The Paracast Newsletter
September 15, 2024
www.theparacast.com
Filmmaker Dean Bertram Reveals Details of His Documentary About "The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers" on The Paracast!
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022, 2023 and 2024 now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes are now released 12-24 hours earlier. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present a return visit from Dean Bertram, who has a Ph.D in history from the University of Sydney, Australia. His doctoral dissertation was titled “Flying Saucer Culture: An Historical Survey of American UFO Belief.” During this episode, he’ll talk about his upcoming documentary, “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers,” about Raymond A. Palmer, notorious for introducing the legendary Shaver Mystery to the readers of Amazing Stories, the sci-fi magazine he edited. Bertram will reveal how the flying saucers were first discussed in that magazine, and expanded upon in Fate magazine, a pulp magazine Palmer co-founded and edited. The dark history of the UFO field, beginning with Men In Black, was chronicled by Palmer and the “original” flying saucer witness, Kenneth Arnold, in their book, “The Coming of Saucers.” Bertram is also a filmmaker and film festival programmer. Over 75 years after the modern UFO era began, Bertram, an Australian expatriate and UFO historian, found himself living in central Wisconsin: In a neighboring county to the one Palmer called home, and just a short, back-road, commute to the rural property where Palmer ran his UFO publishing company. In the 1960s and 1970s, Gene visited the homes of Palmer and Shaver, and interviewed both.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on September 15: More on the origins of the modern flying saucer legend with Dean Bertram, Ph.D, who is filming a documentary about “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers.” Speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swart , Bertram will discuss his doctoral dissertation, “Flying Saucer Culture: An Historical Survey of American UFO Belief.” He will speculate whether humans are essentially caterpillars that will morph into higher beings perhaps after death. Bertram will also talk about the issues involving the controversial UFO crash book, from Jacques Vallee and Paola Harris, “Trinity: The Best Kept Secret,” how the present UFO abduction meme was established as a result of Stephen Spielberg’s classic 1977 sci-fi film, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The experiences of Richard Shaver, a man with a troubled past, who worked with Palmer and Kenneth Arnold in the early days of the UFO field, and the outcome of ongoing research. Are we meant to know the solution to the mystery? Over 75 years after the modern UFO era began, Bertram, an Australian expatriate and UFO historian, found himself living in central Wisconsin: In a neighboring county to the one Palmer called home, and just a short, back-road, commute to the rural property where Palmer ran his UFO publishing company.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
Remembering the Early History of the Flying Saucer Field
By Gene Steinberg
I admit to the criticism that I often — maybe too often — dwell on the early days of Ufology. But we likely wouldn’t be here trying to figure out what’s going on if some unexpected events hadn’t converged back in the late 1940s.
It all began with the original sci-fi pulp magazine, Amazing Stories, where, in 1938, a young writer, one Raymond A. Palmer, was hired to take over as editor. In the 1940s, after receiving a curious letter from Richard S. Shaver, containing what he said was the original language, Palmer retrieved it from the trash can and published it.
Thus began the Shaver Mystery legend, where he claimed to have been captive to under-earth beings, the dero and the tero. They were said to be descended from the ancient Lemurians, most of whom fled Earth as the result of a global catastrophe.
As the names imply, the dero represent the bad guys, the tero the good guys.
In a sense, Shaver presented a history that had its resemblances to ancient astronaut lore. In turn Palmer published highly edited versions of Shaver’s ongoing stories of his experiences into fiction. It was the sort of space opera sci-fi that remains in vogue in such productions as Stargate SG-1, Star Trek and Star Wars.
But Palmer threw a sucker punch when he told his readers that Shaver’s stories were based on fact. During the time the Shaver stories appeared in Amazing Stories, circulation reportedly rose to the quarter million level, but quickly dropped to less than half that number when the magazine’s publishers killed the stories.
But in the latter days, stories suggesting flying saucers appeared, and soon enough real flying saucers seemed to appear. The sighting of nine unknowns by private pilot Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947 got worldwide publicity and thus created the modern UFO era. The very next year, Palmer published an article on the incident from Arnold in the very first issue of Fate, a magazine he co-founded and edited under an assumed name.
But that wasn’t enough. Three days before Arnold’s sighting, debris was allegedly ejected by a UFO while flying above Maury Island, near Tacoma, Washington. Two men recovered some of the debris and, when he got wind of the story, Palmer hired Arnold to fly to Tacoma and get to the bottom of the case.
His report appeared in a book co-authored with Palmer “The Coming of the Saucers,”published in 1952. No doubt heavily edited by the promotion-minded Palmer, it read as a spy novel. There was eavesdropping, possible Man In Black activity, and, in the end, the tragic death of two Air Force officers, dispatched to investigate, when their plane crashed.
In turn Arnold said his plane stalled shortly after it took off, when the engine seemed to turn itself off. Fortunately, he was able to recover control of his plane and land safety.
In passing, despite its obvious influences on the direction of the UFO field, the Maury Island case is regarded as a hoax. Indeed, Captain Edward Ruppelt, in his 1956 book, “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,” described it as “the dirtiest hoax in UFO history.”
Who was the hoaxer? Well, Ruppelt appeared to blame the “Chicago Publisher,” said to be Palmer. In turn, Palmer responded to the apparent attack in the pages of his magazine, Flying Saucers.
All this represented the beginnings of the dark side of Ufology. Gray Barker, a UFO investigator, took the hint and collected stories about alleged MIB around the world and wrote about them in his 1956 book, “They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.”
Such UFO authors as John Keel also devoted portions of their articles and books to MIB lore.
In a strange twist of fate, the MIB legend was woven into a graphic comic book by Lowell Cunningham, published in 1990 and 1991. In turn, the comic book was bought by Hollywood and turned into a film franchise.
Consisting of four related films, starting with Men in Black in 1997, it ended up as a multi-billion dollar franchise.
But the originators of the MIB myth weren’t able to cash in. The movies arrived years after Barker’s passing, in 1984. Keel didn’t benefit either, though he did manage to earn some Hollywood money with the sale of his book, “The Mothman Prophecies.” The film, released in 2002, was a fictionalized version only partly related to the original case.
As to Shaver, in the final years of his life (he died in 1975), he and his wife, Dorothy, lived in a tiny cottage in Summit, Arkansas that he called “Rock House Studio.” Instead of writing about his encounters with subsurface people, he claimed that certain rocks contained crystalline records of ancient literature. Outrageous as it seems, he said that you could, with the right equipment, decipher some of their content.
It almost reminds one of how crystals are used in the Superman movies and recent TV shows to produce holographic records and even assemble full structures in the space of a few minutes.
So were the writers of those productions influenced by Shaver’s claims? Probably not. The use of crystals to store information was not unique to Shaver.
Of course, the real question was whether his work in the final years of his life amounted to anything. Honestly I’m on the fence about it. He sent me and my first wife, Geneva, plenty of rocks along with directions on how to view them.
While one might regard the images we saw as the possible equivalent of a Rorschach test, there just may be significant involved. It’s possible Shaver discovered something real, but just didn’t have the equipment to establish that his theories were correct.
Today, Palmer, Shaver and even Arnold are mostly forgotten. But producer Dean Bertram is, as I write this, working on a documentary about Palmer, “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers.”
The title actually comes from the writings of John Keel in the 1970s, but he may be right. Although I didn’t know him all that well, my encounters with Palmer, especially an interview I did with him in the 1960s, were especially memorable.
And many of the UFO memes originated in the pages of his Flying Saucer magazine. In addition, its Saucer Club News section became a social network for people who wanted to get the word out about their little clubs. People like me, and some of the connections I made in those days turned into lifelong friends.
In the meantime, have we learned much from what went before?Probably not. But the path from there to here remains important to me, and perhaps a few others.
Copyright 1999-2024 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
September 15, 2024
www.theparacast.com
Filmmaker Dean Bertram Reveals Details of His Documentary About "The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers" on The Paracast!
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022, 2023 and 2024 now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes are now released 12-24 hours earlier. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present a return visit from Dean Bertram, who has a Ph.D in history from the University of Sydney, Australia. His doctoral dissertation was titled “Flying Saucer Culture: An Historical Survey of American UFO Belief.” During this episode, he’ll talk about his upcoming documentary, “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers,” about Raymond A. Palmer, notorious for introducing the legendary Shaver Mystery to the readers of Amazing Stories, the sci-fi magazine he edited. Bertram will reveal how the flying saucers were first discussed in that magazine, and expanded upon in Fate magazine, a pulp magazine Palmer co-founded and edited. The dark history of the UFO field, beginning with Men In Black, was chronicled by Palmer and the “original” flying saucer witness, Kenneth Arnold, in their book, “The Coming of Saucers.” Bertram is also a filmmaker and film festival programmer. Over 75 years after the modern UFO era began, Bertram, an Australian expatriate and UFO historian, found himself living in central Wisconsin: In a neighboring county to the one Palmer called home, and just a short, back-road, commute to the rural property where Palmer ran his UFO publishing company. In the 1960s and 1970s, Gene visited the homes of Palmer and Shaver, and interviewed both.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on September 15: More on the origins of the modern flying saucer legend with Dean Bertram, Ph.D, who is filming a documentary about “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers.” Speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swart , Bertram will discuss his doctoral dissertation, “Flying Saucer Culture: An Historical Survey of American UFO Belief.” He will speculate whether humans are essentially caterpillars that will morph into higher beings perhaps after death. Bertram will also talk about the issues involving the controversial UFO crash book, from Jacques Vallee and Paola Harris, “Trinity: The Best Kept Secret,” how the present UFO abduction meme was established as a result of Stephen Spielberg’s classic 1977 sci-fi film, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The experiences of Richard Shaver, a man with a troubled past, who worked with Palmer and Kenneth Arnold in the early days of the UFO field, and the outcome of ongoing research. Are we meant to know the solution to the mystery? Over 75 years after the modern UFO era began, Bertram, an Australian expatriate and UFO historian, found himself living in central Wisconsin: In a neighboring county to the one Palmer called home, and just a short, back-road, commute to the rural property where Palmer ran his UFO publishing company.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
Remembering the Early History of the Flying Saucer Field
By Gene Steinberg
I admit to the criticism that I often — maybe too often — dwell on the early days of Ufology. But we likely wouldn’t be here trying to figure out what’s going on if some unexpected events hadn’t converged back in the late 1940s.
It all began with the original sci-fi pulp magazine, Amazing Stories, where, in 1938, a young writer, one Raymond A. Palmer, was hired to take over as editor. In the 1940s, after receiving a curious letter from Richard S. Shaver, containing what he said was the original language, Palmer retrieved it from the trash can and published it.
Thus began the Shaver Mystery legend, where he claimed to have been captive to under-earth beings, the dero and the tero. They were said to be descended from the ancient Lemurians, most of whom fled Earth as the result of a global catastrophe.
As the names imply, the dero represent the bad guys, the tero the good guys.
In a sense, Shaver presented a history that had its resemblances to ancient astronaut lore. In turn Palmer published highly edited versions of Shaver’s ongoing stories of his experiences into fiction. It was the sort of space opera sci-fi that remains in vogue in such productions as Stargate SG-1, Star Trek and Star Wars.
But Palmer threw a sucker punch when he told his readers that Shaver’s stories were based on fact. During the time the Shaver stories appeared in Amazing Stories, circulation reportedly rose to the quarter million level, but quickly dropped to less than half that number when the magazine’s publishers killed the stories.
But in the latter days, stories suggesting flying saucers appeared, and soon enough real flying saucers seemed to appear. The sighting of nine unknowns by private pilot Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947 got worldwide publicity and thus created the modern UFO era. The very next year, Palmer published an article on the incident from Arnold in the very first issue of Fate, a magazine he co-founded and edited under an assumed name.
But that wasn’t enough. Three days before Arnold’s sighting, debris was allegedly ejected by a UFO while flying above Maury Island, near Tacoma, Washington. Two men recovered some of the debris and, when he got wind of the story, Palmer hired Arnold to fly to Tacoma and get to the bottom of the case.
His report appeared in a book co-authored with Palmer “The Coming of the Saucers,”published in 1952. No doubt heavily edited by the promotion-minded Palmer, it read as a spy novel. There was eavesdropping, possible Man In Black activity, and, in the end, the tragic death of two Air Force officers, dispatched to investigate, when their plane crashed.
In turn Arnold said his plane stalled shortly after it took off, when the engine seemed to turn itself off. Fortunately, he was able to recover control of his plane and land safety.
In passing, despite its obvious influences on the direction of the UFO field, the Maury Island case is regarded as a hoax. Indeed, Captain Edward Ruppelt, in his 1956 book, “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,” described it as “the dirtiest hoax in UFO history.”
Who was the hoaxer? Well, Ruppelt appeared to blame the “Chicago Publisher,” said to be Palmer. In turn, Palmer responded to the apparent attack in the pages of his magazine, Flying Saucers.
All this represented the beginnings of the dark side of Ufology. Gray Barker, a UFO investigator, took the hint and collected stories about alleged MIB around the world and wrote about them in his 1956 book, “They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.”
Such UFO authors as John Keel also devoted portions of their articles and books to MIB lore.
In a strange twist of fate, the MIB legend was woven into a graphic comic book by Lowell Cunningham, published in 1990 and 1991. In turn, the comic book was bought by Hollywood and turned into a film franchise.
Consisting of four related films, starting with Men in Black in 1997, it ended up as a multi-billion dollar franchise.
But the originators of the MIB myth weren’t able to cash in. The movies arrived years after Barker’s passing, in 1984. Keel didn’t benefit either, though he did manage to earn some Hollywood money with the sale of his book, “The Mothman Prophecies.” The film, released in 2002, was a fictionalized version only partly related to the original case.
As to Shaver, in the final years of his life (he died in 1975), he and his wife, Dorothy, lived in a tiny cottage in Summit, Arkansas that he called “Rock House Studio.” Instead of writing about his encounters with subsurface people, he claimed that certain rocks contained crystalline records of ancient literature. Outrageous as it seems, he said that you could, with the right equipment, decipher some of their content.
It almost reminds one of how crystals are used in the Superman movies and recent TV shows to produce holographic records and even assemble full structures in the space of a few minutes.
So were the writers of those productions influenced by Shaver’s claims? Probably not. The use of crystals to store information was not unique to Shaver.
Of course, the real question was whether his work in the final years of his life amounted to anything. Honestly I’m on the fence about it. He sent me and my first wife, Geneva, plenty of rocks along with directions on how to view them.
While one might regard the images we saw as the possible equivalent of a Rorschach test, there just may be significant involved. It’s possible Shaver discovered something real, but just didn’t have the equipment to establish that his theories were correct.
Today, Palmer, Shaver and even Arnold are mostly forgotten. But producer Dean Bertram is, as I write this, working on a documentary about Palmer, “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers.”
The title actually comes from the writings of John Keel in the 1970s, but he may be right. Although I didn’t know him all that well, my encounters with Palmer, especially an interview I did with him in the 1960s, were especially memorable.
And many of the UFO memes originated in the pages of his Flying Saucer magazine. In addition, its Saucer Club News section became a social network for people who wanted to get the word out about their little clubs. People like me, and some of the connections I made in those days turned into lifelong friends.
In the meantime, have we learned much from what went before?Probably not. But the path from there to here remains important to me, and perhaps a few others.
Copyright 1999-2024 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!