50 YEARS OF ALIEN ABDUCTIONS

David Jefferis on close encounters:

On the night of September 19-20, 1961, the US couple Betty and Barney Hill reckoned they experienced a close encounter with a UFO. During the incident they ‘lost’ two hours, but survived intact, to file a report to US Air Force investigators the very next day. They claimed to have seen a silent, cigar-shaped craft, crewed by up to 11 humanoid aliens.

The Hill Incident

There was no hard proof for their story, but the Hills insisted it was true, and that they had been kidnapped for a short time by the UFO. The event became the first widely-publicized claim of an alien abduction, and was later published as the best-selling 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and the 1975 TV movie The UFO Incident.

Well, the Hill Incident took place half a century ago, and assorted UFO stories have rarely been out of the media since, or indeed, from toy and model company brochures. So what’s available right now?

Atlantis UFO invader from outer space

This 1:48 scale model is a retro-delight, and should be in the collection of any sci-fi fan. Neatly moulded, with a 159 mm (6.25 in) circular fuselage, the UFO is equipped with a pair of propulsors and a clear central canopy, inside which an alien pilot sits. 

The ET pilot is moulded in luminous plastic, so if you want a glow-in-the-dark creature, you have it. If not, then paint his skin green (or any shade you fancy) for a more realistic effect.

Area 51 UFO from Pegasus

Pegasus Hobbies produces the nifty UFO above to 1:72 scale. It's based on a design described in various accounts and sightings in and around the notorious ‘Area 51’ military base in Nevada. The Pegasus Area 51 UFO is 210 mm (8.25 in) in diameter, and comes complete with landing gear and open hatch panels, plus a set of closed hatches if you want to complete it as an in-flight machine. Clear diffused green lenses are supplied, which would make internal LED lighting an attractive option.

Busch picture shows a cute mottled auto-camouflaging UFO, plus assorted occupants.

Busch diorama

This German company supplies hundreds of model rail accessories, but the Busch UFO diorama makes a change from the more run-of-the-mill offerings. The nominally 1:87 scale UFO Flying Saucer kit features assorted lights and flashing effects, plus a quartet of ETs (‘extraterrestrians’ in Busch-speak) and one robot. The kit can be assembled in two modes - standing on extended landing gear, or taking off on what Busch calls an ‘energetic beam’, actually a slim plastic rod. 

Parts layout for the Busch UFO.

Supplied lighting components

The kit comes with a set of coloured LED bulbs and pre-assembled electronic controls. Excellent stuff, and all complete except for the required 14-16 volt power unit, which you need to supply yourself. When assembled, the Busch UFO is 152 mm (6 in) across, and measures some 76 mm (3 in) high when settled on its landing legs. While it is notionally to 1:87 scale, you can change that at will, depending how you feel. Ah... the freedom that pure fiction delivers!

Read about Betty and Barney Hill here.

Visit Busch here.

Visit the Atlantis Model Company here.

Visit Pegasus Hobbies here.

TAMIYA US ARMY STAFF CAR VISITS A CRASHED UFO

Mat Irvine inspects:

Although worldwide, model cars are dominated by the joint 1:24/25 scale, other scales find favour with various types of modelmaking. ‘Scale’ is an all-encompassing subject that could fill many an SMN slot, but one area that has grown in recent years is military AFVs to 1:48 scale. Yes, the main AFV scale is certainly 1:35, but it doesn’t match with much else, whereas 1:48 is one of the model aircraft standards, making mixing subject matter - especially dioramas - very straightforward. 

Kits to a smaller scale

Tamiya began the mixed-subject idea by reducing many of its AFVs from 1:35 to 1:48. Then some soft-skinned vehicles were released in the smaller scale, an interesting development as many of them could also be put to civilian use - and this applies to the 1:48 scale Tamiya US Army Staff Car, a militarized version of the 1942 Ford Super Deluxe Fordor sedan. 

Wartime production

In February 1942, Ford stopped its civilian car and truck production, to become fully occupied with war work, such as building the B-24 Liberator bomber. In de-chromed military guise, the Fordor Sedan was produced as a transport and liaison Staff Car for the rest of World War II, until production finally stopped in Summer 1945.

What’s in the box?

The Tamiya kit has just over 30 parts, a few more if you add the supplied military driver figure. A small decal sheet has numbers and white military star detail. A nice touch is Tamiya’s trademark item, a hefty diecast metal chassis ‘to give a bit of weight’, with plastic components moulded in light grey and clear. If you build the military version, virtually all the bodywork should be painted olive-drab, or as in the crashed UFO diorama I have pictured, it can also be finished in air force blue. 

Size and presentation

When assembled, the Staff Car measures 101 mm (3.98 in) long, a size which shows off the rounded lines of the original well. Presentation is to the usual high Tamiya standard, with separately bagged components, detailed instructions, and ultra-precise detail work in the moulds. 

The Roswell UFO

I have pictured this as a 1947 scene, with the Staff Car attending the supposed place where an ‘alien craft’ landed in New Mexico; it's well known in UFO circles as the infamous Roswell Incident. Here the crashed UFO is the Testor resin kit that comes complete with figures, and the Army jeep is from the ‘new Frog’ company, Amaquest. The display is part of my touring exhibition, ‘One Small Step’. 

The car in Civvie Street

If you decide to build a civilian car - which the kit allows for - more details can be added. The main one is to add chrome which can be applied using BareMetal Foil, as with larger-scale kits. The job is certainly a bit trickier in this smaller scale, but if you do it right, the results are well worth the effort.

Ready-built alternative

Note that Tamiya also supplies the Staff Car in ready-built form, complete with subtle weathering, and supplied in a minimalist white cube of a box. If you want the car, rather than the effort of building it, this is a quick way to have a diorama accessory for zero effort.

US Army Staff Car is available here.

Kit supplied by Tamiya’s UK importer and distributor, The Hobby Company

IS IT A UFO? NO, IT’S A FANTASTIC FLYING DISC!

Mat Irvine reports
Aeronautical designers have a history of fascination with aircraft that are round - in the ‘flying saucer’ sense. There have been dozens of designs over the years, though the vast majority have been impractical, were ‘paper projects’, or would likely never have flown even if a prototype had been built.

Flying Discs
However, flying saucer planes remain fascinating, and specialist model producer Allen Ury, who runs Fantastic Plastic, has slaked his enthusiasm for these bizarre designs with a kit of the US Air Force ‘40 foot Flying Disc’, a design that was supposedly proposed in the 1960s. As Allen says on his website: “In 1967, former US Navy aviator and aviation writer Jack D. Pickett and his business partner Harold Baker visited MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, to gather information for an Air Force-sponsored article on historical experimental aircraft.  At the edge of the base, they were shown four decommissioned X-planes - all of them flying discs - measuring 20, 40, 70 and 116 feet in diameter”.

Skyrocket or Flying Disc?
Whether Pickett and Baker actually saw such discs is open to speculation - certainly no official photos were ever released, and images of many other ‘black designs’ have become unclassified and made public over the years. And the two parked on the tarmac (top picture above) are neat cheats by artist Gino Marcomini, who has replaced the original B-29 Superfortress and Douglas Skyrocket with a pair of Discs, large and small. Pity the pic isn’t for real though - don’t those Discs look just great!

Fantastic Plastic Flying Disc kit
Real or not, the 40-foot (12.1 m) Flying Disc is a great kit subject that sits well with other offerings in Fantastic Plastic’s wide range of exotica. Like many kits from this stable, the 1:72 scale Flying Disc is mostly resin, with a clear vac-form for the canopy, and a set of decals. It’s a simple kit, with just 16 parts, though there are some aspects to consider when building it. Most importantly, resin tends to warp, so it’s important to clamp upper and lower halves of the airframe firmly together. As you can see from the picture, I didn’t spare the clamps and pegs to ensure all went well! Other than that, the Flying Disc went together well, and is supplied with a conventional tricycle undercarriage. This works perfectly well, though reports indicate that the ‘real’ thing might have had as many as six legs in a circle. But who knows which is correct so no worries there. An ejector seat is supplied to fit under that extremely clear canopy, but you will have to provide your own USAF pilot.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1, 2  Gino Marcomini’s splendid retouch job (blue) with the official shot of the same scene at Edwards Air Force Base below.
3  Fantastic Plastic kit box.
4  Parts laid out before assembly.
5  Pegs ensured the disc halves mated properly.
6  The finished model.

Incidentally, Gino Marcomini is a talented artist, who produces many aerospace images. Have a look at his work on the alternate-history Luftwaffe 1946 site here:

Visit Fantastic Plastic here.

ATLANTIS MODELS - A NEW MODEL NAME FROM MEGAHOBBY

Report by Mat Irvine
It’s a brave person who starts a new model company these days - but that’s what not one, but two guys in Long Island, New York, have done, namely Pete Vetri and Rick DelFavero.

Pete and Rick run Megahobby, a mail-order company that supplies a wide range of model materials. But now they have decided to look at relaunching many out-of-production kits, especially those from Lindberg and Aurora, and to create the new company name Atlantis for marketing the kits.

Aurora returns
Rick and Pete have also employed the talents of long-time model maker and kit historian, Andy Yanchus of Brooklyn, NY, who was for many years Project Manager at Aurora. Andy has been helping Rick and Pete out, not only with background information, but also in building box-top models and designing the artwork. To date, Atlantis has issued three kits - two UFOs first issued by the small company Light Force, and the old Lindberg Flying Saucer.

Flying Saucer
Although (relatively) recently reissued by Glencoe Models, the 1:48 scale Lindberg Flying Saucer has a particular niche in the space model market, as it is almost certainly the first ‘all-plastic space kit’, first issued in 1954.

The TR-3E Triangular UFO is a 1:72 scale scale kit, with box art designed by Andy Yanchus.

Visit Megahobby here.

Visit Atlantis Models here.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1  Mat Irvine’s photo taken recently at Megahobby’s warehouse in Long Island. Shown (left to right) are Rick DelFavero, Pete Vetri and Andy Yanchus.
2-3  The Atlantis release of the original Lindberg UFO/Flying Saucer. Note the main artwork is a reproduction of the original Lindberg from 1954, while the back of the box shows the built-up model by Andy Yanchus.
4  TR-3E Triangular UFO box, with artwork designed by Andy Yanchus.
5  Hopefully, a future Atlantis kit - but more down to earth this time - could feature the old Aurora ‘Black Bear and Cubs’.
UFO pictures courtesy Megahobby and Atlantis Models. 

  

UFO INVASION GROUP HEADING TO PLANET EARTH?

Now that summer’s nearly here, the UFO spotting season is well underway. And with news that massed groups of mystery lights were spotted over England and Europe this week, perhaps it’s time to wonder again at what goes on at Area 51, in Nevada.

Pegasus Hobbies' nice 1:72 kit envisages one possible answer - maybe the recent UFOs were squadrons of circular flying craft that were built here on terra firma, purportedly reverse-engineered from a mystery UFO that crashed many years ago. One mechanical engineer even claimed to have work on a ‘flying disc simulator’, communicating with an alien being called J-Rod.

Ah well, here at SMN Towers, we’ll just have to stick with the Pegasus kit here.

The London Daily Mail has a good feature on these recent events here.

Book review: Scale Spacecraft Modelling

This chunky paperback provides you with 208 colour pages, packed with useful information. It's the second Mat Irvine model book I've reviewed recently, and it maintains the fascination factor, this time for space modellers.

Mat provides a comment or a picture on just about everything to do with the subject, from the early days of spaceflight up to the present, and (most interesting for me) space-dreams and science-fiction sections, which cover all sorts of subjects from a Doctor Who Dalek to an Area 51 Roswell UFO.

Highly recommended for handy hints and ideas. Published by Crowood at £16.99 GBP or $29.95 USD, and the Amazon store may well offer a deal price on this.