FINDERS KEEPERS by Warren Smith

Another anonymous diver worked the American, Feather, and Yuba rivers in the heart of the California Mother Lode country. Fourteen thousand dollars in rich nuggets and flake gold was popped out of these streams during clandestine weekend forays. "The guy even had his wife and kids helping out," laughed Stillson. "His name? Wouldn't Uncle Sam's income tax boys like to know?"

Our man Warren Smith put together this slick little treasure hunting guide, aimed straight at the dark heart of midcentury suburban dads dreaming of easy money. The table of contents lays it out: first is a section of real life finds like the $50,000 in "Spanish treasure" found off the coast of Florida by one Jack Steffney and friends:

This AP clipping is from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 

November 1966, though for some reason Smith dates

the story to February of 1967, his year of publication. 

These early chapters are meant to whet our appetite for treasure, and Smith follows them with the second section of the book, how-to chapters on various types of treasure hunting: gold dredging, salvage diving, metal detecting, and even guided expeditions - this last option being a little bit more than a weekend lark, as Smith even titles this chapter "The Man Who Brings You Back Alive!" - that man being Ray Dorr, of Coronado Expeditions, who takes paying guests into the wastes of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico for $50 a day on the promise of big strikes. Dorr says the cost is worth it, as he knows the country and the people, and that without his guidance "the average American insults the rural Mexican [even] by the way he shakes his hand!" Smith lists off some manufacturers of treasure gadgets in their appropriate chapters. Gold dredge manufacturers include:

Western Sports, 3030 East 15th St., Spokane, Wash.

Gold Divers, 3534 Rosecrans Avenue, Hawthorne, Calif.

Keene Engineering Company, 11483 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, Calif.

While metal detecting companies include:

Fisher Research Laboratory, 1975 University Avenue, Palo Alto, Calif.

Underground Explorations, Box 793, Menlo Park, Calif.

The Goldak Company, 1544 West Glenoaks Blvd., Glendale, Calif.

Rayscope Company, P.O. Box 715, North Hollywood, Calif.

Gardiner Eectronics [sic] Co., 4729 North 7th Avenue, Phoenix, Ariz.

Art Howe and Company, 811 Kansas Avenue, Atchison, Kans.

John Green, 337 First Parish Road, Sciture, Mass.

D-Tex Electronics, 3326 Broadway, Garland, Texas.

White's Electronics, 1218 Main St., Sweet Home, Ore.

Relco Company, Box 10563, Houston, Texas.

Karl Von Mueller, Examino, Weeping Water, Nebraska.

Smith also advises readers to write Mr. von Mueller for a copy of his Examino Express, a metal detecting newspaper. Metal detecting takes up a lot of space in this section, and for good reason: it's the most accessible kind of treasure hunting, done as Smith says on weekends or short vacations, in parks, beaches, or even your own backyard! Smith also recommends dragooning your wife and kids into treasure trips! There are some great vintage ads for metal detectors compiled in a thread on the Detector Prospector forum:

Plus, a treasure hunting funny:

Fate magazine also sometimes featured ads for metal detectors, an example of the crossover in self-help/get-rich-quick ideas and the paranormal/occult field. The ad below looks to be for some kind of dowsing rod device, which means your mileage may vary if you want something that actually works as advertised!

From the December 1975 issue of Fate

Cheapie publisher Belmont Books let a few typos slip through here and there, including "mind" for "mine" (as in an army surplus mine sweeper, which Smith advises is a poor investment!) on page 37. They and author Smith were assembling pure product here, and after his how-to section Smith pads the book's third section with his patented quick shot stories, which make up a full 2/3 of the text! These stories just happen to be about treasure hunting instead of his usual paranormal mix, and are framed as potential fortunes to be found by the reader. Oddly enough, the classic Oak Island Money Pit doesn't make it into the text, though we do get an unsettling chapter on hunting pandas:

We also get prices for baby elephants, tigers, zebras, camels and more ... talk about a different time! This chapter also showcases another editing gaffe, wherein Smith doesn't introduce the Englishman who gives some obviously made-up line about the "bloody big" panda mating operation. Later on page 135 the steamer ship Goliath typos as "Goliah" several times. After this big chunk of treasure tales Smith ends with a list of additional potential finds state by state, and then an index for each state's treasures. Some of the entries are a little thin: in South Carolina, we're told, gold panners have reported "good color" in "streams along the border of North and South Carolina." Thanks, Warren! 

Nevertheless, I have to credit Smith in one regard: all of his entries appear to cite true events, rumors, and legends. That is to say, he doesn't appear to have manufactured any of these treasures out of thin air, even if some of them might truly be phantoms, and others exaggerations - maybe that's why he left out Oak Island this time around, as it's such a nonstarter for real treasure hunting. The tales Smith did include are all good enough for his purposes: that we want to believe we might be one of the lucky ones, that we might find one of these lost treasures and strike it rich. Whether or not we even ever pick up a metal detector, or simply daydream in our easy chair about a million dollar windfall, we paid the 60 cent cover price!

Belmont Books, 1967

COSMIC DEBRIS: Chili, Dandruff, and Flying Saucers

Here's another couple of ads from the May, 1959 issue of Fate magazine, starting off with former editor Ray Palmer's offer for some delicious homemade chili and his new Flying Saucers magazine - he'd left Fate in 1953 and would found other publications like this and Mystic (which was eventually renamed Search). Palmer also pops up with an ad for some hair dye/dandruff reducer by one Guy L. Turner called, believe it or not, Turn-er's!

Ray Palmer and his luscious locks

I'm not sure what exactly Palmer's relationship was with Turner's outfit, but he claims to be a client, at least!

Elsewhere in the issue is an ad for Palmer's other magazine Mystic/Search. And right below that is a very interesting looking book, Flying Saucer Pilgrimage!

It's a road trip overview of the '50s contactees scene, covering all the big names. This tome is available to read and download at archive dot org along with issues of Mystic/Search and Flying Saucers. Below Pilgrimage is an ad for a real mystical blockbuster, Other Tongues, Other Flesh, by contactee gadfly and raconteur George Hunt Williamson. Williamson was introduced to the murky world of the '50s contactees by the fascist/antisemite William Dudley Pelley but would soon forge his own peculiar path as a chronicler of deep time and the secret plans of our space brothers. His book is free to read at sacred texts dot com.

That's three huge flying saucer sources in one little ad bar, with rat holes aplenty to get lost down! As linked before, this May, 1959 issue of Fate is available to read and download at archive dot org.

EDIT: anon commented below that Palmer was using Williams brand chili seasoning, as named in this ad from the May 1959 issue of his Flying Saucers magazine:

Williams has since been gobbled up by a faceless investment firm, but we still have the vintage designs to reflect on:

Playing cards!

And 5 pounds of seasoning! Wondering how much Palmer made off of
parcelling one of these babies out into foil packets?

The full May 1959 issue of Flying Saucers is available to read and download at the ever dependable archive dot org. Thanks, anon!

MAPS OF THE UNKNOWN: Land of the Nude Lamas

ARE NUDE TIBETAN LAMAS THE MONSTROUS ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN OF THE HIMALAYAS? Holy cannoli, what a headline from the May, 1959 issue of Fate magazine! The story comes from one Father Franz Eichinger, a far east missionary who was visiting a tribe of "Shavrong nomads" on a medical mission in the mountains of Qinghai when he met a strange holy man. The mysterious man had set up camp next door in a "torn, ragged flax tent" ... and emerged the next morning almost totally nude, seeming to have no issue with the brutal subzero temps that had Eichinger and his local hosts shivering in thick furs! Eichinger's hosts told him the holy man normally went completely nude, but wore a thin cloth for modesty when visiting people. The fascinated Eichinger got a photo, with a caveat:

Eichinger's hosts explained further that there was a whole class of Nude Lamas who wandered the mountains, sleeping in caves and surviving without furs or shelters. Sometimes they would briefly visit nomad camps to perform healings. Eichinger theorized that sightings of the Nude Lamas may account for tales of Abominable Snowmen, with their long unkempt hair, tanned bodies, and sometimes shocking, sudden appearances in hostile terrain. He noted that the wandering holy men are fully human nonetheless, though possessed of uncanny powers of survival. Eichinger reached a bit when he claimed that the footprints of the Nude Lamas' might somehow melt and refreeze to appear larger than they originally were, accounting for Yeti footprints ... I don't know about that part, man!

Fate follows Eichinger's story with a 10 page excerpt from influential orientalist/explorer Alexandra David-Neel's book Magic and Mystery in Tibet (original pub 1932), explicating some of the mystical concepts behind the Nude Lamas' hardiness in subzero climes - it all boils down to an inner fire produced through the spiritual practice of tumo (or tummo).

Fate titled David-Neel's excerpt as a riposte to Eichinger's account, but it's really just a deeper exploration of the phenomenon and doesn't mention the Yeti at all. The full text of Magic and Mystery in Tibet is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)

Different editions of Magic and Mystery in Tibet

Later in the issue we get a two page spread for Magic and Mystery from the Mystic Arts Book Club:

Along with David-Neel's Magic and Mystery, the full May 1959 issue of Fate is also available to read and download at archive dot org. A look at the table of contents gives us a good time capsule of occult and paranormal thinking ... as does the cover price of 35 cents:

COVER UPDATES: THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE MYSTERY - SOLVED

A handsome reprint of Lawrence David Kusche's magnum opus from the titans of pulp at the New English Library. 

Dig the full page ads for a twofer of WWII merchant marine tales from authors Paul Lund and Harry Ludlum, plus a corker of a back page selection including The Rats, Carrie, and a little paranormal thriller called Thin Air ... more about that last title some other time ...

This copy also yielded a coupon for 42 cents off a bacon cheeseburger sandwich from Hardee's, valid only at the Manitowoc and Two Rivers locations! Turns out those towns are in Wisconsin, and neither location is extant - which is fine, because the offer expired February 15, 1987!

Around the world and through the decades! Courtesy the New English Library, 1981 (original pub. 1975).

THE FLYING SAUCERERS by Arthur Shuttlewood

Arthur Shuttlewood: BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF 'THE WARMINSTER MYSTERY!' If that blurb meant anything at all to you in 1976, you'd be snapping this book right off the rack. The Warminster mystery concerned strange earth sounds heard in 1965 (said to knock birds right out of the sky!) which developed over the years into UFO sightings and photos of varying provenance. 

One photograph of the Thing ...

... and its location in the UK

Arthur Shuttlewood was a local journalist in the small town of Warminster who soon became entranced by the mysterious happenings of the Thing, as the mystery was eponymously dubbed. A series of books followed, and eventually Shuttlewood was fully enveloped in the '70s British UFO scene, dominated as it was by the muddled mysticism of the fascists behind The Flying Saucer Review. This current title is a melange of mystic mumbo jumbo that starts with a soft pedal as Shuttlewood goes over some regular British folk and their UFO sightings:

The bold cover art promises space aged revelations, with a pair of cutting edge F-104 Starfighters engaging a saucer. But soon enough Shuttlewood is delivering the standard mystic saucer stew, citing Brinsley le Poer Trench and Otto Binder for musings on ancient astronauts and their genetic plan for humanity, and quickly blending in hollow earth and polar openings with nary a hesitation. Shuttlewood name checks Kiwi pilot Bruce Cathie and his world energy grid alongside ley lines and supposed ancient Celtic nuclear piles, as he swerves into pyramid power and dense bouts of numerology. Says Shuttlewood:

My own belief is that the great pyramid is a multi-dimensional space-time condenser, the four-triad group of a veritable powerhouse in which every dimensional form of life in the whole universe could, if so deciding, converge and converse by pure mental communication.

There's a WWII sighting of an "egg shaped craft" by Polish fighter Antoni Szachnowski and mention of foo fighters, which sound like the typical nuts'n'bolts American stuff, and then suddenly Shuttlewood is dropping his favorite mystic numerology volume, The Seal of God by one F.C. Payne. Payne's work inspired Shuttlewood to investigate recent history for signs of divine guidance:

The six leaders whose nations were involved in the biggest show of hostilities in the history of mankind were: Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt, Il Duce, Stalin, and Tojo. Take the initial letters of these names and what have we? Spell it out loud and clear, for it was and is so true! We have C-H-R-I-S-T!

Come page 83 Shuttlewood's quoting a crank letter he got from one Muriel Barker of Southend-on-Sea, which cites his colleague Brinsley le Poer Trench on the fact of Jesus Christ flying a UFO from Gethsemane to Glastonbury, where the Son of God inspires the legend of King Arthur! It's so British it hurts at times, especially with time capsule passages like: "Not many admirers know that vivacious Adrienne Posta, well-known actress and comedienne, saw a UFO on Monday 24 January 1972 at Cambridge Square, London." You're right, I didn't know that!

Ms. Posta looking glam

Shuttlewood's friend and former Warminster nurseryman Jack Harraway sends him translations of Spanish newspaper articles on UFOs, for an informative chapter which is also another time capsule piece, as Harraway is living in Alicante, Spain while serving on the executive committee for the National Farmers' Union in the Common Market. Further Britishisms follow as Shuttlewood quotes UFO witness Ray P. Logan, who hypothesizes that the flying sorcerers (as Shuttlewood's been calling them throughout) are avoiding direct contact with us in the same manner that we'd avoid waltzing right into the gorillas' enclosure at London Zoo, and that they're feeling us out through observation “very much as Dave Sexton, manager of Chelsea FC, will send scouts to watch another team’s style of soccer play before planning his tactics in a coming match.” Shuttlewood references John Keel and Robert Charroux for more ultraterrestrial meddling in ancient mysteries, before relating a strange experience with two college students named Micah and Joeb who demonstrated strange powers on a train - the weirdest part is that Shuttlewood separately receives an account by another experiencer, Marion, who met the same boys!

Shuttlewood relaxing with a cuppa ...

... and in the field (left), pointing out a
UFO location for the Marquis of Bath

The author's approach is summed up near the end, when he asks us, “Astrology, Numerology, Symbology: Have these abstract or long-forgotten arts any contribution to make towards slotting the UFO jigsaw pieces together?” The final chapter features some intense numerology, and at this point you're either vibing with Shuttlewood or you've written him off entirely.

Grand old UFO man Hilary Evans made his appraisement clear in his essential annotated UFO catalogue:

Right before his numerological rally, Shuttlewood drops a final anecdote about one Randy Otter's "zoo hypothesis" printed as an article in the Post Office Courier, which is reheated from Charles Fort's terse observation that "we are property." The Space Age calls out to the Golden Age with the musty archives of generations between, and Shuttlewood rallies round the maypole alongside Trench, Holiday, and the rest of the British mystic brigade.

Sphere Books, 1976