ALLIGATOR by Shelley Katz

"Don't go," Luke said, "listen to me." His voice echoed in the quiet. Same had never heard three hundred people be that quiet. "I've lived a long time. I know the swamps better than any of you. You don't stand a chance against that alligator. He's too old and too tough. Nature is on his side, not yours. Take my advice, stay here where you belong. Stop now while you can. Don't you see? I can feel it. That ain't no gator you're courting. It's death."

Two gator poachers don't make it home after tangling with a 20 foot monster alligator. What's left of them sends the town of Glades, Florida into a panic and then a frenzy, as word travels and the outside world comes crashing in with rubberneckers galore and a select few men who aim to kill the beast. One of them is local boy made good Rye Whitman, now a high powered Miami real estate dealer, his own kind of apex predator. But if he's to survive the treacherous swamplands, he'll need local guide Lee Ferris. Lee made it out of Glades too ... to Vietnam. The things he did there followed him back to Glades, and he doesn't have much use for people in general. A shark like Whitman? Even less so ... Except something is drawing them together, into this doomed, mythical quest to kill the alligator, and they'll need all of Lee's bushcraft and Rye's animal cunning if they're both to survive. But after everything the everglades throws at them, they might not care.

There's strong writing here, with plenty of rich characterizations, pungent Southern melodrama, and a sense of fun that's often missing from so-called "elevated" or literary horror (dig that jello!) but Alligator also suffers from a slack middle and a monster star that's MIA for too much of the story! Katz even loads us up with a convoy of gator bait following leads Lee and Rye into the death glades, but then lets most of them off easy as they each eventually turn tail from the challenge. The bodycount is frustratingly low. Even so, you'll be carried along with Lee and Rye through an onslaught of stinging, biting insects, the burning sun, cutting sawgrass that grows 6 feet high, and always the stinking, sucking waters of the swamp  - Katz does a knockout job on the setting, both the rotting shithole town and the endless, trackless green hell beyond.

Alligator must have made a big splash, because there's multiple foreign editions. The Sphere editions are co-credited to husband Paul. There's also a handsome reprint from Centipede Press which came out last year, limited to 500 copies at $125 a pop - but only $95 if you're okay with an unsigned copy!

Variations on a theme ...

Shelley Katz is still writing today at her blog, and also recently edited a "crowd writing" collection of true stories from real people.

Our author

The cover on the classic Dell paperback looks like it should be a stepback, but it isn't, though the scales are embossed for a cool texture effect. The full gorgeous painting is confined to the back cover. 

Alligator still gets good reviews nowadays (note that this reviewer also mentions pacing issues), and its inclusion on a top ten list by David Foster Wallace may prejudice you one way or the other. Don't worry about that! For its fear-soaked atmosphere and sweaty Southern melodrama, Alligator earns a solid 3/4 stars.

Dell Publishing, 1977

COSMIC DEBRIS: The Hitler Cult Revealed!

Another ad in Fate from Holocaust denier/neonazi Ernst Zundel, here smuggling esoteric nazism to readers with the eye catching line THE HITLER CULT REVEALED! Zundel plays things cool with his ad copy, talking of Hitler's "manic" will to power and promising an expose on the "tangled roots" of nazism, but he tips his hand when he promises that "the clouds of evil [will] scatter under the lightning of Cosmic Justice and the son of Cosmic Truth" - that son is Hitler, baby! Zundel's subject Savitri Devi was one of the prime wellsprings of post-war esoteric nazism. In her book advertised here, The Lightning and the Sun, she claims Hitler to be an incarnation of Vishnu (!) and blends Hitlerism with Hindu cosmology. Just as with the UFO subject, Zundel saw this kooky approach as a perfect moneymaking opportunity to fund his Holocaust denial:

She was the first person to tell Zündel of her claim that the Nazi genocide of the Jews was untrue; he proposed a series of taped interviews (conducted in November 1978) and published a new illustrated edition of The Lightning and the Sun in 1979.

If you see modern online nazis making irreverent memes about the Kali Yuga, they got it from Savitri Devi. She also wrote an "autobiography" of two of her cats, just like that ol' fraud Lobsang Rampa. Hers was titled Long-Whiskers and the Two-Legged Goddess, or The True Story of a "Most Objectionable Nazi" and... half-a-dozen Cats. Minor points to Rampa for not heiling Hitler in his goofy cat story ...

No contest

Typical of Zundel's overheated spiel, Savitri Devi wasn't Hitler's personal guru as might be taken from the ad, but she did work for the Axis in WWII and was in contact postwar with the nazi underground and notable scumbags like Otto Skorzeny. She passed away not too long after this ad, in 1982 at the age of 77. Rest in piss, you nazi bitch!

From Fate, Volume 33 - Number 02, February 1980.

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE CALENDAR: October 1975

Picking up where we left off some years ago, here's the Bermuda Triangle Calendar entry for October 1975! This month yields a handful of minor league mysteries like the Freya and Columbus' "strange light" that will be familiar to dedicated Triangle heads. Kusche had some fun with the Freya in his The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved on account of that doomed vessel actually being lost and found in the Pacific!

Musicians Stefano DiCarlo and Mauro Ruvolo named a track for the Freya on their 1992 Deep House EP The Bermuda Triangle:

Lawrence David Kusche, 1974

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!

Finders Keepers is available to read and download at archive dot org.

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).