EXPLORER

To understand L. Ron Hubbard, the explorer, we must first bear in mind that his life exemplified exploration, but all with that greater purpose — research towards the development of Dianetics and Scientology technology and “that vast and hitherto unknown realm half an inch back of our foreheads.”

A prolific and consistent writer, Ron kept journals to record his many travels, and it is perhaps best to begin with his summation, “In my case I was on my way at the age of three weeks.” As he further explains, his father was a Navy man and, “all this meant movement to me.” It follows that he led a life of adventure and travel and, for one whose grander purpose was to research life, exploration.

Ron’s first formal exploration was the 1932 Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition. Aboard a motorless four-masted schooner —actually one of the last of such —it embarked from Baltimore, Maryland to explore old pirate haunts in Bermuda, Martinique and Puerto Rico. Notwithstanding sail-shredding winds off of Chesapeake Bay and the suffocating fumes from climbing an active Mount Pelee, it was a successful expedition with specimens and photographs purchased by the New York Times and the National Museum respectively.

This was followed by the West Indies Mineralogical Expedition — including his own ethnological research and the first complete survey of the island’s mineral resources under United States dominion. Elected a member of the prestigious Explorers Club in early 1940, he subsequently carried their flag on his Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition; his 1961 “Ocean Archaeological Expedition to study underwater sites of historical interest such as submerged cities” and in 1966 for the Hubbard Geological Survey Expedition.

All in all, L. Ron Hubbard is still remembered along East Seventieth Street, New York, as one who “embodied the adventurous and intrepid spirit of the Explorers Club.”

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