Houdini on the Meaning of Flying Saucers

A warning from beyond the grave about UFOs.

Joseph Dunninger had been waiting for decades for a message from his departed friend, magician Harry Houdini. 

Brownwood Bulletin Oct.14, 1952

Psychic Henry C. Roberts was making a name for himself as an expert on Nostradamus and his prophecies. This time, Roberts had a message for the world from another source, and he urged Dunninger broadcast it to the the world. He had been contacted by the spirit of Houdini, who told him that the flying saucers were a warning for mankind. 

Houdini, like the aliens Xeglon, Klaatu and Orthon, carried a message for the Earth:

Stop your wars and atomic bombs or be destroyed.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (Lubbock, Texas) Aug. 3, 1952

That story seems to have been about the extent of Henry C. Roberts' involvement with UFOs - and Houdini's. Joshua Blu Buhs' blog, From an Oblique Angle, has more on the saga of Roberts' life, see: Henry C. Roberts as a Fortean

Ufology, Contactees & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 4 of 5)

Flying Saucers, the Atomic Bomb and Doomsday: The Outer Limit (Part 1 of 5)
The Outer Limit by Graham Doar: The UFO Parable (Part 2 of 5)
Radio, Television & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 3 of 5)

In our previous installment, we looked at how "The Outer Limit" by Graham Doar, was adapted into radio and television, introducing millions in the audience to the concept of flying saucers with extraterrestrials abducting human beings. In this piece, we look at the lasting influence on the story on ufology.

Divided by dogma, but united by saucers.

The Outer Limit Legacy: Ufology

“The Outer Limit” by Graham Doar was hugely influential in shaping the public's thought about the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors being inside the flying saucers. It preceded the first depiction of saucers as alien craft in the movies, the 1950 serial, Flying Disc Man from Mars. It also introduced an alien abduction that resulted in the person returning with a loss of memory, some "missing time" they cannot account for. More importantly it established the idea that watchers from space disapproved of the Earth using nuclear weapons.

Curtis Peebles, in an article in Magonia 91, February 2006, "Abducted in Space: The Saturday Evening Post, Playboy and the Vanishing X-15 Pilot’s Return," described how Doar's story could have served as a primer for the Contactees in particular:

“The Outer Limit” also gives insights into the development of the flying saucer myth... Bill, like the later contactees, is carrying a celestial warning from the heavenly beings to stop nuclear testing. He, like the contactees, was also specially selected to be the messenger. In the Escape script. Zyll warns Westfall that atomic war “would upset the balance of the entire universe, throw all space into chaos.” The later contactees would have the ‘space brothers’ making similar comments. These story elements suggest that the ideas and concepts of a proto-contactee mythology already existed at the dawn of the flying saucer era. What the story lacks, however, is the mysticism of the contactees.

There's a taste of that proto-contactee mysticism seen in our prologue. In "The Outer Limit," the aliens might as well be God. They represent a higher authority, and the Earth is being penalized for breaking the law. It's an Old Testament kind of penalty that is at hand, the fiery end of the world.

Lay Off Making A-Bombs

Whether Doar's story directly influenced the development of ufology, it's a fact that the central concepts he presented were embraced in discussions of extraterrestrial visitors. When Major Donald Keyhoe expanded his True magazine article into the 1950 paperback book, The Flying Saucers are Real! he described a future scenario in which we were the aliens, watching Mars:

"Suppose for a moment that it happened many years from now... The first reaction would undoubtedly be... to find how far they had advanced with atomic bombs...It might take one hundred years--perhaps five hundred--before the Martians could be a problem. Eventually... Mars would send out space-ship explorers... discover that the earth was populated with a technically advanced civilization. Any warlike ideas they had in mind could be  quickly ended by a show of our superior space craft and our own atomic weapons--probably far superior to any on Mars. It might even be possible that by then we would have finally outlawed war; if so, a promise to share the peaceful benefits of our technical knowledge might be enough to bring Martian leaders into line. Regardless of our final decision, we would certainly keep a close watch on Mars--or any other planet that seemed a possible threat. Now, if our space-exploration program is just reversed, it will give a reasonable picture of how visitors from space might go about investigating the earth."

Even Donald Keyhoe's alleged sources were worried about aliens and the A bomb.  He wrote that a Washington official told him... 

"I'm not completely sold on the interplanetary answer. But assuming it's correct that we're being observed, I can think of a stronger reason than fear of some distant attack. Some atomic scientists say that a super-atomic bomb, or several set off at once, could knock the earth out of its orbit. It sounds fantastic, but so is the A-bomb. It's just possible that some solar-planet race discovered the dangers long ago. They would have good reason to worry if they found we were on that same track. There may be some other atomic weapon we don't suspect, even worse than the A-bomb, one that could destroy the earth and seriously affect other planets." The Flying Saucers are Real (p. 133-4).

Discussing UFOs in his 1953 book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, Keyhoe repeated a discussed the frequency of green fireball UFOs around military installations in the Southwestern United States. He said,  "I know one astrophysicist who says they may be warnings for us to lay off making A bombs..."

From Xeglon to Orthon to the Stranger to Eros

In his 1953 book, George Adamski, Flying Saucers have Landed told of meeting a man from Venus that he'd later call Orthon, who seemed like a kinder, gentler Klaatu. The Venusian didn't speak English, so they communicated with an improvised sign language:

"He made me understand that their coming was friendly. Also, as he gestured, that they were concerned with radiations going out from Earth... But I persisted and wanted to know if it was dangerous to us on Earth as well as affecting things in space?

He made me understand—by gesturing with his hands to indicate cloud formations from explosions—that after too many such explosions... he said, ‘Boom! Boom!’ Then, further to explain himself... pointed to the Earth itself, and with, a wide sweep of his hands and other gestures that too many ‘Booms!’ would destroy all of this."

According to the site, Our Elder Brothers Return, 

Before becoming world famous for his books about his contacts with the Space Brothers in the 1950s, George Adamski (1891-1965) had already attracted a group of followers as a lecturer on esoteric philosophy in Laguna Beach, California. His lectures were broadcast on several local radio stations. In 1934 he founded The Royal Order of Tibet, which published this book expounding his philosophy of “Universal Law.” 

In  his 1936 book, Wisdom of the Masters of the Far East: Questions and Answers by Royal Order of Tibet, Adamski answers the question, What is the law of attraction? "This law of attraction is recognized by man in many separate faces of expression – gravitation, the affinity of atoms, military, etc. It is the force which keeps the universe in a total state of balance." 

Wisdom of the Masters of the Far East

Adamski seemed comfortable with blurring the lines between fact and fiction and science and religion. In his 1949 science fiction book, Pioneers of Space, Adamski said there was no war on Mars, but they "knew of the war we on Earth have just gone through. They got the picture of the Earth madness so well that they have a photograph of it here, showing airplanes flying above the Earth and blowing it up." As for A-bombs upsetting the balance, he mentioned it in more literal terms. Describing a visit to Mars' Temple of Science for a meeting with scientists, one of them spoke up:

"your Earth planet is slightly off-balance. It has been thrown off its natural axis by the exploding of powerful explosives and due to this there are going to be some atmospheric changes take place... You on Earth should be cautious in handling the new power called atomic power, since you have not yet found the element which goes into it which makes it serviceable but not dangerous..."

With this foundation, it's understandable why Adamski and the Contactees saw the destruction from the A-bomb as something that would cause a disturbance in the force and upset the balance of the universe. There were many others who emerged claiming contact who followed in Adamski's footsteps, from Howard Menger to George Hunt Williamson who warned, 

"Space visitors have said: 'It is not right that man should destroy his brother by utilizing the powerful forces of atomic energy, but the destruction you witness is minor, indeed, compared to the enormity of chaos created in the Microcosmos by the release of such energy!'" (Other Tongues, Other Flesh, 1953)

In Saucer News for June-July 1955, editor James W. Moseley offered some uncharacteristic political commentary on the saucer and Contactee scene:

"... let us all give some very serious consideration to the many alleged space men being called to the public's attention– all of whom invariably tell us of the dangers of war and the exploitation of atomic energy. No one desires peace any more sincerely then we do, but let us remember too that it is part of the Communist 'peace line' to frighten the American people into ceasing our atomic experiments. It is quite possible that some of these "space men" are unwittingly playing into the hands of the Communists."

The FBI may have thought so, too, and thought the Contactees might be spreading an un-American message, they kept an eye on them. From FBI a report on a lecture given by George Van Tassel on April 17, 1960, in Denver, Colorado.

Van Tassel's document begins at page 5 of this FBI file.

On the last page, the FBI agent recaps the key points:
"In summation, (Van Tassel's) speech was on these subjects: 
(1) Space people related to occurrences in Bible. 
(2) Atom bomb detrimental to earth and universe.
(3) Economy is poor and would collapse under ideas brought by space people. "

The interrupted journey of Bill during "The Outer Limit" seems to be a predecessor to the missing time episodes so often associated with UFO abductions. His memory of the events are incomplete, during the missing hours of his flight. In the case of Betty and Barney Hill's lost hours from 1961, John Fuller wrote in the The Interrupted Journey, "But most critical of all —what happened in the two hours when the Hills suffered double amnesia? What could have happened? What did happen?"

In 1967, Carroll Wayne Watts of Loco, Texas claimed a series of escalating encounters with Martians, and even took a few pictures along the way, and got to know them. "We think Aliens are peaceful, but will chase you if you run..." The Martians eventually persuaded him to come aboard their ship and submit to a physical examination, but he was examining them, too. "They were all about 4 feet high, with white or gray skin, broad flat noses, a thin line mouth, no hair and eye sockets that ran back nearly to their ears."

One of the most unusual features of the ship was a weapons or gun rack, perhaps an option for landings in rural Texas. After his alleged encounter, Watts said, they "knew that we were going to get to the moon,” and eventually Mars, and "they said they do not have war on their planet and they were going to have to do something to keep us from bringing it to them.” There was no mention of the A-bomb threat, but once again the aliens wanted to keep warlike man confined to his own planet. After publicizing the story and failing a polygraph test, Watts confessed it was all a hoax, but then some people will say anything.

The X-15 and The Outer Limit

Other than inspiring George Adamski and the Contactees, alien abduction lore and promoting the extraterrestrial hypothesis, "The Outer Limit" seeded another UFO story, but the atomic warning message was lost, leaving it a just jazzed up space age kidnapping story. It was presented in a early 1960s lecture at the Giant Rock UFO convention, and was later recounted in Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for UFO Science by Ann Druffel, about how in 1968:

Dr. Robert M. Wood... was a physicist and a highly placed executive at McDonnell-Douglas. He was very active in UFO research in the southern California area...
He also told McDonald about an intriguing report he’d heard from a source he considered very reliable. It concerned Gene May, a Douglas test pilot, who had been involved with the X-15 experimental aircraft for several years. According to the story Wood heard, May had taken the experimental craft for a flight five to eight years ago with 15 minutes’ fuel in the X-15’s tank. Yet May didn’t land back at the airfield until three hours later. May allegedly reported he’d been taken aboard a UFO, X-15 and all! As a consequence, he was examined by psychologists at Edwards AFB. Wood’s reliable source was a colleague who worked at Vandenberg AFB who knew Gene May well. McDonald tucked the story in his journal, to be checked out later.

Gene May on the cover of Flying from Oct. 1951

 Dr. Bob Wood later was on the board of directors for the Mutual UFO Network, and their site states "Dr. Wood is uniquely qualified to provide credible analysis about the nature of the UFO reality." Be that as it may,  he missed the problems with the second-hand story he told McDonald. Chiefly, while Gene May was a test pilot, he never flew the X-15. Also, the story was pure science fiction.

Captian Edward Ruppelt wrote in the 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, about how in the age of atomic uncertainty, some people were looking to the heavens above for reassurance:

... this "will to see" may have deeper roots, almost religious implications, for some people. Consciously or unconsciously, they want UFO's to be real and to come from outer space. These individuals, frightened perhaps by threats of atomic destruction, or lesser fears—who knows what—act as if nothing that men can do can save the earth. Instead, they seek salvation from outer space, on the forlorn premise that flying saucer men, by their very existence, are wiser and more advanced than we. Such people may reason that a race of men capable of interplanetary travel have lived well into, or through, an atomic age. They have survived and they can tell us their secret of survival. Maybe the threat of an atomic war unified their planet and allowed them to divert their war effort to one of social and technical advancement. To such people a searchlight on a cloud or a bright star is an interplanetary spaceship.

In our final installment, we'll look at
Hollywood & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 5 of 5)

- - -

The Outer Limit by Graham Doar: The UFO Parable (Part 2 of 5)

In our prologue, Flying Saucers, the Atomic Bomb and Doomsday, we looked at how even prior to the arrival of flying saucers, there was a belief by some that extraterrestrials had an interest in our fate and that they might do what the United Nations could not, stop war and eliminate the threat of the atomic bomb.

The Outer Limit

Graham Doar's story was published in The Saturday Evening Post on December 24, 1949. "The Outer Limit" deals with an interrupted journey, the test flight of an experimental rocket plane, the disappearance and strange, miraculous return of the pilot, and it featured now-familiar elements, put together for the first time:

A UFO encounter, an alien abduction, missing time, contact with an advanced benevolent extraterrestrial race, telepathic communication, and a dire warning to the Earth about the use of atomic weapons. At least one adaptation of the story includes the use of hypnotic regression to recover memories of the encounter, but wait, there's more! Faced with a credible witness of a relatively incredible event, the colonel in charge chooses not to believe, and there's the suggestion that the UFO report will be covered up.

Illustration by Melbourne Brindle

At the time the story was written, there was little serious discussion of flying saucers as coming from outer space. When saucers were discussed as being real, the most popular explanation was that it was some aircraft project that the government was keeping secret as they'd done with the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb. About the only saucer space talk outside of was in Raymond Palmer's Amazing Stories and Fate magazines were the early iterations of Silas Newton's hoax about little men that were circulating at the time. Plenty of people were reporting seeing flying saucers, but only a very few beyond the far fringes were discussing contact.

Pioneering pilots were heroes, space was the next frontier, and that's part of the reason for the story's popularity.  In 1948, test pilot Chuck Yeager made headlines for his XS-1 flight breaking the sound barrier, and this story was about pushing farther out. By focusing on the heroic pilot on a dangerous experimental test flight, it grounded the story in reality, and set up a suspenseful situation before introducing into the unearthly elements. However, the story starts with a tease that this will not be a routine mission. What follows is a fairly lengthy summary that strives to include the points and dialogue of UFO interest. It's taut little story with a few twists.

Patrolship, SJ23, Galactic Guard, Sector K, reporting.... Pursuant to instructions, from the Central Council: Planet 3, Star 5, Galaxy C, Sector K has been placed under absolute quarantine. Notification to inhabitants made. Mission accomplished.                                                                               XEGLON, Commanding.

Doar's story then joins Bill in his experimental test flight of the X2JTO, powered with only enough fuel for a ten-minute trip to the edge of space. At the edge of space, he sees sunlight glinting off a distant object above him.

He didn't believe it. He knew all the standard explanations of the great flying-saucer plague – the runaway balloons, the planet Venus, hallucinations bought on by strain and weariness. Whatever this object was, this metallic ellipsoid turning slowly above him, it wasn't a ship. He knew that. But he had six minutes fuel left and with all eight rockets boosting him along, he could run rings around anything. A closer look wouldn't hurt. He pointed the shark's nose at that far-off gleam.

Killers from Space, with a similar scenario.

The story shifts to the colonel, Hank, who after a 9-hour search, had finally given up the pilot and plane for lost. The X2JTO was forty miles up when the radar screens went blank. A call comes in that the ship has returned. Bill greets him, and says, "Sit down Hank, this one will knock you over."

When the colonel asks him where's he's been, Bill says, "What's your idea about the flying saucers, Hank? "The colonel ignores the question saying "First things first. I want to know– I've got to know – how you stretched ten minutes' fuel to keep you in the air over ten hours. "
Bill asks that the ship be checked with a Geiger counter., and when the colonel wonder if Bill should also be checked for radioactivity, Bill says, "No. No, I'll be all right. They told me I'd be all right." 

The colonel thinks, "If he's getting ready to feed me one of those men-from-Mars yarns, I should get the psychos (psychiatrists) in right now."

As Bill describes his encounter, he becomes increasingly agitated. 

“Well, Hank, I chased me a flying saucer. And I caught it. Or rather it caught me.”

“There was a humming sound – a kind of gentle vibration... sort of twang, as though I’d run into a harp string, and the – the black came down over me... (he thought he was going to crash into the saucer.) I came to inside their ship!"
At this point, the colonel mentions Bill seeing the psychiatrist, Major Donaldson. Bill would rather put it off until tomorrow and get drunk instead. "...I've just been tipped off to the way the world ends."
Continuing with his story, he says, "Well, I came to, inside the ship, and I was surrounded by – let's call them men. "

"I don't know what they look like. They were just – presences. There were a lot of them – I don't know how many. The inside of the ship was jammed completely full of incredibly intricate-looking machinery, and the noise was utterly deafening."

"I was angry, too – it seemed so – so belittling. But then suddenly I wasn't angry there was nothing to strike at. Anyway, they seemed friendly, even gentle." The colonel asks if they spoke English.

"They didn't speak. They just – planted the ideas in my own head. It was just suddenly – suddenly it was there – in my mind."

With that, Hank stops and brings in Major Donaldson, the psychiatrist, Major Donaldson, and after bringing him up to speed, Bill continues the story, saying his captors said they'd had their own wars but, "Now they have outlawed war throughout the sectors of space they patrol, and everywhere else they can reach. Whenever their detector system picks up traces of an atomic explosion, they send a patrol with certain preventative powers."

That brought them to Earth, where, “They found wars and rumors of war. Factories busily turning out atomic weapons. So they quarantined us. This intergalactic board of health decided we were infected with a communicable disease. They sealed us off from the rest of space until we were well.”

He goes on to describe the quarantine and the method used. "Out there– about a hundred miles out– they've spread a layer... when the radioactivity in this layer of –whatever– rises above the normal level of cosmic activity the particles will begin to fission... this spinning globe will be a roaring ball of flame that will pale the sun." 

As an afterthought, Bill says "We can forget about those atomic-powered spaceships, too, colonel. You can see that don't you? Unless we can figure out some way to shield the exhaust. On second thought, we won't last long enough for that to become a problem. Just forget it. That's best."

"That's the story. The whole thing. They finished with me, I heard the harp twang again – and I was in the plane gliding back down. You saw me land. Now, colonel, with your permission, I'm going over to the club and tie one on."

The colonel orders Bill to get some rest and instructs Donaldson to give him a sedative so he will sleep. Hank orders a sergeant to take Bill to his quarters and guard him all night. "Keep your eye on his pistol. He's been under the hell of a strain."

(The above photos are actually from the 1954 movie starring Peter Graves, Killers from Space, which seems like a bad, unofficial adaptation of "The Outer Limit." The working title for it was "The Man Who Saved the Earth," but Killers goes in a goofier, dumber Bug-Eyed-Monster direction, with an alien invasion using A-bomb-powered giant insects to conquer the Earth.)

There's an interlude, picking up from the intro, Xeglon's report to the Central Council:

Record for file… Record for file. Xeglon, commanding Patrolship S2J3, to Sector Commander Zzyl, Galactic Guard, Sector K.Patrol commander Pgot informed me that you requested this early, informal report on Mission S2K-C5-3 and I prepared it at once.

Several paragraphs of Xeglon's log are presented. There were initially nine ships dispatched to scout Earth, but Xeglon's was assigned to stay behind and complete the mission. He reports the difficulty of establishing meaningful contact, about how they'd tried before. "The creatures employ a method of communication not heretofore found." He goes on to say, "Our earliest attempts at communication resulted in jamming and even destroying the nerve paths of the specimens we selected."

There was a mention of risk versus reward, "Obviously a landing was out of the question. We should have had to destroy thousands of them in order to seize one and might even have suffered some losses ourselves. You know the problem of regeneration with no greater facilities than our patrol ships carry."

Ultimately it was the medical science department that delivered a technological solution. "It was now that our psycho-men really distinguished themselves. With their previous observations added to estimations of brain convolutions and mass, they set up a mechanical hypnotor that established contact on the very first try." There were barriers to communication not understood well by Xeglon, but he described the humans' adrenaline surge and the reaction to disbelieve the unbelievable. "Our team worked patiently at this for some time and were despairing in getting through when to our surprise, the creature broke it down himself." With communication established, they were able to complete the mission and free their captive. "Having made contact, we fixed the creatures mind, implanting the necessary warning as to the nature of the quarantine, the reasons for it, the conditions under which it may be lifted. His grasp of the entire concept at last complete we released him, close to the pick-up point, and traced him to the surface."

He calls the apparatus "Catalyst X," the method to quarantine/destroy the Earth. "We proceeded now to sow the catalyst in the predetermined depth, and mission accomplished, to depart for our station. Two time-periods out from the planet, we switched to space drive. Message ends. XEGLON."

With that, there's a return to the narrative, the finale, with Hank and Donaldson discussing Bill"s problem and his treatment. The psychologist expresses regret that a good man has cracked up. The colonel says, "He's the best, Donaldson. That combination of guts, loyalty and lightning reflexes comes about one in ten million." At this late point in the story we find out that Bill is overdue for a promotion to major, and that he's a family man, "His wife's having another baby, you know. It's his third." They think that Bill is tough and will recover from his episode. 

As they are saying goodnight, the psychiatrist gets the closing line of dialogue.“Oh colonel. There is one thing. It’s outside my field, but I’m curious. How did he keep that plane in the air for ten hours – with only ten minutes’ fuel?”

. . .

Comments:

The danger the Earth poses is to itself, but it's implied that with the emergence of space travel, Earth could contaminate other worlds. The Central Council seems to be the governing body of outer space, a higher authority, and Earth unknowingly is under its jurisdiction. The Galactic Guard is here because Earth has broken the law.

The story leaves no time to dwell on the ethics of the aliens imposing a quarantine on Earth, it moves at such a clip we're focused on the experience of the pilot and his struggle to deliver the message and have it believed. The Central Council couldn't take away Earth's weapons, but they ensured that using them would have severe negative consequences. 

Another alien meddling in Earth's affairs.

The physical nature of the aliens is left a complete mystery, but humans are so unlike them, or anything they've seen, that there is a struggle to establish communication for their message. 

Bill's phrase, "the way the world ends, is a nod to "The Hollow Men," the 1925 is a poem by T. S. Eliot,  "This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper."

The author had an awareness of the flying saucer lore of the time, and it can be inferred that the nine Galactic Guard ships were the ones seen in 1947 by Kenneth Arnold and others reporting formations of multiple saucers. It could also be that the previous failed attempts to communicate with humans refers to the death of Captain Thomas Mantell.

The report by Xeglon is the key indication to the reader the experience was real. Bill's narrative is ambiguous and he just has no memory of either entering the spaceship or bring returned to his plane.

It's not directly explained what happened during the other missing hours from Bill's memory, but that seems involve the time it took for Xeglon's men to establish contact with Bill.

Another bit of trivia, the aliens have interstellar drive, called "space drive."

The "Brotherhood of Worlds" may be a lot like the United Nations, but all we can be sure of is that their Galactic Guard is their police force, and that despite their technological advances and "friendly, even gentle" demeanor, there's still a bureaucratic hierarchy and plenty of reports to be filed.

The O. Henry-type surprise "snapper ending," would be incorporated into the structure of EC Comics such as Tales from the Crypt and Weird Science and Rod Serling's television show, The Twilight Zone.

In this story, the disbelief in Bill's tale is disrupted by the facts, the impossibility of his ship's return.

Graham Doar's "The Outer Limit’ also appeared in an anthology edited by Groff Conklin,

Big Book of Science Fiction in 1950, reprinted in 1978 as The Classic Book of Science Fiction.

Joseph Graham Doar, 1912 - 1985, served in the Army as a corporal in the Engineering regiment in the Mediterranean during World War II. Afterward he became a freelance writer and besides "The Outer Limit," went on to write a few other stories, for Bluebook, Collier's Weekly, and science fiction magazines. Doar's name was most often published in ads for the Palmer Institute of Authorship, a correspondence course for writing that seems to have done many aspiring writers some good.

Palmer Institute advertisement from
Astounding Science Fiction, June 1953

In our next installments, we'll look at
Radio, Television & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 3 of 5)
Ufology & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 4 of 5)
Hollywood & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 5 of 5)

- - -

Flying Saucers, the Atomic Bomb and Doomsday: The Outer Limit (Part 1 of 5)

The Outer Limit: A Prelude

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells was first published in 1897, and it is perhaps the most famous and influential science fiction story of all time. Fantasy stories usually involve regular people facing extraordinary experiences, often in a tale of their journey to a strange land. Wells was one of those authors who flipped the premise, by having the strangeness make the journey, intruding into our everyday world. His story is about an alien landing, the beginning of an invasion by conquerors. The Martians have no interest in communicating with humans, who they see as pests that must be exterminated before they can inhabit the Earth. Without meaning to, the Martians unite mankind.

“Did they grasp that we in our millions were organized, disciplined, working together? Or did they interpret our spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady investment of their encampment, as we should the furious unanimity of onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees?... Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together.”

The 1938 CBS broadcast of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre's adaptation of The War of the Worlds became the most famous radio drama of all time, and due to its documentary-like presentation some listeners thought a real war had come to the USA. The real thing would come just a few years later with the bombing of Pearl Harbor drawing the States into the Second World War.

The Atom Bomb: A Study of Atom Power, 1945

"Is it a blessing, or will it smash humanity?"

War of the World

The atomic bomb was seen by some people as a tool to bring peace. In the closing days of World War II, shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a survey conducted by Gallup Poll in late August 1945, showed that 69% of the US public felt the atomic bomb was a "good thing." However, afterwords there were those with some rising serious concerns about its destructive potential.

"The public, having been warned of the horrible nature of atomic warfare, has done nothing about it, and to a large extent has dismissed the warning... I say that nothing has been done to avert war since the completion of the atomic bomb, despite the proposal for supranational control of atomic energy put forward by the United States in the United Nations." - Albert Einstein,  The Atlantic, November 1947

Before Doar and Saucers

Harold Sherman and his messiah from Mars, Numar, The Green Man.

The Green Man was a 1946 novel by psychic Harold Sherman that introduced Numar, a peaceful messiah-like messenger in a spaceship from another planet with the power to make our technology stand still. In 1979, Sherman described his inspiration: 

"I had a series of visions wherein I saw Space Beings, possessed of high intelligence, visiting our Earth in space ships of different shapes and sizes, for the purpose of exploration and eventually to fill our skies with large space vehicles, coming in force, hopefully on a friendly mission to help Mankind save itself from self-destruction."

In the 1947 sequel, The Green Man Returns, Numar comes back to deliver "A New Plan of Living which will solve our earth’s problems and bring about true brotherhood," which would end war and the associated threat of atomic bombs.

On Oct. 9, 1946, there was a report of Kareeta, a spaceship visiting the Earth, piloted by Etherians, peaceful visitors who didn't land because "they're afraid of the reception they'll get." The Borderland Sciences Research Associates had established telepathic communication and later disclosed that "at every great crisis . . . or just prior to the collapse of civilization, they make an extended survey here for their own information and historical records."

Weeks before the birth of the age of flying saucers, BSRA member and Fortean Vincent Gaddis wrote in the May/June 1947 issue of Round Robin about extraterrestrials, the Shaver Mystery, and how ancient spiritual entities from space might intercede to protect us from World War III: 

"Among those who can think there is a growing sense of worry and fear. That our culture is nearing a breaking point... There is a gathering of Powers, a search for places of safety, the building of two great armed camps. There have been many prophecies... In 1937 a remarkable prophecy was received in America from high spiritual beings and sent to Dr. Alexander Cannon, in London. who reproduced it in his book, The Power of Karma... This revelation tells of a 'great migration of celestial beings' ages ago, who came to this planet from outer space..."

Worries about the A-bomb grew in people's minds, and the best hope for world peace seemed to be the United Nations. When flying discs hit the news in 1947, some people suspected connections between atomic power and the flying saucers. Others thought flying saucers were a sign that the world was ending.

Medford Mail Tribune, June 27, 1947

A musical warning: (When You See) Those Flying Saucers by Cy Coben-Charlie Green, performed by The Buchanan Brothers, Oct. 27, 1947,  RCA Victor 20-2385-A

"...Many people think the saucers might be someone’s foolish dream

Or maybe they were sent down here from Mars

If you’ll just stop and think you’d realize just what it means

They’re more than atom bombs or falling stars

And though the war may be through there’s unrest and trouble brewin’

And those flying saucers may be just a sign

That if peace doesn’t come it will be the end of some

So repent today, you’re running out of time

When you see a saucer fly like a comet through the sky

You should realize the price you’ll have to pay

You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers

It may be the coming of the Judgment Day"

At that time, only the mystical fringe that had already believed we were being visited by extraterrestrials gave serious consideration to flying saucers having an outer space origin. Among them, some took it as a sign, that our ancient gods were back, and here to help.

"Will the ancient gods... come back in time to avert an atom war?"
From "Son of the Sun." by Millen Cooke (as Alexander Blade) illustrated by James Settles. 
Fantastic Adventures Vol.9. No.7. November 1947. 

One World or None

The 1948 novel, The Flying Saucer by Bernard Newman was about an alien invasion prompting the United Nations to unite the world against a common outside enemy.  The invasion was a fake, a conspiracy by scientists who were committed to bring peace to the world and remove the threat of atomic war.

Everyone has heard of the UN, United Nations... But what is the UW? 

In Captain Marvel Adventures #98, dated July 1949, the super hero sees a flying saucer and decides to solve the mystery. Following it to its home planet he's surprised to learn, "Holy Moley! Our Galaxy has a government!" The United Worlds "was formed 1000 years ago to eliminate all war, crime and evil in the galaxy." Earth has been denied membership, but the UW eventually has a change of heart after demonstrations of CM's heroics, but he says, no; the Earth has yet to earn its membership.

The United Nations seemed stymied in keeping the peace on Earth, and with the A-bomb in play it it would be terrible. In times of trouble, people often look to help from above, and in the age of flying saucers, there were some new possibilities.

The Twilight Zone between Flying Saucers and Science Fiction

Science fiction magazines had come into bloom in the 1920s, full of visitors from other worlds, spaceships and almost every other concept that later surfaced in connection with UFOs. Not everyone read SF magazines, but almost everyone read the newspaper, listened to the radio and went to the movies. In the 1940s, the best-known science fiction to the average person was from the comic strips, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Superman, but most would also have remembered the notorious Martian invasion from the The War of the Worlds. Those stories introduced the basic science fiction concepts to an audience of millions of all ages. The science fiction magazines reached a much smaller but devoted audience, and one publication was doing something different. 

In 1944, Ray Palmer introduced the Shaver Mystery to the readers of Amazing Stories, presenting it as a genuine case of extraterrestrials having an active presence on Earth. Palmer also encouraged readers to write in with reports of their sightings of strange things seen in the sky. It was the magazine's policy that alien visitors had come here, and that the space ships were real. 

Ad for FATE magazine, Amazing Stories, dated May 1948.

When saucers arrived in 1947, Palmer offered them as evidence that they were connected, proving Shaver's stories were true. Together with publisher Curtis Fuller in 1948, he launched Fate a magazine on the occult, and the the cover feature of the first issue was, "The Truth about Flying Saucers." The notion of ET saucers was being put out, but the mainstream thought of it as kid stuff, that men from Mars belonged in the funny pages with Buck Rogers. Two magazine stories were about to go a long way towards changing that perception.

Graham Doar's short story, "The Outer Limit" debuted in The Saturday Evening Post dated December 24, 1949. It hit the newsstands shortly before the January 1950 issue of True magazine, which carried Major Donald Keyhoe's famous article, "The Flying Saucers Are Real." The following newspaper article discusses both stories.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec. 27, 1949, Page 1

After covering Keyhoe's claims, they turn to Doar's story:

It's probably a coincidence that last week's Saturday Evening Post featured a flying saucer story – indexed as fiction – which indicated that the world would end with a bang. In "The Outer Limit," Graham Doar tells how a pilot flying and experimental rocket at five times the speed of sound encountered and was sucked into a flying saucer manned by intelligent beings who warned him that because of the atomic explosions observed from their world they had surrounded Earth with a force field having the effect of a planetary quarantine. Set off any more atomic bombs, they cautioned him, and Earth would explode like a nova.

What set Doar's story apart was that it took A-bomb fears, science fiction ideas and coupled them together with flying saucers for perhaps the first time, certainly a first for a mainstream magazine. What makes Doar's story notable is not only the content, but also its incredible exposure. Aviation historian Curtis Peebles wrote in a Magonia article:

While The Saturday Evening Post had a massive circulation, ‘The Outer Limit’ reached a much wider audience than just the magazine’s subscribers. ...Doar’s story “may be the most often used science fiction story in radio.” ‘The Outer Limit’ was dramatised five times on radio and twice on television.

The tale would have been perfect for The Twilight Zone, but it hadn't been created yet.  There's a lot more to be said about the story, and we'll take a detailed look at "The Outer Limit" and how it introduced concepts that would come to be central to the public's perceptions of UFOs. The subsequent installments will cover:

The Outer Limit, the original short story
The Outer Limit, as adapted for radio and television
The Outer Limit Legacy, its influence on ufology
The Outer Limit Legacy, its influence on science fiction films

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