted to the Middle East with the RAOC, and subsequently travelled around Britain indulging his hobbies of bird-watching and caravan holidays while making a living as a writer of thrillers.

Allingham made the remarkable claim that on 18 February 1954, while on holiday near Lossiemouth, he had encountered a flying saucer and communicated with its pilot by means of hand gestures and telepathy. The spaceman had indicated that he came from Mars, and that he had also visited Venus and the Moon. As supporting evidence, Allingham took a number of blurry photographs of the saucer and one of its occupant (pictured from the rear). He also claimed that a fisherman named James Duncan had witnessed the event from a nearby hill, providing a signed statement which was reproduced in the book.

Coming soon after the dramatic claims of George Adamski, Allingham's book attracted a fair amount of popular and media attention. TIME devoted a short piece to it early in 1955. Commenting that Allingham's photograph of a Martian looked "very like a crofter with galluses flapping", the writer added:

Members of the flying saucer clubs popular at the time made attempts to interview Allingham, but both he and James Duncan proved remarkably elusive. Allingham was said to have appeared at a lecture in Tunbridge Wells, at which Lord Dowding (former Air Chief Marshal of the RAF during World War II and a prominent UFO believer) stated he was present: "We got Mr. Cedric Allingham [...] to lecture to our local Flying Saucer Club, and we were all strongly impressed that he was telling the truth about his actual experiences, although we felt that he might have been mistaken in some of the conclusions which he drew from his interview".Letter from Lord Dowding to Leonard H. Stringfield, reproduced in [http://www.nicap.org/3-0Blue/InsidesaucerPost3-0Blue.htm CRIFO Summary Report] , Cincinnati, 1957, via NICAP, accessed 21-08-08] The writer Robert Chapman made several attempts to trace Duncan, and to contact Allingham through his publishers, who stated firstly that Allingham was undergoing medical treatment in Switzerland, and then that he had died there. Chapman was only able to confirm that Allingham had given the previously mentioned lecture in Sussex, at which the well-known broadcaster, astronomer and noted UFO skeptic Patrick Moore claimed to have met him.See Moore, P. "Rockets and Earth Satellites", London: Frederick Muller, 1959, p. 123. Note that Moore and Allingham used the same publisher.] Unable to locate either Duncan or Allingham, and therefore suspecting some form of hoax, Chapman regretfully concluded that "if there was no James Duncan and [thus] no visitor from Mars, perhaps there was no Cedric Allingham either".Dewey, S. "In Alien Heat", Anomalist, ISBN 9781933665023, p.54]

A hoax?

Progress on unravelling the mystery came in 1986 as a result of research by Christopher Allan and Steuart Campbell, published in the Fortean journal "Magonia". In "Flying Saucer from Moore's?", they argued that the prose of Allingham's book showed significant similarities to the writing of Patrick Moore.Allen, C. and Campbell, S. "Flying Saucer from Moore's?", "Magonia" v. 23 (July 1986): 15-18] Thanks to further enquiries to Allingham's publisher, they were able to trace a friend of Moore, Peter Davies, who eventually admitted that he had co-written the book with another, unnamed individual. Davies also claimed that the public lecture given by 'Allingham' had in fact been given by himself while wearing a false beard. These and other clues led Allan and Campbell to identify Patrick Moore as the main culprit in a hoax intended to expose the gullibility and uncritical research methods of British ufologists, "Flying Saucer from Mars" being a partial parody of "Flying Saucers Have Landed", the 1953 book by Adamski and Desmond Leslie.

Moore, however, immediately denied being responsible for Allingham's book, and threatened to take legal action against anyone suggesting otherwise. At the time of writing (2008) he has never confirmed his involvement in the affair.

Footnotes

ources

*Clarke, D. and Roberts, A. "Flying Saucerers: a Social History of Ufology", Alternative Albion, 2007, ISBN 978-1905646005
*Clarke, D. and Roberts, A. "Out of the Shadows", Piatkus, 2002, ISBN 978-0749922900
*Dewey, S. "In Alien Heat", Anomalist, ISBN 9781933665023