NEW UFO BREAKTHROUGH by Brad Steiger and Joan Whritenour

Brad Steiger and partner in crime Joan Whritenour deliver a tight little text, presenting the more conspiratorial side of Ufology circa 1968 as a NEW UFO BREAKTHROUGH!

The main threads entwined are Gray Barker's Men in Black, Carl Allen (alias Carlos Allende) and his Philadelphia Experiment, and the sinister Shaver Mystery, with additional color provided by Brinsley Le Poer Trench's hippy dippy Sky People and those dear old Dropa Stones. Brad and Joan highlight more than a few people who were threatened or silenced for their attempts at UFO truth, including Carl Allen, Ufologist Morris K. Jessup, and superstar writer of the "Strange" Frank Edwards. Something strange is definitely going on ... Shaver's deadly Deros almost got to me today, and prevented this update entirely! Allen said that the lack of evidence for his teleportation story was actually proof of the Navy's coverup, naturally, while Jessup's death by suicide was really a hit job because he was getting too close to the truth. Ditto for Frank Edwards' death by heart attack. Edwards himself claimed that government pressure forced sponsors to drop his successful radio show after he began focusing on UFOs. Interestingly enough editor Ray Palmer, who popularized the Shaver Mystery as a true story and stands as one of the major figures on the darker side of Ufology, tells Steiger and Whritenour that he doesn't believe in the mysterious Men in Black, having been visited many times by government agents who were always upfront with their credentials! John Keel rails against Ufology's failures in the face of government stonewalling, claiming that he's been two steps behind the MiB multiple times while chasing UFOs.

Barker, Allen, Jessup, and Keel

After outlining the sinister saucer silencers and their brave critics, Steiger and Whritenour quote one Bob Stiff, reporting staff at Whritenour's Florida based UFO newsletter Saucer Scoop, on the "tragic case" of one Mary R., a young Oklahoma girl terrified into catatonia by a UFO sighting. Her mother then receives threatening calls from the silencers! Stiff gets too close to the case and ends up threatened himself! High drama and high strangeness, as twisted as anything penned by Gray Barker or John Keel.

The authors wrangle Wilhelm Reich and his bogus Orgone energy into their UFO coverup based on his arrest by the FBI and his later troubles with the FDA. The FBI claims mistaken identity, saying they only took him in because they mixed him up with a communist bookstore owner with the same name. Glad that's cleared up! The authors tread on dangerous ground defending Reich against charges of sexual impropriety, casting him as a liberated genius striving to better humanity ... an alternate view might be that he was a sex creep cultist using "liberation" as a cover for abuse. For a slim little volume, Steiger and Whritenour pack in a lot of dense material, and pulling a single thread can lead down a dangerous number of rat holes.

Co-author Joan Whritenour (1937-2014)

More saucer attacks follow, including Snippy the horse, with quotations from NICAP and more reporting from Bob Stiff. Next, the Dropa Stones are dusted off to support ancient UFO visitations, along with those fake quotes about nuclear war from the Mahabharata. The authors are kind enough to explicitly cite Paulwels and Bergier, as opposed to von Daniken who simply plagiarized their groundbreaking work. Some great Bigfoot/UFO cases follow including the Florida Sandman that Steiger and Warren Smith use in some of their other books. We get into some truly weird Biblical interpretation courtesy Brinsley Le Poer Trench, who decodes Genesis as a creation story for galactic humanity. The destruction of Atlantis and Velikovsky's catastrophism tie in too, as does Olaf Jansen's The Smoky God, another story of the inner earth a la Shaver. This is another bit that Steiger (and Smith) would recycle many, many times. 

We're getting towards the end, and Steiger and Whritenour toss in a random chapter on alchemy to fill things out, with a dialogue between the authors and an invented alchemist character, Augustus Magnus. Weird. Joan Whritenour finishes with a chapter on "psy-war" and the "mental rape" some contactees are experiencing via voices from the void. Whritenour joins with John Keel and Jacques Vallee in doubting these experiences are extraterrestrial at all, and fears that someone very earthly is planning something sinister ...

Above, a 1974 edition by Tandem for the UK. What a grueling grind! Compelling but draining, pure nonsense but skillfully arranged, Steiger and Whritenour at the top of their game. Recommended for a window into the vintage dark side of Ufology.

New UFO Breakthrough is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Award Books, 1968

FLYING SAUCERS ARE WATCHING US by Otto O. Binder

Pulp writer and "renowned UFO and space expert" Otto Binder returns to us with a blockbusting nonfiction treatise, fully documented of course by "widely respected scientists" and proof positive that FLYING SAUCERS ARE WATCHING US! This is ancient astronaut pulp fiction all the way, with Binder spinning off from every conceivable angle of UFOlogy to cobble together his epic tale of ancient space brothers and their grand plan for humanity. He warns that scientists will undoubtedly scoff at this bold proposition, but Binder appeals to Galileo and the power of honest inquiry against dogma. This is straight out of von Daniken's playbook, and Binder even brings in another Ancient Astronaut writer, one Max H. Flindt, to shore up his side. It's some slick showmanship from the canny writer. As for the hard evidence ...

Would you believe, contactees George Adamski and Howard Menger? How about the Mothman and the Men in Black? Yes it's that same old midcentury saucer stew, reheated for the umpteenth time by a writer who needed the money. We have to wade through some pretty dense verbiage before we realize we've been had, again! We've seen this all before and only Binder's skill as a writer keeps it hanging together, barely.

Otto Binder (1911-1974)

Those fabulous (and fake) Dropa Stones make an appearance, as does Ezekiel's wheel and a gaggle of OOP Artifacts, plus the specter of alien pyramids across the world. In fact, pretty much every ancient megalithic site is named by Binder as having been constructed by ancient aliens, including Stonehenge, Great Zimbabwe, and the Great Cahokia Mound. Binder even slips in the Coral Castle of unincorporated Miami-Dade County, FL as an obvious example of extraterrestrial engineering! Biblical giants are connected to Bigfoot, who's connected to UFOs via strange sightings from around the world. Hairy dwarfs get in on the action too, including those vicious buggers from Venezuela (will we never be rid of them?) and wouldn't you know it, Antonio Villas-Boas and his afternoon delight is proof of the aliens' breeding program of which perhaps Bigfoot and the dwarfs are alternate products. You can't call Binder lazy, as he pulls any thread he can including Carl Sagan's openminded musings on ancient ET contact, and various science texts about outer space which are used as launch pads for the goofy stuff. Atlantis was an ancient star base, the Bimini Road a runway, and Charles Fort's weird skyfalls were alien scientists taking out the trash! Don't forget Betty and Barney Hill, Edgar Cayce, and Snippy the Horse! The case of Australian abductee Marlene Travers would ultimately fizzle out, but no matter for Binder, she's in here too, as is the mysterious planet Vulcan.

The endgame for these alien architects? Binder is fair enough to include some Christian perspectives that see the saucers as demon chariots, but he himself is firmly convinced that our space brothers come in peace, to uplift us into the galactic federation. Soon, Earthmen (what about the women, Otto?) will be able to "hop into flying saucers and take vacations on Mars, Jupiter, or Tau Ceti and Beta Sirius!" We'll become "galactipolitan" citizens of the universe, and a new Golden Age will dawn. Binder's not naive, and knows "perfection is indubitably unknown anywhere in this universe" and that "there'll be thorns in this bed of cosmic roses" but, ultimately, the coming of the saucers is cause for rejoicing. Binder had lost his daughter in 1967 and faced the bankruptcy of his magazine Space World, so perhaps the space brothers were a balm for him in dark times. Sadly, Binder passed away in 1974, long before any of his galactic dreams could come true. Que sera, sera.

Flying Saucers Are Watching Us is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Belmont Tower Books, 1970 (original pub. 1968)

OPERATION EARTH by Brinsley Le Poer Trench

Once again, author Brinsley Le Poer Trench wants to make it plain: gotta make way for the Homo superior! As an arch-reactionary hippie, Trench sees the New Age as an opportunity to open our minds to our lost heritage as children of the spacemen, and he links this awakening to an ancient war between the benevolent Space Brothers and malevolent imposters from beneath the Earth. Everything from the Bermuda Triangle to the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, from Atlantis to Antonio Villas-Boas, is cited as evidence in his melding of the Shaver Mystery with classic Contactee cant.

Trench is logical within the confines of the subject matter, studiously documenting his connections with an extensive bibliography. That his thesis is irrevocably cracked is only natural considering the eclectic personalities involved with the clique behind the Flying Saucer Review.

Operation Earth is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Tandem Books, 1975 (original pub. 1969)

COSMIC DEBRIS: The Illustrated Man in Black

Author Albert K. Bender drew this sketch after an eerie encounter in 1953 with a trio of well dressed inhumanoids ... but that is a story for another time. Dig the iconic sunburst effect this fellow has stolen from Our Lady of Guadalupe!

From Flying Saucers and the Three Men, by Albert K. Bender with Gray Barker. Courtesy the Paperback Library, 1968 (original pub. 1962).