In spite of the publicity, the flying-saucer scare would probably have died with the first frost of autumn but for the efforts of a talented writer, editor, and publisher of science fiction, Raymond A. Palmer. Among the many letters Arnold received was one from Palmer, then editor of Amazing Stories. Tired of being laughed at, Arnold found the tone of “sincere interest” so appealing that he answered the letter[[II-2]]. After a second letter a week later, he changed his mind about keeping silent and agreed to sell his story for publication.
Under the title, “I Did See the Flying Disks,” the article appeared in the first issue of a new magazine, Fate, which published “true stories of the strange, the unusual, the unknown.”[[II-3]] Although Arnold was not a professional writer, he had the assistance of an expert and produced a vivid, clearly written story—Palmer had had unusual experience in helping fledgling authors tell their tales. Interesting differences between Arnold’s original statements and those in the magazine version demonstrate how much he must have owed to editorial help. Without it, he might not have included certain colorful details that he had apparently overlooked earlier. In his original reports, for example, he said that he had at first supposed the disks to be some type of experimental aircraft; in the magazine version he added that, even at the time, the objects had given him “an eerie feeling.” In the intervening months he had also remembered more about their shape (see [Figure 2]). He no longer described them as saucerlike, flat and shiny like piepans. Instead, a drawing based on his revised account shows an object like the crescent moon with a sharp protrusion on the inner, concave side and a dark, mottled circle marking the center of the top surface. Furthermore, he told the readers of Fate, one object had been darker than the others and of a slightly different form—a detail he had forgotten to mention to reporters, to military officials, to his friends, or even to his wife.
Arnold had never been much of a reader and was not a science-fiction fan, but his interests were obviously widening. The next two issues of Fate carried other articles under his name. Palmer’s growing influence is suggested by the titles: “Are Space Visitors Here?”[[II-4]] and “Phantom Lights of Nevada.”[[II-5]]
Figure 2. Arnold’s flying saucers. Left, as first described; right, as later sketched.
The Great Shaver Mystery
Ray Palmer lays claim to being “the first flying saucer investigator”[II-6], although he frankly admits his debt to the writings of Charles Fort. Any full account of the saucer era must include the names of other enthusiasts such as Adamski, Bethurum, Scully, Cramp, Keyhoe, Jessup, Michel, and Wilkins, but none merits so much credit for keeping the saucers flying as does Palmer. He not only opened the pages of his magazines to the first saucer reports but also, in the beginning, paid the witnesses for their stories.
In 1947 Palmer was the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, two of the great magazines of science fiction in which stories of spaceships and interplanetary travel have long been commonplace. For several years he had been hinting to readers of these magazines that alien spaceships might actually be cruising in our skies, but Fate was the first magazine that seriously promoted the idea. No man was better qualified to glimpse the dramatic possibilities of flying saucers. Born in Wisconsin in 1910, Palmer had begun reading Amazing Stories soon after it started publication in 1926. Turning to writing, he showed the remarkable persistence that has characterized his life. Although he received 100 rejections before he sold his second story, he stubbornly kept on until he not only achieved success as an author but also, in 1938, became managing editor of Amazing Stories for the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Under Palmer’s guidance, “... the entertainment side of science fiction took over.... Gone were the ponderous styles, the verbiage, the highly technical explanations of what mattered little in the first place. The stories took on pace and excitement, the characters in them were faced with human problems, the dialogue was realistic....”[[II-7]]
Alert to the tastes of his readers, Palmer carried the magazine to new heights. Many science-fiction fans (including the present authors) still remember that golden age around 1940 when Amazing came out every month with 146 pages full of startling, fantastic, wonderful stories of how life might be on other worlds and in other galaxies.
In January 1944 began the publishing drama that for a time changed the direction of Amazing and heralded the advent of flying saucers. The “Discussions” department that month included a letter captioned “An Ancient Language?” which introduced what came to be known both as the Great Shaver Mystery and the Great Shaver Hoax. Signed “S. Shaver,” the letter began: