Reinhold O. Schmidt
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Reinhold Schmidt (1897–1974) was a 1957 UFO "contactee" in an era that began with George Adamski in 1953. He was born and grew up in Nebraska, where he worked for most of his adult life as a reputable grain buyer and dealer. He became a contactee after telling of his experience on November 5, 1957 detailed in his book Edge of Tomorrow, when while driving through a rural area near Kearney, Nebraska, he noticed a large, blimp-shaped object on the ground in a field. He was soon escorted inside the space ship, which turned out to be crewed by completely human-looking space aliens, four male and two female, who apparently spoke "high German."[1] The group claimed to be from the planet Saturn. "The Saturnians" also claimed to be interested in the recently launched Russian sputniks, and the satellite-launching plans of the US.
Later Schmidt brought local police to view the "landing site," where they found deep imprints and some "mysterious green residue." Like George Adamski and others, Schmidt also claims subsequent visits to the extraterrestrial space ship and many friendly conversations with its learned crew. Schmidt noticed they drank MJB (coffee), and also carried in their cigar-shaped craft an ordinary terrestrial MG sports car, which they used for running errands and buying groceries. (A schematic drawing of the ship's interior in Schmidt's later booklet depicts a Volkswagen Beetle, not an MG sports car.) Unlike most space ships the Saturnian ship had large propellers at both ends. Eventually Schmidt got the ride up to earth orbit, and tour of the mother ship, that almost all 1950s contactees report.
Schmidt had joined up with Wayne Sulo Aho and John Otto on their lecture circuit across the US, within two months of his reported "first contact." Unlike the majority of contactees, Schmidt did not seem interested in forming a religious cult, although the Saturnians had the usual Space-Brotherly religious message and revealed that they had been around to help Jesus, a Venusian, in his mission to earth.
In 1963, before his legal troubles began, he self-published a booklet, My Contact With the Spacepeople. He also promoted the making of a short, low-budget film which dramatizes his supposed visits to the Saturnian space ship. The film, Edge of Tomorrow, was produced and directed by Ron and June Ormond, and premiered on May 28, 1961 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.[2] The film begins with Schmidt being interviewed by an actor resembling Long John Nebel. In flashback we see his visit to the space ship and his chats with the Saturnians, including the ship's captain, "Mr. X," and two space girls dressed much like Carol and Tonga of Space Patrol. Schmidt's booklet was retitled Edge of Tomorrow to match the film, illustrated with stills from the film, and was clearly intended to be sold to audience members before or after showings of the film. The booklet is still in print. According to the booklet, while in the space cigar Schmidt had looked at some notebooks which contained prophecies for our earth covering the period 1958 to 1998, "the end of the present Earth Cycle." No details are given and Schmidt did not launch a new career as prophet. Schmidt had clearly also just been reading George Hunt Williamson's Secret Places of the Lion (1958), because he recounts how "Mr. X" once took him to the Great Pyramid, and to a secret underground chamber where he got a look at the small flying saucer Jesus had used to come to Earth from his native Venus 2000 years ago and later used to return to Venus. "Mr. X" himself had brought the saucer back to store in the Pyramid.
Schmidt relocated to Bakersfield, California, where he continued to present lectures for the next few years, recounting his other-worldly experiences and later sought out elderly women who had been in his audiences and whose addresses he had obtained. He went on trial in late 1961 for grand theft, charged with tricking several elderly women out of over $30,000 by claiming that flying saucers had directed him to a mine full of "free energy crystals"; he was convicted on October 26, 1961.[3] Following his release from prison, he returned to Nebraska, where he died in 1974.[4]
References
- ^ Clark, Jerome. The UFO Encyclopedia (3rd ed.). Griswold, MI: Omnigraphics, 2018, pages 1038-1039. ISBN 978-0-7808-16596
- ^ Clark, 1039. ISBN 978-0-7808-16596
- ^ Clark, 1039. ISBN 978-0-7808-16596
- ^ Clark, 1039. ISBN 978-0-7808-16596
- Lewis, James R., editor. UFOs and Popular Culture, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2000. ISBN 1-57607-265-7
- Schmidt, Reinhold O. The Edge of Tomorrow, self-published, c. 1964. ISBN 0-938294-94-6
External links
- The Saucers That Time Forgot: The Trial of a UFO Gold Digger, a detailed account of the Reinhold O. Schmidt saucer story, including his crimes, trial, conviction, and post-prison life.
- A page uncritically recounting Schmidt's contactee tales; contains the complete text of his original booklet
- Overview of 1950s contactees; Schmidt is not mentioned in detail
