Ralph Emerson Adams

Ralph Emerson Adams was, according to Harold D. Kinney (who, in turn, attributed the story to Virgil K. Brown, administrator of the Chicago Park District Recreation Division), an American scientist who discovered a method of matter transference based on a "new principle of radio-activity" while resident at Fuller Park in Chicago, Illinois and disappeared with the secret after the deaths of two men who had handled an odourless depilatory (hair removal cream) Adams had produced.

The Story

• Kinney, Harold D. (April-May 1961), "Is Alchemy Just Around the Corner?", Journal of Borderland Research (BSRF) 17 (3): 1-4, https://borderlandsciences.org/journal/vol/17/n03/Kinney_on_Ralph_Emerson_Adams.html 

Dramatis Personae

• Harold D. Kinney (1899-1966), the storyteller and BSRF associate, promoter of "Gobernadora Herbs"
• Virgil K. Brown (1883-1974), the apparent source of the story, who was administrator of the Chicago Park District Recreation Division, considered a pioneer of the American "public recreation" movement, https://www.pgpedia.com/b/virgil-k-brown
• Ralph Emerson Adams, the subject, said to be a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and miner who had been driven out of Peru by unidentified revolutionists
• An unnamed professor of Chemistry
• An unnamed professor of Mathematics at the University of Chicago
• An unnamed pharmaceutical company rep.
• Richards, a Chicago Park District employee, who died after handling Adams's depilatory
• Jelnicki, the head of the Traffic Department of the Chicago Park District