The extraterrestrial, interdimensional, and cryptoterrestrial hypotheses were all being debated before 1947 in the pages of pulp science fiction magazines as part of the Shaver Mystery
The extraterrestrial, interdimensional, and cryptoterrestrial hypotheses were all being debated in pulp magazines months before Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting as part of a weird episode in science fiction called the Shaver Mystery.
Most people assume the modern UFO phenomenon started with Kenneth Arnold in June 1947 or Roswell a couple of weeks later. I’ve spent the last year going through my collection of original Amazing Stories magazines from 1945-1948 issue by issue, and although I’ve always been familiar with the Shaver Mystery in general, what I’ve found has genuinely surprised me.
In 1943, a Pennsylvania welder named Richard Shaver contacted Amazing Stories claiming he was receiving transmissions from an ancient race living beneath the earth. He wasn’t submitting his story as fiction. He believed every word. The magazine’s editor, Ray Palmer, began publishing Shaver’s accounts in a way that deliberately blurred the line between fact and fiction. Shaver described an Elder Race that had built vast subterranean cities, developed advanced technology, and eventually fled to the stars. But some remained behind underground. And the ones who left were still down there with their technology intact. Essentially a subterranean cryptoterrestrial civilization.
By 1945, readers were writing in with their own reports Of encounters with mysterious beings underground and also strange phenomena in the sky. Beyond Foo fighters or ghost rockets like you might expect during this period. Anomalous aerial objects witnessed during military service. Strange luminous phenomena observed at sea. Objects emerging from water. A professional diver described recovering an anomalous craft from the ocean floor that was subsequently destroyed under mysterious circumstances. Another reader reported his car stalling on the highway with a UFO nearby. These stories were very similar to what would become typical UFO accounts in the coming decades.
All of this was appearing in Amazing Stories well before anyone had heard the term flying saucer. It was being framed as Shaver’s Elder Race returning from the stars and traveling back and forth between the subterranean caves.
Meanwhile, a small occult research group in California led by Meade Layne called the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation was following the Shaver Mystery and pushing back against Palmer’s physical interpretation. Their argument was that the phenomena was absolutely real, but the beings were interdimensional, not extraterrestrial. They debated this publicly across two publications throughout 1946, a full year before Arnold’s sighting.
And through Palmer’s network, contributors were already describing circular flying craft with technical specifications, government secrecy, and ancient civilizations preserved under Antarctic ice, with connections to Admiral Byrd’s Operation High Jump that was taking place at that time.
By the time Arnold made his famous sighting, virtually every component of the modern UFO phenomenon was already in print. Anomalous craft, crash retrievals, underground bases, government awareness, and all three major interpretive hypotheses. I’ve written an article on this for The Pulpster and presented a paper at the Popular Culture Association conference last month. I also made a two-part video going through this material in detail using the original magazines from my collection for those interested in a deeper dive:
I think it is fascinating that there was already a discourse community discussing some of the same explanations for the phenomenon in the mid-1940s even before the term flying saucer had been coined.
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The extraterrestrial, interdimensional, and cryptoterrestrial hypotheses were all being debated in pulp magazines months before Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting as part of a weird episode in science fiction called the Shaver Mystery.
Most people assume the modern UFO phenomenon started with Kenneth Arnold in June 1947 or Roswell a couple of weeks later. I’ve spent the last year going through my collection of original Amazing Stories magazines from 1945-1948 issue by issue, and although I’ve always been familiar with the Shaver Mystery in general, what I’ve found has genuinely surprised me.
In 1943, a Pennsylvania welder named Richard Shaver contacted Amazing Stories claiming he was receiving transmissions from an ancient race living beneath the earth. He wasn’t submitting his story as fiction. He believed every word. The magazine’s editor, Ray Palmer, began publishing Shaver’s accounts in a way that deliberately blurred the line between fact and fiction. Shaver described an Elder Race that had built vast subterranean cities, developed advanced technology, and eventually fled to the stars. But some remained behind underground. And the ones who left were still down there with their technology intact. Essentially a subterranean cryptoterrestrial civilization.
By 1945, readers were writing in with their own reports Of encounters with mysterious beings underground and also strange phenomena in the sky. Beyond Foo fighters or ghost rockets like you might expect during this period. Anomalous aerial objects witnessed during military service. Strange luminous phenomena observed at sea. Objects emerging from water. A professional diver described recovering an anomalous craft from the ocean floor that was subsequently destroyed under mysterious circumstances. Another reader reported his car stalling on the highway with a UFO nearby. These stories were very similar to what would become typical UFO accounts in the coming decades.
All of this was appearing in Amazing Stories well before anyone had heard the term flying saucer. It was being framed as Shaver’s Elder Race returning from the stars and traveling back and forth between the subterranean caves.
Meanwhile, a small occult research group in California led by Meade Layne called the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation was following the Shaver Mystery and pushing back against Palmer’s physical interpretation. Their argument was that the phenomena was absolutely real, but the beings were interdimensional, not extraterrestrial. They debated this publicly across two publications throughout 1946, a full year before Arnold’s sighting.
And through Palmer’s network, contributors were already describing circular flying craft with technical specifications, government secrecy, and ancient civilizations preserved under Antarctic ice, with connections to Admiral Byrd’s Operation High Jump that was taking place at that time.
By the time Arnold made his famous sighting, virtually every component of the modern UFO phenomenon was already in print. Anomalous craft, crash retrievals, underground bases, government awareness, and all three major interpretive hypotheses. I’ve written an article on this for The Pulpster and presented a paper at the Popular Culture Association conference last month. I also made a two-part video going through this material in detail using the original magazines from my collection for those interested in a deeper dive:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/H8mXpJQXzqs?si=_ot1VwS35l9qnNSh
Part 2:
https://youtu.be/FRHOj4-_kAM?si=Cu0AqUZq0fAOZh3e
I think it is fascinating that there was already a discourse community discussing some of the same explanations for the phenomenon in the mid-1940s even before the term flying saucer had been coined.