Saucers and Aliens in a Small Kansas Town
- Jim Gray
- Apr 19, 2024
- 6 min read
By Jim Gray
There is something strange going on in a little town smack dab in the middle of Kansas. Mind you, the unusual activity hinges on a little-known collection that the town had kept secret for over forty years.Mind you, the unusual activity hinges on a little-known collection that the town had kept secret for over forty years.
Like so many small towns across rural America Geneseo, Kansas (Pop. 200) is crumbling from economic decline. Downtown business is all but gone. Consolidation had robbed the town of its schools, people moved away, and businesses failed. Today little remains to build toward the future. But Geneseo had that secret…
If anything could draw attention to the fading little town on the Kansas plains it was the collection no one wanted to talk about. It all began with Dr. E. D. Janzen, a man with a passion for learning. He had graduated from the Moody Bible Institute, learned brail and ventriloquism, and obtained degrees in Chiropractic, Naturopathy, Swedish massage, and auctioneering. Janzen loved his hometown and took up to the task of chronicling it’s history. He collected thousands of photographs from local family albums and turned them into slides for programs at churches, clubs, and schools.
He never married, but lived with his parents in a two-story home on Silver Avenue. When they passed away the home was opened to the public. Photographs lined the walls interspersed with hundreds of artifacts. But it was his passion for one special collection that branded Doc Janzen as a crackpot.
Doc and a friend with the same peculiar interest studied, traveled, and collected the stories of men who had made “contact” with aliens from outer space! John W. Dean had an encyclopedic knowledge of the strange spacecraft and the “space brothers” who navigated them about the solar system and beyond. Dean claimed that spacemen had urged him to compile his second book “Flying Saucers Close Up”, supplied the information and approved the final work.
Buck Nelson of Mountain View, Missouri, was central to Janzen and Dean’s connections to the flying saucer craze of the 1950s through the mid-1970s. Nelson’s spacecraft conventions drew flying saucer enthusiasts from across the country. Buck was a national celebrity from the late 1950s into the early 60s. Nelson claimed to have been taken into space by the “space brothers.” They even welcomed his faithful dog Teddy aboard their “disk-like” ship powered by “magnetic force.” Nelson wrote and spoke often of his travels to “The Moon, Mars, and Venus.”
Another contactee chronicled by Janzen was Chief Frank Buckshot Standing Horse of Sapulpa, Oklahoma. A ship landed at the Indian Church Camp operated by Chief Standing Horse. Invited to travel to the same celestial spheres as Buck Nelson Saturn, Jupiter, and the unknown planets of Oreon and Clarion were included in the itinerary.
There was Prince Neosom and Princess Negonna from the planet Tythan, and perhaps the most famous and illusive of all space brothers, Valiant Thor, a man from Venus is documented to have had an office in the Pentagon, where our military leaders were said to have been under advisement.
James Hill of Seymour, Missouri, having no phone, often communicated with Buck Nelson by telepathy. With Queeny, a dog from Venus at his side, Hill attended Nelson’s space craft conventions to speak of the Solar Tribunal. Tribunal operations were conducted from one of Saturn’s moons. Queeny and another by the name of King were always a hit at the conventions especially with Doc Janzen whose love for dogs was well-known. Janzen collected hair from the Venusian dogs still on display today at the Geneseo City Museum.
What could be done to tell the world of Doc’s collection of memorabilia? The nearly forgotten UFO culture procured in an uncertain era of atomic bombs and rumors of secretive government knowledge of flying saucers was languishing on the walls and shelves of this little-known collection in small town Kansas.
It was decided to celebrate World UFO Day on July 2, 2022. Quite unexpectedly, within a few days of that decision, the image of a compass was found etched in the concrete gutter bordering the museum grounds. It had been there all along, hidden by the silt that naturally collects along the streets. The curb and gutter was poured before Doc Janzen lived on the place estimated to have originated in the late 1940’s.
But this was no ordinary compass. The vector, or pointer, was decorated with a clearly perceptible flying saucer pointing southwest toward the back of the museum. Even more incredible a direct line from the flying saucer vector for an exact distance of five hundred miles links the compass with Roswell, New Mexico! The Roswell Compass has baffled investigation beyond words. Who or what fashioned the mysterious figure in the concrete and what can it mean?
During the 2022 World UFO Day celebration Cathy Holmes, President of the Geneseo City Council, read a proclamation declaring Geneseo, Kansas, the UFO Capital of Kansas. The Roswell Compass was unveiled to the public and visitors found an inviting atmosphere for those who wonder what lies beyond our own atmosphere.As World UFO Day is always July 2, the event has become Kansas UFO Day in order to keep it on a Saturday. Kansas UFO Day has grown significantly entertaining folks from far and wide. Those who find the acknowledgement of saucers and aliens encouraging and even enjoyable have discovered a home in this place the town has come to call “Dimension G.”
With a nod to Buck Nelson and his Spacecraft convention an out-of-doors speakers’ stand is central to museum grounds surrounded by vendors. A steady line of visitors visit the exhibits within the Geneseo City Museum during the day’s events. Surprisingly a significant number of Geneseo citizens, giving the “space brothers” their due, have joined the celebration, decorating their yards, parading in costume, dancing in the streets, and taking in a movie under the stars. Late at night how could anyone resist watching the night sky for strange objects moving overhead!
The 2022 movie under the stars was the 1951 production of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The iconic images of Gort and Klaatu coming to planet Earth have forged a place in the popular culture of alien contact.
Those legendary images are coming to Dimension G when Geneseo celebrates Kansas UFO Day, July 6, 2024. Gort at a full height of eight feet is accompanied by Klaatu standing on the grounds of the Geneseo City Museum overlooking the mysterious Roswell Compass.
With a 40% contribution from the Tourism Division of the Kansas Department of Commerce the museum directors have moved forward on faith that the science fiction community will find our pluck worthy of support to bring Gort & Klaatu to the UFO Capital of Kansas. Financial support from individuals of his community are not only welcome but vital.
The presence of Gort and Klaatu in a little town in the middle of Kansas, the very epicenter of the United States, represents much more than the manifestation of characters from a UFO cult classic. Gort & Klaatu hold the very real prospect of reviving Geneseo from the ashes of its own demise. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, the death of Klaatu (Michael Rennie) at the hands of a trigger-happy soldier activated Gort to attack the aggressor in fulfillment of his responsibility to protect the Federation of Planets. The implication was that Earth was about to be reduced to a burned-out cinder. But, Klaatu had prepared the heroine, Helen Benson (Patricia Neal), to intreat the planetary protector with secret codewords. “Gort, Klaatu, barada nikto.” Gort’s destructive vengeance upon the human population is cut short. Klaatu is brought back to life in time to address the world’s leading scientists. Klaatu leaves them with a final warning. “Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”
Klaatu and Gort’s return to earth by way of the Geneseo City Museum brings new light on the meaning of “Klaatu barada nikto.” The underlying message to Gort in 1951 was to stand down from the ultimate destruction of humanity. “Save Planet Earth!” From a small town in the middle of the country the call has been proclaimed, “Save Planet Earth!”
“Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”
Words to live by.
The 2024 Saucers and Aliens Festival will be held July 6 in Geneseo, Kansas at the Geneseo City Museum.
Geneseo City Museum contacts:
FaceBook @ Geneseo City Museum
Website: geneseomuseum.com
Email: kansascowboy@kans.com
Phone: 785-531-2058
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