George Van Tassel

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Cover of Van Tassel's now very rare 1954 book, I RODE A FLYING SAUCER

George Van Tassel (March 12, 1910- February 9, 1978) was an American UFO enthusiast.

A contactee, UFO enthusiast and religious cult leader who in 1958 commenced building --- but perhaps never quite completed --- the Integratron, in the California desert town of Landers. It was supposedly a domed time/energy machine built partially upon the theories of Nikola Tesla. Created to recharge and rejuvenate people’s cells, at the behest of an advanced entity with which Van Tassel communicated telepathically, for a coming “Lord” from outer space, it was however not without its risks, according to Van Tassel's theory. An overcharge could make a person spontaneously combust --- or even explode. Since the Integratron was merely an empty, dome-shaped structure, no measurable effects either positive or negative have ever been reported by visitors who entered.

Van Tassel was born in Jefferson, Ohio and grew up in a fairly prosperous middle-class family. He dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and got a job at a Cleveland airport; he also got a pilot's license. At 20, he headed for California, where at first he worked for a garage owned by an uncle. It was while working at the garage that he met an eccentric loner, Frank Critzer, who claimed to be working a mine somewhere near Giant Rock, a 7-story boulder near Landers, California. Frank Critzer was a German immigrant trying to make a living in the desert as a prospector. During World War II Critzer was under suspicion as a German spy and died during a police siege at the Rock in 1942. Upon receiving news of Critzer's death, Van Tassel started making plans to buy the land around the Rock and eventually to move there.

Van Tassel became an aircraft mechanic and flight inspector who at various times between 1930 and 1947 worked for Douglas Aircraft, Howard Hughes and Lockheed. He finally left Southern California's booming aerospace industry for the desert in 1947. He and his family at first lived a simple existence in the rooms Frank Critzer had dug out under Giant Rock. Van Tassel eventually built a home, a cafe, a small airstrip, and a dude ranch beside the Rock.

George Van Tassel late in life (circa 1970)

Meditating beside the Rock in 1951, Van Tassel claimed to have been transported astrally to a huge alien space ship orbiting the earth, where he met the all-wise "Council of Seven Lights." In 1952 Van Tassel reported he had been been visited in the flesh by human-appearing, friendly space aliens from Venus, who instructed him to build a structure aimed at extending human life, to help people take advantage of the wisdom acquired through age. It was of course the Integratron, and it became his apparent obsession for the next 25 years. The structure actually was finished by 1959, but seemed completely non-functional; Van Tassel tinkered with it fruitlessly for the rest of his life. Van Tassel's now-rare book, I Rode a Flying Saucer, recounts some of the cosmic wisdom he received from "Solgonda" and a large number of other god-like Space Brothers. Like most 1950s contactees, he founded a religious cult --- not one, but two related ones, The Ministry of Universal Wisdom, and The College of Universal Wisdom, to codify the spiritual revelations he was now continually receiving via "psychic resonance" with the Space Brothers.

He also hosted The Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention annually beside the Rock, from 1953 to 1978, that 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, grandly called Giant Rock Airport.

Every famous contactee appeared personally at these conventions over the years, and many more not-so-famous ones. References often state that the first and most famous contactee, George Adamski, pointedly boycotted these conventions. In fact, however, Adamski attended the third convention, held in 1955, where he gave a 35-minute lecture and was interviewed by Edward J. Ruppelt, once head of the Air Force Project Blue Book. It was the one and only such convention Adamski attended; he told Ruppelt he was annoyed both by Van Tassel's semi-comical antics as a channeller, and by his beliefs about Space Brothers. Van Tassel had demonstrated to attendees the so-called adaphone, which allowed him to carry on live conversations with a bewildering variety of Space Brothers--- but the demonstration was basically a wild comedy routine in which Van Tassel spoke in a variety of "strange" voices.

Van Tassel was a classic 1950s contactee in the mold of George Adamski, Truman Bethurum, Orfeo Angelucci and many others. Among his published books are I Rode A Flying Saucer (1952, 1955) and The Council of Seven Lights (1958). He also wrote Into This World and Out Again, Religion and Science Merged, and When Stars Look Down. An offshoot of one of his cults still survives today, in greatly "evolved" and "unauthorized" form, as The Ashtar Command.