#20 — The following story appeared in a San Diego newspaper on Feb. 10, 1980. It was later published on page 48 of the Summer, 1980 issue of the NEW ATLANTEAN JOURNAL (Pat & Joan O’Connell, editors).
This story also appeared in hundreds of other newspapers across the nation at the time:
“SAN DIEGO – Every now and then Bill Robinson takes the 10-pound onion out of his freezer and contemplates it. Behind the gargantuan vegetable lies a strange tale, difficult to believe, of the wonderful farmer’s from outer space.
Even if the explanation is nonsense, there is no denying the reality of the onion, or the photos Robinson has of cabbages 3 feet wide and collard greens up to 51 feet long.
“Robinson is the information officer for the San Diego Police Department and local reporters generally give him high marks for credibility.
“It was while vacationing in Irapuato, Mexico, Robinson said, that he discovered farmer Jose Carmen Garcia, according to a copyrighted report in San Diego HOME AND GARDEN magazine.
“Garcia’s produce is the wonder of the marketplace in Valle de Santiago, a village 260 miles northwest of Mexico City, near Irapuato. Townspeople gather to marvel at his eight-pound onions, cabbages weighing from 44 to 60 pounds, and collard-greens as big as palm fronds.
“Housewives swear they are as tender and tasty as normal-sized vegetables. Yet Garcia plows his 3-acre plot behind a mule or horse, just like his neighbors… buys the same seed at the store, and does not use fertilizers.
“Garcia said that in 1947, as a youth of 17 struggling to make ends meet on the farm inherited from his father, he met a stranger, who looked and talked like a Mexican peasant.
“The stranger said he had been held captive by tall, fair humanoids IN A TUNNEL BENEATH A NEARBY VOLCANO. His captors spoke unintelligible gibberish, he said and lived on out-sized vegetables.
“He said he had memorized their magic formula, which he sketched on a scratch of paper. He told Garcia to concentrate on the symbols and that after a period of time, the ‘message’ would become clear, then he walked away.
“After several sleepless nights, Garcia got the revelation, whatever it was – planted the seeds and has produced gigantic vegetables ever since. Arrendondo wrote about Garcia in the Irapuato newspaper, EL ALACRAN and a Mexico City magazine, IMPACTO…
“An imaginative Agriculture Ministry official took up Garcia’s challenge to prove his crop-growing, in a grow-off against any farmer on any soil. The ministry laid out two 20 acre plots near Campo de Tangasneque in December 1978. The competing tract was farmed by a team of ministry experts and local farmers hand-picked from a nearby cooperative, using fertilizers.
“At harvest time, the results were tallied. Garcia still has the tote sheets, showing the ministry team averaged 30 tons of produce per acre, compared to his 106 tons. A ministry official thanked Garcia and told him he could sell the produce, disappointing Garcia. He had expected to be summoned to Mexico City to reveal the formula to the government, which did not even keep samples.
“Why isn’t the world interested?’ Arrendondo asked Robinson in the chance sidewalk Café encounter in Irapuato that put Robinson on Garcia’s trial.
“Robinson and Arrendondo went to the farm north of town where Garcia presented Robinson with the monumental onion.
Why didn’t the government experts give him recognition? ‘Perhaps,’ he replied, ‘they took it personally.’”
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