Prominent American fascist leader.
Hollywood screenwriter in 1917-29. Wrote films such as The Light in the Dark and The Shock (both starring Lon Chaney).
Christian Party candidate for President of the United States in 1936. He ran on the slogan For Christ and the Constitution”and his platform involved a segregated Jewish state in America. During his campaign, he announced: “The time has come for an American Hitler.”
Founder of the Silver Shirts, an American Nazi Party party which started around 1932. The membership of the Silver Shirts overlapped a great deal with
with the I AM movement of <a href=/oma/ballard-guy”>Guy Ballard
According to law professor Geoffery Stone:
Once World War II broke out, and it became politically untenable to publicly support Hitler and the Nazis, Pelley disbanded the Silver Legion. He remained, however, a staunch critic of the Roosevelt administration. In 1942 he wrote, in his new journal, The Galilean, that the president had lied to the country about the extent of the damage to the Pacific fleet after Pearl Harbor. Pelley argued that instead of leaving our fleet intact, as the president claimed, the Japanese had completely destroyed our Pacific naval forces. Although he was correct about the cover-up and the extent of the damage, the government indicted him under the Sedition Act of 1917. Despite the pleas of Lindberg Charles, who testified at his trial, Pelley was found guilty of eleven counts of seditious libel.
Pelley was released in 1950 after serving eight years in federal prison. One condition of his parole was that he refrain from engaging in any political activity.
After his release, he published several books and magazines, some of which are held in high esteem by some New Age enthusiasts.
In Messengers of Deception Vallee Jacques writes:
“After the war, he started an occult group called Soulcraft and published a racist magazine called Valor. He also wrote the book Star Guests in 1950, a compilation of automatic writing reminiscent of the Seth Material It was about 1950 that is said to have begun working for Pelley at the offices of Soulcraft Publications, in Noblesvile, Indiana, before moving to California, where he witnessed George Adamski’s desert contact on November 20, 1952, with a <a href=”/oma/>Venusian with long blonde hair. Perhaps Adamski and Pelly knew one another as a result of their common interest in the I AM cult?” (Messengers, 193)”
One strong implication of these connections is that the fascist undertones of the early UFO contactees have been greatly underestimated by historians.
See also:Vicki Cooper, Fascist Trends spotted in UFO past, UFO 7, no. 4, (1992):28 (cited in Peebles, 364)
Pelley died in Noblesville, Hamilton County, Ind., June 30, 1965. He is buried at Crownland Cemetery, Noblesville, Ind.
References
- wikipedia: William Dudley Pelley
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0671163/" class="urlextern" title="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0671163/" >http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0671163/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ctlsoftware.co.uk/cont1.htm" class="urlextern" title="http://www.ctlsoftware.co.uk/cont1.htm" >http://www.ctlsoftware.co.uk/cont1.htm</a></li>
<li><a href="http://home.comcast.net/~tom.mayer/williamdudleypelley.htm" class="urlextern" title="http://home.comcast.net/~tom.mayer/williamdudleypelley.htm" >http://home.comcast.net/~tom.mayer/williamdudleypelley.htm</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LDQRUDaivdAC&dq=William+Dudley+Pelley+ufo">William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism And the Occult</a></li>