Ionel Talpazan is a refugee from Romania who has lived in New York from 1987 until his death in 2015. He draws, paints and sculpts flying saucers, and traces his interest in UFOs to an encounter with a “blue energy” that passed over him one night as a boy in rural Romania. He hopes to explain the inner workings of UFOs with his art, particularly by his drawings and diagrams of “advanced saucer propulsion systems.” His works have a scientific as well as an artistic value. He has created more than 1,000 works of art inspired by his visions and ideas about UFOs and their travel throughout the universe. His work illustrates in a singular and compelling way the archetypal aspects of UFOs as vehicles of inexplicable wonder, utopian technology, and otherworldly salvation. Talpazan says that he has “sacrificed his life to the UFO,” and his ultimate goal is to reveal the mysterious technology and hidden meanings of flying saucers to the people of planet Earth.

(August 16, 1955, Petrăchioaia, Romania—September 21, 2015, New York, NY)