Gabriel Mckee is author of The Saucerian: The Unbelievable Life of Gray Barker (MIT Press). It's the strange, but true biography of the colorful founder of Saucerian Books, a central purveyor and promoter of flying saucer and conspiracist knowledge in the mid-twentieth century.Gray Barker (1925–1984) was an eccentric literary outsider, filled with ideas that were out of step with the world. An author and unreliable narrator of implausible stories, Barker founded and operated Saucerian Books, an independent publisher of books about flying saucers and other ideas at the fringes of popular discourse. In The Saucerian, Gabriel Mckee tells the fascinating story of Barker’s West Virginia–based press, the unique corpus of materials it published, and how office-copying and self-publishing techniques influenced the spread of paranormal beliefs and conspiratorial worldviews over the last century. Following the development of UFO subculture, Mckee explores the life and career of a larger-than-life hoaxer and originator of pseudoscientific ideas.
Ever an entertainer, Barker established his reputation with one of the first flying saucer fanzines, The Saucerian, and with his first book, the conspiratorial and sensationalistic They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers. By the close of the 1950s, he had established a publishing imprint that brought out some of the strangest UFO-related books of the era, with a particular emphasis on flying saucer contactees. Saucerian Books became a platform for those whose stories were too unusual, implausible, or crudely written for more mainstream publishers. Though Barker himself was a skeptic, he viewed the world of occult believers as a source of ongoing entertainment. He also may have used the perceived eccentricity of flying saucer research, or “Ufology,” to obscure his homosexuality from his small-town neighbors. From his place on the fringes of mid-century American culture, Barker left an unmatched legacy in conspiratorial concepts that have become prominent pop-cultural folklore, including the Men in Black, the Mothman, and the Philadelphia Experiment. As a mastermind behind the fantastical, Barker’s promotional efforts were the precursor to contemporary conspiracism. And, by the way, Gene makes a couple of cameo appearances in the book.
Gabriel Mckee is the Librarian for Collections and Services at New York University Institute For the Study of the Ancient World. He holds master’s degrees in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and in Library and Information Science from Long Island University. His areas of research include the intersection of theology and popular culture, patristics and church history, parahistoriography, and small press bibliography.
His publications include The Saucerian: The Unbelievable Life of Gray Barker (MIT Press, forthcoming), Theology and the DC Universe (Lexington Books, 2023), The Gospel According to Science Fiction (Westminster John Knox, 2007), and Pink Beams of Light From the God in the Gutter: The Science Fictional Religion of Philip K. Dick (University Press of America, 2003).
Also: "Reality – Is It a Horror?": Richard Shaver’s Subterranean World and the Displaced Self: View of “Reality – Is it a Horror?”
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Broadcast and Streaming Date:
April 13, 2025
