Daniel Fry
Encyclopedia
Daniel William Fry was an American
contactee who claimed he had multiple contacts with an alien and took a ride in a remotely piloted alien spacecraft on July 4, 1949.
in New Mexico where he worked, Fry had planned to join the July 4, 1949 evening festivities in nearby Las Cruces but missed the last bus. Finding the Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) where he stayed too hot, he decided to explore a path in the desert he had never been down. There, Fry claimed a 30 foot (10M) diameter, 16 foot (5M) high "oblate spheroid" landed in front of him, and he talked remotely with the pilot who operated the craft from a "mother ship
" 900 miles (1400 km) above Earth
. Fry claimed he was invited aboard and flown over New York City
and back in 30 minutes. During the flight and subsequent meetings, Fry asserted that he talked with the pilot named Alan, who gave Fry information on physics
, the prehistory
of Earth including Atlantis
and Lemuria
and the foundations of civilization
.
examination about his claims. Fry also took photos and 16 mm film of supposed UFOs, but subsequent analysis of the original footage has provided strong evidence the UFOs were fake
.
Later, Fry received a doctorate
, however the "degree" was from a mail-order outfit in London
, England
called Saint Andrew College and was a "Doctorate of Cosmism".
Many years later, Fry also changed the date the event took place from July 4, 1950 to July 4, 1949.
Swiss
UFO contactee Billy Meier
has identified Daniel Fry as an authentic contactee.
In 1954, Fry published his first book called "The White Sands Incident" and a year later started an organization called "Understanding" which published a monthly newsletter by the same name. Understanding was eventually incorporated as a non-profit corporation
, which was described in a 1959 pamphlet as "From a start of nine members at El Monte, California in 1955, Understanding Inc., has grown into an international organization of more than sixty units and many members-at-large throughout the world. These units and members have sponsored hundreds of lectures and meetings, circulated thousands of books and magazines to reach many people in the spirit of 'bringing about a greater degree of understanding among all the peoples of the earth and preparing them for their eventual inevitable meetings with other races in space. "
Using Alan's ideas as a foundation, Understanding Inc. served to spread alternative social and spiritual ideas by speeches, meetings and in the newsletter. The newsletter, first published in 1956, was typically about 20 pages long, published monthly and ran for 240+ issues until October 1979.
Understanding Inc. peaked in the early sixties with about 1,500 paid members and 60 or so "Units" in America. Mid-way through its waning years in 1974, Understanding was donated 55 acres (220,000 m²) of land including eight buildings near Tonopah
, Arizona by Enid Smith. The buildings, first intended as a religious college, had the coincidental feature of being round and saucer shaped. Understanding Inc. had fully taken the property over by 1976 but given Daniel's tight finances during his retirement and the falling Understanding membership, the property fell into disrepair. In late September and early October 1978, the kitchen and the library were burned to the ground by an arsonist and never rebuilt.
Understanding Inc. was considered by some to be a cult, but Daniel was clear it wasn't in a 1969 Daily Courier article "The group is not mystic, he says, and is not a flying saucer watching organization although some members hold definite beliefs and interests in both areas. Understanding Inc. which is a non-profit, tax exempt corporation, works on the principles that there is nothing that members are required to believe or accept or do, Dr. Fry said." During the early 1970s, Professor Robert S. Ellwood of the University of Southern California
studied many new and unconventional religious and spiritual groups in the United States. During his research, he attended a meeting held in Inglewood, California
by members of Understanding, Inc. and noted that, "There is no particular religious practice connected with the meeting, although interestingly the New Age Prayer derived from the Alice Bailey
writings is used as an invocation."
From 1954 onward, with little reimbursement, Fry gave thousands of lectures to organizations such as service clubs, radio and television stations. He also published other books such as "Atoms, Galaxies and Understanding", "To Men of Earth", "Steps to the Stars", "Curve of Development", "Can God Fill Teeth?" and "Verse and Worse". He, along with other contactees would attend the yearly Spacecraft Convention
at Giant Rock
in Yucca Valley, California for the next twenty years, hosted by a friend and fellow contactee, George Van Tassel
.
to be near Daniel's uncle Walter. Daniel would live in and around the South Pasadena area for the next 35 years and get in on the ground floor of the early rocket
research which Pasadena was host to in the 1940s and 1950s.
The next important point was in 1949. After the war
, when there were massive layoffs, Daniel had moved to Oregon
to scrape out an existence, but because of Daniel's work with Edmund Sawyer at Crescent and other related rocketry work, Daniel got a job with Aerojet
setting up instrumentation to test rockets at the test range in White Sands, New Mexico. It was that year he would have his reported "incident" with Alan and alter the trajectory of his life.
Most of the events following 1919 and 1949 were a result of the changes that had happened during those years. After 1919, Daniel would turn his working knowledge of explosives into jobs with rockets, which would evolve, thanks in part to his early involvement with Crescent, into jobs with rocket instrumentation.
After 1949, because of his supposed contact with Alan, he would be a founding member of the contactee movement, form Understanding, publish 240+ issues of the Understanding newsletter, author multiple books and give thousands of lectures, interviews and talks. Fry would also become the 1972 vice-presidential nominee of the Universal Party along with the presidential nominee and fellow contactee Gabriel Green
.
The last point of interest was in 1978 when everything started to crumble. For Christmas that year, Daniel would note with frustration the dwindling membership and see the library and kitchen at the Tonopah site burned to the ground by an arsonist. Shortly before the fire, Daniel would turn over the Understanding organization to Mr. and Mrs. Sellman and move to Alamogordo, New Mexico with his second wife Florence. Less than a year later, the Sellmans quit, along with a number of other long time board members like Tahahlita, because of Daniel's refusal to negotiate a settlement over the Tonopah site lawsuit related to Enid Smith's contested will. With the Understanding organization in tatters, the publication of the newsletter ceased in 1979 for the first time in over 20 years. A year later Florence would be dead from breast cancer.
In his professional life, he worked as a "powder man" or explosives supervisor in the 1930s and 1940s on such jobs as the Salinas Dam near San Luis Obispo, California
, for the Basic Magnesium Corporation and on the Pan American Highway in Honduras
. From 1949 until 1954, Daniel worked at Aerojet
designing, building and installing transducers for control, feedback and measurement of rockets during flight and static tests. From 1954 onward, Fry helped build the Crescent Engineering & Research Company into a multimillion dollar company along with the founder, Edmund Vail Sawyer, eventually becoming the Vice President of Research and a stockholder. Crescent made parts related to rockets including transducer
s, and did JATO
rocket nozzle rework during the war.
In the early 1960s Fry sold his share in Crescent and moved to Merlin, Oregon
where he ran the Merlin Development Company until moving to Tonopah, Arizona
in the 1970s. There he looked after Enid Smith until her death and managed her estate including property she had donated to Understanding, Inc. Shortly before Understanding ceased to function in 1979, Daniel retired to Alamogordo, New Mexico but a few years later restarted publication of the Understanding newsletter, by now reduced to a single 8" x 14" page, which he continued until 1989.
called Verdon Township
in the northern part of Aitkin County, Minnesota
to Fred Nelson Fry and Clara Jane Baehr. Clara died in 1916 and left Daniel and his older sister, Florence, to be raised by their grandmother while Fred found work where he could as a carpenter and labourer. Fred died two years later in 1918 during the influenza pandemic
and left Daniel orphaned at the age of ten. He and his sister were reared under the guardianship of his grandmother and came with her to South Pasadena
, California
in 1920. Daniel attended the now defunct El Centro Elementary school and went to high school in Antelope Valley
.
His parents left practically no estate and at the age of eighteen he found himself entirely dependent upon his own resources. He completed high school but because of increasing unemployment that preceded the 1930s depression
he abandoned plans for university. However, he found what jobs he could and studied during the evenings. He worked through the subjects he would have taken at university by using material from the Pasadena
Public Library. He became interested in chemistry
and eventually specialized in the use of explosives finally settling on the new field of rocketry.
He married his first wife, Elma, in 1934 and had three children. He divorced Elma in 1964 while in Merlin, Oregon and took up common-law residence with Bertha (aka Tahahlita) until moving to Tonopah
, Arizona in the mid 1970s. There he married Florence and before Florence died of breast cancer in 1980, they retired to Alamogordo, New Mexico. Daniel then married Cleona, a local Alamogordo resident in 1982 and lived with her until his death on December 20, 1992.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
contactee who claimed he had multiple contacts with an alien and took a ride in a remotely piloted alien spacecraft on July 4, 1949.
Fry's White Sands incident
From the White Sands Proving GroundWhite Sands Missile Range
White Sands Missile Range is a rocket range of almost in parts of five counties in southern New Mexico. The largest military installation in the United States, WSMR includes the and the WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range...
in New Mexico where he worked, Fry had planned to join the July 4, 1949 evening festivities in nearby Las Cruces but missed the last bus. Finding the Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) where he stayed too hot, he decided to explore a path in the desert he had never been down. There, Fry claimed a 30 foot (10M) diameter, 16 foot (5M) high "oblate spheroid" landed in front of him, and he talked remotely with the pilot who operated the craft from a "mother ship
Mother ship
A mother ship is a vessel or aircraft that carries a smaller vessel or aircraft that operates independently from it. Examples include bombers converted to carry experimental aircraft to altitudes where they can conduct their research , or ships that carry small submarines to an area of ocean to be...
" 900 miles (1400 km) above Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. Fry claimed he was invited aboard and flown over New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and back in 30 minutes. During the flight and subsequent meetings, Fry asserted that he talked with the pilot named Alan, who gave Fry information on physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, the prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
of Earth including Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
and Lemuria
Lemuria (continent)
Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography; however, the concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of plate tectonics...
and the foundations of civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
.
Truth or fiction
Shortly after Fry went public with his story in 1954, he failed a lie detectorPolygraph
A polygraph measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions...
examination about his claims. Fry also took photos and 16 mm film of supposed UFOs, but subsequent analysis of the original footage has provided strong evidence the UFOs were fake
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
.
Later, Fry received a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
, however the "degree" was from a mail-order outfit in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
called Saint Andrew College and was a "Doctorate of Cosmism".
Many years later, Fry also changed the date the event took place from July 4, 1950 to July 4, 1949.
Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
UFO contactee Billy Meier
Billy Meier
"Billy" Eduard Albert Meier is a citizen of Switzerland who claims to be a UFO contactee and prophet. He is also the source of many controversial UFO photographs, which he states are evidence of his encounters...
has identified Daniel Fry as an authentic contactee.
Understanding Inc.
Nonprofit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
, which was described in a 1959 pamphlet as "From a start of nine members at El Monte, California in 1955, Understanding Inc., has grown into an international organization of more than sixty units and many members-at-large throughout the world. These units and members have sponsored hundreds of lectures and meetings, circulated thousands of books and magazines to reach many people in the spirit of 'bringing about a greater degree of understanding among all the peoples of the earth and preparing them for their eventual inevitable meetings with other races in space. "
Using Alan's ideas as a foundation, Understanding Inc. served to spread alternative social and spiritual ideas by speeches, meetings and in the newsletter. The newsletter, first published in 1956, was typically about 20 pages long, published monthly and ran for 240+ issues until October 1979.
Understanding Inc. peaked in the early sixties with about 1,500 paid members and 60 or so "Units" in America. Mid-way through its waning years in 1974, Understanding was donated 55 acres (220,000 m²) of land including eight buildings near Tonopah
Tonopah, Arizona
Tonopah is a census-designated place in western Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, approximately 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix off Interstate 10...
, Arizona by Enid Smith. The buildings, first intended as a religious college, had the coincidental feature of being round and saucer shaped. Understanding Inc. had fully taken the property over by 1976 but given Daniel's tight finances during his retirement and the falling Understanding membership, the property fell into disrepair. In late September and early October 1978, the kitchen and the library were burned to the ground by an arsonist and never rebuilt.
Understanding Inc. was considered by some to be a cult, but Daniel was clear it wasn't in a 1969 Daily Courier article "The group is not mystic, he says, and is not a flying saucer watching organization although some members hold definite beliefs and interests in both areas. Understanding Inc. which is a non-profit, tax exempt corporation, works on the principles that there is nothing that members are required to believe or accept or do, Dr. Fry said." During the early 1970s, Professor Robert S. Ellwood of the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
studied many new and unconventional religious and spiritual groups in the United States. During his research, he attended a meeting held in Inglewood, California
Inglewood, California
Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, southwest of downtown Los Angeles. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. Its population stood at 109,673 as of the 2010 Census...
by members of Understanding, Inc. and noted that, "There is no particular religious practice connected with the meeting, although interestingly the New Age Prayer derived from the Alice Bailey
Alice Bailey
Alice Ann Bailey , known as Alice A. Bailey or AAB to her followers, was an influential writer and theosophist in what she termed "Ageless Wisdom". This included occult teachings, "esoteric" psychology and healing, astrological and other philosophic and religious themes...
writings is used as an invocation."
From 1954 onward, with little reimbursement, Fry gave thousands of lectures to organizations such as service clubs, radio and television stations. He also published other books such as "Atoms, Galaxies and Understanding", "To Men of Earth", "Steps to the Stars", "Curve of Development", "Can God Fill Teeth?" and "Verse and Worse". He, along with other contactees would attend the yearly Spacecraft Convention
UFO convention
A UFO convention is a convention about UFOs that usually take place annually at hotels or convention centers and mainly feature contactees giving presentations about their experiences...
at Giant Rock
Giant Rock
Giant Rock is a large freestanding boulder in the Mojave Desert near Landers, California, that covers of ground and is seven stories high.In ancient times it was considered sacred by the Native Americans of the Joshua Tree, California, area. In the 1950s it was a gathering point for UFO believers...
in Yucca Valley, California for the next twenty years, hosted by a friend and fellow contactee, George Van Tassel
George Van Tassel
George Van Tassel was an American contactee, ufologist, and paranormal research leader who commenced building the Integratron in 1958 in Landers, California.- History :...
.
Key points in Fry's life
The first one was in late 1919 when Emily, Daniel's grandmother who was his sole guardian, made the decision to move to South Pasadena, CaliforniaPasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
to be near Daniel's uncle Walter. Daniel would live in and around the South Pasadena area for the next 35 years and get in on the ground floor of the early rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
research which Pasadena was host to in the 1940s and 1950s.
The next important point was in 1949. After the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when there were massive layoffs, Daniel had moved to Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
to scrape out an existence, but because of Daniel's work with Edmund Sawyer at Crescent and other related rocketry work, Daniel got a job with Aerojet
Aerojet
Aerojet is an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange, Gainesville and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet is owned by GenCorp. They are the only US propulsion company that provides both solid rocket...
setting up instrumentation to test rockets at the test range in White Sands, New Mexico. It was that year he would have his reported "incident" with Alan and alter the trajectory of his life.
Most of the events following 1919 and 1949 were a result of the changes that had happened during those years. After 1919, Daniel would turn his working knowledge of explosives into jobs with rockets, which would evolve, thanks in part to his early involvement with Crescent, into jobs with rocket instrumentation.
After 1949, because of his supposed contact with Alan, he would be a founding member of the contactee movement, form Understanding, publish 240+ issues of the Understanding newsletter, author multiple books and give thousands of lectures, interviews and talks. Fry would also become the 1972 vice-presidential nominee of the Universal Party along with the presidential nominee and fellow contactee Gabriel Green
Gabriel Green
Gabriel Green was a write-in United States presidential candidate in 1960 and 1972...
.
The last point of interest was in 1978 when everything started to crumble. For Christmas that year, Daniel would note with frustration the dwindling membership and see the library and kitchen at the Tonopah site burned to the ground by an arsonist. Shortly before the fire, Daniel would turn over the Understanding organization to Mr. and Mrs. Sellman and move to Alamogordo, New Mexico with his second wife Florence. Less than a year later, the Sellmans quit, along with a number of other long time board members like Tahahlita, because of Daniel's refusal to negotiate a settlement over the Tonopah site lawsuit related to Enid Smith's contested will. With the Understanding organization in tatters, the publication of the newsletter ceased in 1979 for the first time in over 20 years. A year later Florence would be dead from breast cancer.
Professional life
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, for the Basic Magnesium Corporation and on the Pan American Highway in Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
. From 1949 until 1954, Daniel worked at Aerojet
Aerojet
Aerojet is an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange, Gainesville and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet is owned by GenCorp. They are the only US propulsion company that provides both solid rocket...
designing, building and installing transducers for control, feedback and measurement of rockets during flight and static tests. From 1954 onward, Fry helped build the Crescent Engineering & Research Company into a multimillion dollar company along with the founder, Edmund Vail Sawyer, eventually becoming the Vice President of Research and a stockholder. Crescent made parts related to rockets including transducer
Transducer
A transducer is a device that converts one type of energy to another. Energy types include electrical, mechanical, electromagnetic , chemical, acoustic or thermal energy. While the term transducer commonly implies the use of a sensor/detector, any device which converts energy can be considered a...
s, and did JATO
JATO
JATO is an acronym for jet-fuel assisted take off. It is a system for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets....
rocket nozzle rework during the war.
In the early 1960s Fry sold his share in Crescent and moved to Merlin, Oregon
Merlin, Oregon
Merlin is an unincorporated community in Josephine County, Oregon, United States. The area is known for sport fishing and whitewater rafting on the Rogue River. Merlin's ZIP code is 97532....
where he ran the Merlin Development Company until moving to Tonopah, Arizona
Tonopah, Arizona
Tonopah is a census-designated place in western Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, approximately 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix off Interstate 10...
in the 1970s. There he looked after Enid Smith until her death and managed her estate including property she had donated to Understanding, Inc. Shortly before Understanding ceased to function in 1979, Daniel retired to Alamogordo, New Mexico but a few years later restarted publication of the Understanding newsletter, by now reduced to a single 8" x 14" page, which he continued until 1989.
Personal life
Daniel William Fry was born July 19, 1908 near a small steamboat landing on the Mississippi RiverMississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
called Verdon Township
Verdon Township, Minnesota
Verdon Township is a township in Aitkin County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 44 as of the 2000 census.-Etymology:Verdon Township was named for Verdon Wells, son of the town's postmaster, E. B...
in the northern part of Aitkin County, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
to Fred Nelson Fry and Clara Jane Baehr. Clara died in 1916 and left Daniel and his older sister, Florence, to be raised by their grandmother while Fred found work where he could as a carpenter and labourer. Fred died two years later in 1918 during the influenza pandemic
Spanish flu
The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
and left Daniel orphaned at the age of ten. He and his sister were reared under the guardianship of his grandmother and came with her to South Pasadena
South Pasadena, California
South Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,619, up from 24,292 at the 2000 census. It is located in in the West San Gabriel Valley...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in 1920. Daniel attended the now defunct El Centro Elementary school and went to high school in Antelope Valley
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley in California, United States, is located in northern Los Angeles County and the southeastern portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert...
.
His parents left practically no estate and at the age of eighteen he found himself entirely dependent upon his own resources. He completed high school but because of increasing unemployment that preceded the 1930s depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
he abandoned plans for university. However, he found what jobs he could and studied during the evenings. He worked through the subjects he would have taken at university by using material from the Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
Public Library. He became interested in chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and eventually specialized in the use of explosives finally settling on the new field of rocketry.
He married his first wife, Elma, in 1934 and had three children. He divorced Elma in 1964 while in Merlin, Oregon and took up common-law residence with Bertha (aka Tahahlita) until moving to Tonopah
Tonopah, Arizona
Tonopah is a census-designated place in western Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, approximately 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix off Interstate 10...
, Arizona in the mid 1970s. There he married Florence and before Florence died of breast cancer in 1980, they retired to Alamogordo, New Mexico. Daniel then married Cleona, a local Alamogordo resident in 1982 and lived with her until his death on December 20, 1992.
External links
- DanielFry.com - for more information including pictures, videos, recordings and over 4000 pages of searchable HTML text from his books and the Understanding newsletters.