Cedric Allingham is a fictional British writer reputed in the 1954 book Flying Saucer from Mars to have encountered the pilot of a Martian spacecraft. It was speculated that Allingham's account was fabricated and that Allingham himself never existed. Three decades later the elaborate hoax was revealed to have been perpetrated by British astronomerPatrick Moore and his friend Peter Davies.
Allingham recounted that on 18 February 1954, while on holiday near Lossiemouth, he encountered a flying saucer and communicated with its pilot by means of hand gestures and telepathy. The spaceman had indicated that he came from Mars, and that he had also visited Venus and the Moon. As supporting evidence, Allingham took a number of blurry photographs of the saucer and one of its occupant, pictured from the rear. He also claimed that a fisherman named James Duncan had witnessed the event from a nearby hill, providing a signed statement which was reproduced in the book. Coming soon after the dramatic claims of the contacteeGeorge Adamski, Allingham's book attracted a fair amount of popular and media attention. TIME devoted a short piece to it early in 1955. Commenting that Allingham's photograph of a Martian looked "very like a crofter with galluses flapping", the writer added:
Evasion
Members of the flying saucer clubs popular at the time made attempts to interview Allingham, but both he and James Duncan proved remarkably elusive. Allingham was said to have delivered a lecture to a UFO group in Tunbridge Wells, at which Lord Dowding stated he was present: "We got Mr. Cedric Allingham to lecture to our local Flying Saucer Club, and we were all strongly impressed that he was telling the truth about his actual experiences, although we felt that he might have been mistaken in some of the conclusions which he drew from his interview". The writer Robert Chapman made several attempts to trace Duncan, and to contact Allingham through his publishers, who stated firstly that Allingham was undergoing medical treatment in Switzerland, and then that he had died there. Chapman was only able to confirm that Allingham had given the previously mentioned lecture in Sussex, at which the well-known broadcaster, astronomer and noted UFO skeptic Patrick Moore claimed to have met him. Unable to locate either Duncan or Allingham, and therefore suspecting some form of hoax, Chapman regretfully concluded that "if there was no James Duncan and no visitor from Mars, perhaps there was no Cedric Allingham either".
Hoax revealed
The mystery was finally unravelled in 1986 as a result of research by Christopher Allan and Steuart Campbell which was published in the skeptical Fortean journal Magonia. In "Flying Saucer from Moore's?", they argued that the prose of Allingham's book showed significant similarities to the writing of the famous astronomer Patrick Moore. Thanks to further enquiries to Allingham's publisher, they were able to trace a friend of Moore's named Peter Davies who admitted that he had written the book with another individual whom he declined to name. Davies also claimed that the talk at the UFO club given by "Allingham" had in fact been given by himself while wearing a false moustache. Moore had admitted to being invited by Lord Dowding to be a guest at this meeting. These and other clues led Allan and Campbell to identify Patrick Moore as the main culprit in the hoax, which was intended to expose the gullibility and uncritical research methods of British ufologists. Specifically Flying Saucer from Mars seems to parody of Flying Saucers Have Landed, the 1953 book written by the aforementioned George Adamski in collaboration with Desmond Leslie. Further articles on Moore's involvement appeared in "The Star", July 28, 1986 and the 'Feedback' page of "New Scientist" Aug. 14, 1986. Moore, however, immediately denied being responsible for Allingham's book, and threatened to take legal action against anyone suggesting otherwise, although he took no such action on any of the three articles mentioned above. Moore, who died in 2012, never confirmed his involvement in the affair, even though the telescope, background foliage and portion of shed shown in the book's portrait of Allingham bears a remarkable resemblance to the 12½-inch reflector telescope in Moore's own garden, as shown in a photograph in Moore's Observer Book of Astronomy, 1971 edition, and in film footage.
