Flying Saucers

"Behind the Flying Saucers. Frank Scully. The book everyone is talking about. Popular Library. Earle Bergey." Earle K. Bergey 's wonderfully frightening cover illustration of saucers in the sky and panic in the streets certainly helped to make this "the book everyone is talking about" when it appeared in 1950. But author Frank Scully 's account of flying saucer crashes and dead extraterrestrials in Arizona and New Mexico was probably enough to get people talking even without the cover. Scully wasn't the only one writing about such scary topics in 1950. Author Donald Keyhoe also argued that The Flying Saucers Are Real :

"The Flying Saucers Are Real. Donald Keyhoe. True story behind the strangest phenomena in history! Gold Medal Book. 107. Frank Tinsley '50." The Flying Saucers Are Real , written by Donald Keyhoe , first appeared in 1950. Frank Tinsley's dramatic cover illustration helped to convey the startling news that flying saucers (or UFOs aka unidentified flying objects) are actually extraterrestrial spacecraft. For another book from 1950 on the same topic, see Behind the Flying Saucers :

Cover of the booklet Men from the Moon in America: Did They Come in a Russian Satellite? , by the evangelist Walter V. Grant, first published sometime in the 1950s. For another out-of-this-world booklet from the 1950s, see We Met the Space People: The Story of the Mitchell Sisters :

Cover of a short booklet: We Met the Space People: The Story of the Mitchell Sisters , by Helen and Betty Mitchell. Clarksburg, W.Va.: Saucerian Publications. Mouse over the image above to see a close-up of part of the illustration . Two sisters encounter space aliens in a coffee shop in the 1950s! Read all about it at the Internet Archive: We Met The Space People (1959) .

For more information, see the full cover of this booklet:

Interested in vintage magazines? Check out the Cover of a Magazine group, which is now administered by Smiley Derleth and yours truly. Read more about it here: Welcome to Cover of a Magazine! The cover of this May 1959 issue of Flying Saucers: The Magazine of Space Conquest has retained its pleasant garishness even after the passage of fifty-five years. The illustration, a scene from the 1950 movie Destination Moon , shows astronauts in their spacecraft during their perilous journey to and from the moon (I believe that the one fellow is actually dispensing a space sickness pill, although it looks like he's performing dental work). Raymond A. Palmer , who authored books on flying saucers and edited Amazing Stories and Fate magazines, was also the editor of Flying Saucers .

"See--flying saucers are real!" An advertising postcard with a postmark dated July 27, 1967. Excerpts from the back of the postcard: "Extraterrestrial Spaceship. Actual photograph of a flying saucer taken by Paul Villa on June 16, 1963, near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Learn: Why spaceships and their crews from other worlds are visiting our planet…. Subscribe to: Flying Saucers International…. Send for free brochure and saucer book to: Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Inc. (AFSCA)…." The Flying Saucers Are Real was also the title of a popular paperback book written by Donald Keyhoe and published by Fawcett Publications in 1950.

Kids, It's Here! The New Mystery Atomic-Jet Flying Saucer. Watch it sail way up in the air--you can make it fly higher than a tall building. It will do five airplane stunts, too. Get several of them--and have flying saucer contests! Even dads go crazy over it. Be the first in your neighborhood and amaze your friends. Atomic-Jet Flying Saucers and extra flying wheels on sale at ________.

Fellow citizens, be vigilant! The invasion has begun! Sighted along State Route 255 near Penfield, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, October 26, 2014, at approximately 1354 hours. Now I wish I would have listened when they said that the Flying Saucers Are Real!

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the monthly topic of slides and color photos . In this puzzling scene from a Polaroid photo, a man is speaking from a podium as a woman stands nearby. On the front of the podium is a sign for "Sears" (surely not the department store -- could it be a name or acronym?) and a drawing of what looks like three biplanes that's labeled "Shoot down von Rottenspotten." On the table next to the podium is a wrapped gift or rolled-up certificate secured by a red ribbon. Is the man presenting the woman with some sort of award? The image on the wall behind the woman makes me wonder what kind of award she might be receiving. It shows a flying saucer leaving earth for a destination somewhere in the field of stars painted on the wall. The numerical code printed on the back of this Polaroid indicates a manufacturing date of December 1978. Could the drawing on the wall be a logo for some kind of UFO group that held a meeting in 1979? But then where do "Sears" and "von Rottenspotten" fit in? See a cropped version of the photo for a closer look at the proceedings.

A puzzling Polaroid photo. For more information, see the full version of this photo.