Buck Nelson

Buck Nelson was listening to the radio in his Mountain View, Missouri, cabin on July 30, 1954, when it went haywire, and when he stepped outside he saw three discs hovering above his homestead.

Nelson, born William E. Nelson on April 9, 1895, came to Missouri from California, though accounts differ on the details: one says he lived in Southern California for decades and relocated in the 1940s, another that he lived in Riverside for several years and moved to Mountain View sometime before 1954. He lived in a three-room shanty miles from his nearest neighbor, riding a pony into town for supplies. In his booklet he wrote that after signaling the objects with a flashlight, “they shot some kind of ray at me. It was much brighter and hotter than the sun”. He said the beam cured his chronic lumbago and restored his eyesight so he no longer needed glasses.

About six months later, Nelson claimed the objects spoke through a “public address system,” asking to land in his pasture. On March 5, 1955, three visitors arrived: Bob Solomon (described as 200 years old), an unnamed man learning to operate the spacecraft and a young Earth-man called Bucky, a 19-year-old who originally hailed from Colorado. The Howell County News account adds that the trainee was “old and wrinkled.” A large dog named Bo accompanied them.

The spacemen offered him space travel if he would “tell about it to the world”. On April 24, 1955, Nelson says he boarded with his dog Ted and traveled through space. He described landing on Mars near a ruler’s home built of moon rocks; on the Moon children rode Big Bo like a pony. At Venus, people worked about an hour a day and drove hover-cars without wheels. He left small American flags at each stop, and Ozarks Alive notes he brought home no proof beyond the photos of his first sighting.

He published his account as “My Trip to Mars, the Moon and Venus,” a 40-page booklet the Quill Press Company of West Plains printed in December 1956. By 1963 it sold for $1.25. He lectured in Detroit, Chicago and Washington, D.C., speaking before a packed Sunday school class in March 1956.

In 1958 Nelson launched annual Spacecraft Conventions on his farm. The first drew about 300 people; by 1959 newspapers reported thousands in attendance. As space flight became real, crowds shrank: by 1964 only about 50 came, and the final convention in 1966 was described as “one of the most disappointing”.

His own book thanks the famous contactee George Adamski for helping him and for telling the world he believed the story. After the first sighting Nelson wrote to the Springfield newspapers, and James L. Hill, a contactee from Seymour, read the report and mailed copies to “Flying Saucer Clubs” around the country. The Springfield-Greene County Library calls Hill Nelson’s biggest booster and possibly his coauthor, and adds, “It can’t be said with certainty to what degree James L. Hill shaped Buck Nelson’s narrative.” Nelson promoted segregationist views, claiming Venus practiced “absolute segregation of all races and nationalities”.

Following the 1966 convention, Nelson’s health declined and he withdrew from public life. A notice in the February 20, 1969, Springfield Leader and Press said Nelson was “offering a reward for information in connection with a fire which destroyed his farm home.” Earlier, a young service station attendant in Mountain View had told visiting journalists covering the Spacecraft Convention that he and his friends would “go out there with a bunch of rockets and shoot them off over his house.” He returned to Southern California and died in March 1972 in Long Beach, California, per the Social Security Death Index.

Today Nelson’s legacy lingers in Mountain View. Cosmic Coffee, an espresso bar inside The Neighborhood Tribe artisan shop, takes its name from him. Locals remember burned-off patches in the field where they say the spacecraft landed.