Frank Scully
Born
Francis Joseph Xavier Scully

(1892-04-28)28 April 1892
New York City, U.S.
Died23 June 1964(1964-06-23) (aged 72)[1]
Palm Springs, California, U.S.
Resting placeDesert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, California[2]
Occupation(s)Journalist, author, ufologist
Employer(s)The Sun, Variety
SpouseAlice Scully (1909–1996;[3] his death) (married 1930)
AwardsKnight of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1956[4]

Francis Joseph Xavier Scully; (April 28 1892 – June 23 1964)[1][4] was an American journalist, author, humorist, and a regular columnist for the entertainment trade magazine Variety.

Career

Scully studied journalism at Columbia University, was on the reporting staff at The New York Sun, and was a contributor to Variety.[5] His authored books include Rogue's Gallery[6] and Fun In Bed: The Convalescent's Handbook.[7] Scully received a screenwriting credit for the American version of the film Une fée... pas comme les autres (The Secret of Magic Island).[8]

Three men demonstrate the Aztec hoax claims using an inverted bowl to represent Earth and a copy of Frank Scully's book to represent a magnetism-powered flying saucer.
Author Frank Scully (right) and confidence man Silas Newton (center)[9]

Scully publicized the Aztec, New Mexico UFO hoax when, in 1949, he authored two columns in Variety claiming that dead extraterrestrial beings were recovered from a flying saucer crash.[10][11][12] Scully's 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers expanded on the themes of flying saucer crashes and dead extraterrestrials, with Scully describing one of his sources as having "more degrees than a thermometer."[13] In 1952 and 1956, True magazine published articles by San Francisco Chronicle reporter John Philip Cahn[14][15] that purported to expose Scully's sources as con artists who had hoaxed Scully.[16] Scully's 1963 book In Armour Bright also included material about alleged flying saucer crashes and dead extraterrestrials.[17]

Publications

Books

Contributions, introductions, forewords

Feature films

Archives

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^ a b "Frank Scully, Columnist, Dies; Defied Disabilities With Jests". The New York Times. 25 June 1964.
  2. ^ "Frank Scully, Author of Cheer Books for Invalids, Dies at 72". Desert Sun. June 25, 1964.
  3. ^ "Alice Mellbye Pihl Scully". Variety. New York. 3 December 1996. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  4. ^ a b Scully, Frank. "Frank Skully". CatholicAuthors.com. Retrieved 28 March 2013. Originally published by Walter Romig in The Book of Catholic Authors
  5. ^ "A LIFETIME OF ILLNESS Frank Scully, Author of Cheer Books for Invalids, Dies at 72". California Digital Newspaper Collection. DL Consulting. Retrieved 2022-03-04.
  6. ^ "Rogue's Gallery (1972 edition)". Open Library. Internet Archives. Retrieved 2022-03-04.
  7. ^ "Fun in bed; the convalescent's handbook". Internet Archive. Internet Archive. Retrieved 2022-03-04.
  8. ^ "The Secret of Magic Island". TCM Turner Classic Movies. Turner Classic Movies, Inc. Retrieved 2022-03-04.
  9. ^ Severson, Thor (October 14, 1952). "Little Men Due Soon: Flying Saucer Landing Forecast". The Denver Post. Photograph by David Mathias. Denver, Colorado.
  10. ^ Scully, Frank (12 October 1949). "One Flying Saucer Lands In New Mexico". Variety. New York.
  11. ^ Scully, Frank (23 November 1949). "Flying Saucers Dismantled, Secrets May Be Lost". Variety. New York.
  12. ^ "Variety (November 1949)". 1949.
  13. ^ Reece, Gregory L. (2007). UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture. London; New York: I. B. Tauris. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-845-11451-0.
  14. ^ Cahn, J.P. (September 1952). "The Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men" (PDF). True. pp. 17–19, 102–112. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
  15. ^ Cahn, J.P. (August 1956). "Flying Saucer Swindlers" (PDF). True. pp. 36–37, 69–72. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
  16. ^ Bartholomew, Robert E.; Howard, George S. (1998). UFOs & Alien Contact: Two Centuries of Mystery. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. p. 193. ISBN 978-1-573-92200-5.
  17. ^ Scully, Frank (1963). In Armour Bright: Cavalier Adventures of My Short Life Out of Bed. Introduction by Jack Paar (1st ed.). Philadelphia: Chilton Books. OCLC 1393335.
  18. ^ Une fée... pas comme les autres (1957) at IMDb Edit this at Wikidata

External links

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