Venusian Scoutcraft

UFOlogist George Adamski claimed that a Venusian scoutcraft visited him twice in 1952. On the second visit it flew low enough over his Southern California home in Palomar Gardens to allow to photograph it. He said he took these pictures with a Kodak Brownie box camera attached to a six-inch telescope. Adamski went on to write a number of books describing his contacts with aliens and attracted a large following. In 1959 he was even granted an audience with Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.

But not even diehard UFO believers take Adamski's UFOtographs seriously anymore. Skeptics note that the UFO looks like the top of a soft-drink cooler or a lamp shade, and there appear to be ping pong balls glued to the bottom of it. Jerrold Baker, one of Adamski's colleagues, later claimed to have seen the model used to fake these Venusian Scoutcraft photos.