Van Tassell was born in 1910 and spent his early career in the aviation industry working as a flight instructor and flight safety inspector for companies such as Douglas and Lockheed, before opening Giant Rock Airport in California in 1947. He had also test-flown aircraft for the American millionaire Howard Hughes. Van Tassell claimed that his contacts with entirely benevolent space people included a trip on a flying saucer and a journey back in time, during which he was shown some of the Earth's history.
In 1953 he formed an organisation called the Ministry of Universal Wisdom, and among his projects was an annual UFO gathering known as the Giant Rock Convection. Perhaps his most bizarre initiative was the construction of a huge machine which he claimed would halt and even reverse the aging process. He maintained that the plans for this machine had been given to him by the space people, but perhaps predictably, it has never worked.
