Daniel Fry
July 19th, 1908
Many years ago, a week or so before Christmas, I waited on a lettuce crisp Winter morning at a bus stop outside Victoria station, London, on one of what would turn out to be many legs of a return journey from Prague to my simple hovel home in darkest West Wales.
It is one of the glories of European life that one can catch public transport on the threshold of one’s own home and, an indeterminate amount of time and money later, end one’s public transport journey at the foot of the Stein Glacier on the crown of the Susten pass in Sitzerland’’s Bernese Oberland. You had intended to go to Dalston for a conference on dog whistles and a plate of salt and chili Cantonese chips, of course, but now you were here, you might as well enjoy yourself.
A shambling figure in a tight woollen hat approached me for money and, it being the season of good cheer, I rummaged around in my pocket. After all, as it was Christmas, it wasn’t entirely outside the realms of possibility that the bearded man who smelled slightly of metal polish was a manifestation of Christ himself, sent to test my Yuletide largesse. I was not one to turn away this Shambles Christ. There was plenty of room at my Christmas Inn for this unfortunate.
Alas, fresh back from Europe, the only cash I had on me was a crisp, unused 10 Euro note that I had shoved in a pocket ‘should I need it’, despite the fact that neither my destination nor my departure point were countries where the Euro was legal tender. Even so, I was reluctant to hand this over. Even Shambles Christ might have baulked at such generosity, wary of the intentions of this tired looking Christmas Angel. But I could see no way out of the situation. I was not alone at the Bethlehem bus stop and was aware that an audience was regarding this nativity scene with some fascination. Aware that these watchers might simply be reincarnations of the shepherds of yore, or perhaps even the Magi themselves, U saw no other option that to hand over the 10 Euro note.
”What the fuck is this?” asked Shambles Christ, angrily. A divine manifestation of the Lord he may have been, but he still had a recognizable Yorkshire accent.
” It’s a 10 Euro note, mate”, I offered. “If you don’t want it, I’ll have it back’. Suddenly, I could see a resolution to everyone’s problems. Shamble Christ could dispose of the unfamiliar currency, I would get my 10 Euros back and my integrity as champion of the poor at Christmas time would remain unsullied in the watching eyes of the assembled angelic throng. St Peter would still welcome me through the Pearly Gates with open arms.
”Fuck off. Mine now”, replied Shambles Christ, clutching his new found wealth to his bosom. “And my name’s not ‘mate’”, he added, “it’s fucking Alan”. And off he shimmied, into the morning diesel mist of a cold London day.
Perhaps Fucking Alan was his actual name? It’s hard to tell.
”If you’re giving fucking money away, I’ll have some” piped up one of the shepherds, in the form of an otherwise perfectly dressed elderly lady. “He’ll only spend it on crack, you fucking idiot”
”Leave him alone” interjected Balthazar, who was reading the Daily Express whilst perched on what passed for a ‘seat’ at the bus stop, razor thin, cold steel angled acutely to deter Fucking Alan from resting there for more than a few seconds. “It’s his fucking money. He can give it to Fucking Alan if he wants. Besides, he won’t spend it on crack. He does heroin.”
And so, this was my meeting with an ethereal, otherworld Alan. Yet it is far from the only meeting with an extraterrestrial Alan. Seemingly, ‘Alan’ is quite a normal name for spectral otherworldly figures who flit into existence in the peripheral fringes of our vision, interact briefly with us, and then disappear.
One such alien visitor Alan appeared to a man called Daniel Fry on July 4th, 1949 at the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico. Even though Daniel was clearly lying, when he was asked what the mysterious stranger’s name was, Fry replied with the first name that came into his head - ‘Alan’. Instantly recognizing that this didn’t sound particularly alien, like Zeftorc or something, Fry tried to make it sound more exotic by pronouncing it ‘A-laaawn’. Surprisingly, some people believed him.
Daniel Fry was born on July 19th in Verdon Township, Minnesota. Orphaned by the age of 18, he found himself trying to scratch a living in the Depression of the 1930s. Unable to fund a university education, he studied in the evenings at public libraries, eventually finding enough education in chemistry to become an expert on explosives.
In 1934, he married his first wife, Elma, and they had three children. After divorcing Elma in 1964 while residing in Merlin, Oregon, he began a common-law relationship with Bertha. In the mid-1970s, he moved to Tonopah, Arizona, where he married Florence. Before Florence passed away from breast cancer in 1980, they retired to Alamogordo, New Mexico. In 1982, he married Cleona, a local resident.
Fry worked as an explosives supervisor, or “powder man,” during the 1930s and 1940s. He was involved in projects such as the Salinas Dam near San Luis Obispo, California, for the Basic Magnesium Corporation, and the Pan American Highway in Honduras. From 1949 to 1954, Daniel was employed at Aerojet, where he designed, built, and installed transducers for controlling, providing feedback, and measuring rockets during both flight and static tests. Starting in 1954, Fry played a key role in developing the Crescent Engineering & Research Company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise alongside its founder, Edmund Vail Sawyer. He eventually became the Vice President of Research and a stockholder. Crescent specialized in manufacturing rocket-related parts, including transducers, and performed JATO rocket nozzle rework during the war.
In the early 1960s, Fry sold his share in Crescent and relocated to Merlin, Oregon.
But it was the events of July 4th 1949, or July 4th 1950, depending on what period in his life you asked him, that made Daniel famous.
He had planned to join the Independence Day celebrations in Las Cruces, New Mexico but had missed the bus. Unable to sleep, he took a walk in the desert where he encountered a 30ft wide, 16ft high flying saucer piloted remotely by a humanoid alien named Alan, who was operating the craft from a mother-ship, 900 miles above planet Earth. Alan, it turned out, was a friendly chap and rather than death-raying Daniel in the face, he invited him for a quick trip on the spaceship. For the next 30 minutes or so, Alan flew Fry over New York and back and had a lovely chat with him about physics, the origins of the Earth, including Atlantis, and how human civilization was formed.
Presumably Alan was waiting in the middle of the New Mexico desert for just such a fellow to wander by, or perhaps he was waiting for Daniel specifically, which makes one wonder why Alan didn’t just fly straight to New York, seeing as he was going there anyway, and where he would have had his pick of the world’s greatest and most illustrious minds or just hovered over Daniel’s house and knocked on his door. Who are we to second guess the complicated minds of inter-terrestrial Alans?
Daniel claimed he and Alan got on like a flying saucer on fire and this became one of several meetings between the two.
Upon repeating the story to people he met, the first thing they did was give Daniel a polygraph test, which he failed. Daniel blamed this on the polygraph test itself, as everyone who has ever failed one is wont to do. People who pass polygraph tests never blame the test for having passed. If they pass the test, it’s because they were telling the truth, not because of the vagaries of the test itself. Should they fail one, however, it’s not because they’re talking absolute bullshit, it’s because the test is fatally flawed. Weird that.
Undeterred, Fry produced a series of 16mm film and photos of the spacecraft which suffered somewhat on closer inspection by appearing to be in the distinct style of 1950s sci-fi era spaceship - think Flash Gordon - as if aliens, too, followed Earth’s peculiar stylistic nuances. That they also appeared to be spinning models swinging backwards and forwards on a wire didn’t help, as did the apparent appearance of a white fishing pole in one shot that appeared to be holding one of the models in suspension.
Another shot, provided later by Bertha, clearly shows the wire holding up the ‘UFO’ and another from which it is suspended.
At one point, Fry is visited by another UFO, this one cunningly disguised as the top of a Dietz Air Pilot #8 kerosene lantern.
Thos crafty Alien Alans.
Fry, perhaps sensing his moment, became an ‘expert’ on matters alien and for the rest of his life gave talks and held seminars on alien visitations and his experiences in the desert. He claimed to have received a doctorate in the noble, yet entirely fabricated nonsense of ‘cosmism’, which turned out to be a certificate he had bought from a diploma mill called ‘St Andrew College’.
He published a book, The White Sands Incident and founded an organization called ‘Understanding Inc’ who’s aim was 'bringing about a greater degree of understanding among all the peoples of the earth and preparing them for their eventual inevitable meetings with other races in space.’
Building on Alan’s ideas, Understanding Inc. aimed to disseminate alternative social and spiritual concepts through speeches, meetings, and a newsletter. First published in 1956, the newsletter was typically 20 pages long, released monthly, and ran for over 240 issues until October 1979.
Understanding Inc. reached its zenith in the early 1960s with around 1,500 paid members and approximately 60 “Units” across America. In 1974, during its decline, Understanding was gifted 55 acres of land, including eight buildings near Tonopah, Arizona, by Enid Smith. Originally intended as a religious college, the buildings were uniquely round and saucer-shaped. By 1976, Understanding Inc. had fully taken over the property. However, due to Daniel’s financial constraints during retirement and dwindling membership, the property fell into disrepair. In late September and early October 1978, an arsonist burned down the kitchen and library, which were never rebuilt.
Some considered Understanding Inc. a cult, but Fry refuted this in a 1969 Daily Courier article, stating: “The group is not mystic, and is not a flying saucer watching organization, although some members hold definite beliefs and interests in both areas. Understanding Inc., a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation, operates on the principle that there is nothing members are required to believe, accept, or do.”
In the early 1970s, Professor Robert S. Ellwood of the University of Southern California studied various new and unconventional religious and spiritual groups in the U.S. During his research, he attended a meeting in Inglewood, California, held by Understanding Inc. members and observed, “There is no particular religious practice connected with the meeting, although the New Age Prayer derived from the Alice Bailey writings is used as an invocation.”
From 1954 onward, with minimal reimbursement, Fry delivered thousands of lectures to organizations such as service clubs, radio, and television stations. He also authored several books, including Atoms, Galaxies and Understanding, To Men of Earth, Steps to the Stars, Curve of Development, Can God Fill Teeth?, and Verse and Worse. Along with other contactees, he attended the annual Spacecraft Convention at Giant Rock in Yucca Valley, California, for the next twenty years, hosted by his friend and fellow contactee, George Van Tassel.
Daniel Fry, and presumably Alan, died on 20th December 1992, aged 84, having done the world no particular harm and, weirdly for a friend of an alien race, no particular good either.
A legacy that, perhaps, goes to settle somewhat the argument about whether or not he was making it all up.
Because if he wasn’t making it all up, then Alan appeared to have completely wasted his time and, presumably, an extraordinary amount of intergalactic effort.
He could have just death-rayed New York a bit instead.