The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers
Chief the weekend I've been altitude "The Man From Mars" (2012, Tarcher/Penguin), and I contemplate it's a must-read for anyone questioning in the history of UFOlogy in America. "Mars" is a croakily fair book about a man who may well settle be described as the world's first UFO huckster, mush publisher Ray A. Palmer (unquestionable to his lots fans and detractors as simply "Rap").

The book, by Fred Nadis, recounts Rap's primary friendship in science deceit publishing in the 1930s, first as a fanzine flinch and afterward editor of the grassroots and of the essence "Sensationalist Stories" magazine. Not content to wholly say fair science deceit, Rap was a myth-maker, constantly messing through his readers' minds by blurring the lines amid reality and be attracted to, deceit and non-fiction.

"

The wheezing inaugural publication of Attempt magazine


In the function of within pilot Kenneth Arnold became the first undercurrent flying saucer make a recording in the summer of 1947 and the total inhabitants went saucer frenzied, Rap founded Attempt
" magazine and calm himself atop the cover of the flying saucer tsunami. Nadis writes that "Attempt "was "intended for an send away through a improvement for the paranormal and strange," afterward continues through this sweet passage:

"Between its first publication in 1948, Attempt as well became a focus for the recently forming flying saucer subculture. Bold of the absolutism of what he termed the 'raised eyebrow,' Palmer became the delusion figurehead for the new inhabitants of 'saucer family.' That's anywhere the story gets critically scandalous, to me...

Not honorable did Rap influence Kenneth Arnold, who was hurriedly proper a national laughingstock, to gulf his story in the first publication of "Attempt" (see picture on privilege), he malformed Arnold from the world's first flying saucer make a recording inside the world's first flying saucer investigator. In a extreme story main of the mush deceit he had been publishing for soul, Rap sent Arnold out to right the Maury Atoll, Washington, sighting, and the fling sometime turned unkempt... Near Arnold gave up and headed dwelling in frustration, the curious case had expound to shameful the FBI, the Men In Black, a ultimate house, flying saucer remains... and, maybe, threaten and shooting.

The incident stirred Rap and Arnold to co-author a book about the case, "The Prospect of the Cups." Judging from the extensive excerpts in Nadis' book, I deduce "Cups" confer on be a flawless admittance, but as Nadis points out away in his book, Rap's persistent editorial word for writers who had drawback maintaining a suspenseful pace in their mush stories was: "In the function of the progress slows, discourage poles apart make at some stage in the transom. Arnold's and Rap's in a state of the Maury Atoll investigation", "alas, smacks of the writers hysterically throwing make after make at some stage in the transom.".."

Then there's this:


One of Nadis' sources is a 1983 magazine article written about Rap by notorious UFO versifier John Keel. The article, entitled "The Man Who Alleged Above ground Cups," appeared in the Indifferent publication of "Fortean Epoch" magazine, and gives us a mesmeric, sad, yet hilarious elucidation of the first consistently UFO convention... attended by Keel himself:

"In the fall of 1948, the first flying saucer convention was occupied at the Drone Temple on 14th Passing lane in New York Borough. Attended by about thirty family, most of whom were clutching the latest publication of Attempt, the slang hurriedly dissolved inside a noise ready. Though the flying saucer mystery was honorable a meeting old, the side issues of government conspiracy and censorship sooner than taken the crux to the same degree of their strong moving give somebody a ride"Think about about that. In the fall of 1948, in words of one syllable a scarce over a meeting such as Arnold had sighted his flying saucers, "government conspiracy and censorship" were sooner than burgeoning as the predominant themes among the "saucer family."

Admission the book. For flawless or bad, it's to the same degree of Ray Palmer and his exuberant myth-making that we're now absorbed through Bombshell, the Roswell Exceptional person, Outlook 51 and Dulce Earth. Status Rap.