Monday, April 21, 2025

COSMIC DEBRIS: Return of the Nazi UFOs


A jam packed ad from Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, making use of Official UFO magazine's large format to list off several of his eye catching titles and flash art. Note the drift from UFO subject matter to straightforward Nazi conspiracism, part of Zundel's funnel scheme to promote his Hitlerism. Zundel outlined this strategy in an interview with Frank Miele for an article about Holocaust denial and freedom of speech in Skeptic magazine:
In a later phone conversation, Zundel told me that the UFO book was in fact a ploy. "I realized that North Americans were not interested in being educated. They want to be entertained. The book was for fun. With a picture of the Fuhrer on the cover and flying saucers coming out of Antarctica it was a chance to get on radio and TV talk shows. For about 15 minutes of an hour program I'd talk about that esoteric stuff. Then I would start talking about all those Jewish scientists in concentration camps, working on these secret weapons. And that was my chance to talk about what I wanted to talk about."

Zundel will dangle a reference to UFO's or the wisdom of the ancient Atlanteans. If it has no effect, he just moves on. If it elicits skepticism, he blows it off with a jovial "for whatever it's worth." Given our early conversation on the UFO book, I'm still not sure whether Zundel really believes any of this esoteric stuff or whether he's just learned how effective pushing hot buttons is in grabbing the media spotlight and perhaps bringing in donations. "It's a lot like operating a church" he explained. "We survive on donations."

It's worth noting that Miele himself is a former contributor to the scientific racist magazine Mankind Quarterly, and that being "skeptical" of UFOs does not necessarily correlate with rigor in regards to other pseudoscientific subjects.

From Official UFO magazine, Volume 1 - Number 6, February 1976. 

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