People of Portage County: UFO publishing legend ‘was just my dad’

By Brian Kurzynski

The Coming of the Saucers, Amazing Stories, Other Worlds, Fate Magazine, and Mystic Magazine are a handful of the many titles pioneered by the late Raymond A. Palmer (1910-1977).

He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in bringing the topics of flying saucers, hidden worlds, cryptozoology, and all things paranormal into popular culture, and he did it from his home along the banks of Spring Creek, just a few miles south of the village of Amherst.

“We’re talking about such a long period of time, and the subjects are so varied that it’s hard to put it all into a neat little story,” said Raymond B. Palmer, lifelong Portage County resident and son of Raymond A. Palmer. He lives in the house his family moved to in 1950.

“I was born in Evanston, Illinois. I had two older sisters, so I was the baby of the family, the pride and joy, or the spoiled one, whatever you want to call it. Dad worked for Ziff-Davis Publishing in Chicago as the editor of Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and several other publications. When Ziff-Davis relocated to New York City, Dad decided not to go.”

“Richard Shaver had recently moved to a farm near Amherst. He had worked with Dad–and that’s a whole story in itself. He told Dad about this place and said it was available. It had a dam, a mill on the creek, and a pond. There were two properties for sale, one on each side of the creek. Dad bought them both. It was an ideal place in a beautiful area. And Dad continued with his writing and publishing right here in Wisconsin.”

Richard Shaver and his Hollow Earth stories had come to the attention of Raymond A. Palmer while he worked for Ziff-Davis.

“Shaver sent a letter to Ziff-Davis that ended up on the desk of associate editor Howard Browne. Dad was in his own office and heard Howard say, ‘Boy, the world is full of crackpots,’ and he threw the letter into the wastepaper basket. Well, that perked up Dad’s ears, so he went over and picked the letter up and read it. It was from Richard Shaver, and it was about an ancient alphabet.”

“Shaver claimed this was the original alphabet–he called it the ‘Mantong’ alphabet. Each letter carried a meaning in itself. For example, in a word like ‘ape,’ A meant ‘animal,’ P meant ‘powerful,’ and E meant ‘energetic.’ So this allowed a person to understand the meaning of a word just by looking at the letters, without having to see the object itself. Shaver said this alphabet was universal and would allow communication with anyone.”

Raymond A. Palmer published the letter in the January 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.

“Dad got over 50,000 responses from readers saying this was not fantasy, the alphabet was true because they had tried it out with different words and it seemed to work.”

The stories Shaver continued sending to Palmer became the Shaver Mystery series and the book I Remember Lemuria!, detailing Shaver’s claims of a hidden civilization inhabiting caverns in the Hollow Earth. The widespread popularity of these stories made Raymond A. Palmer an internationally known figure.

Then, on June 24, 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine unidentified flying objects near Mount Rainier. He described their movement as “like a saucer skipping over water,” leading news reporters to coin the term “flying saucers.” The sighting gained national attention, and Raymond A. Palmer reached out to Arnold. In 1952, their collaboration resulted in The Coming of the Saucers, a famous book among early UFO researchers.

Growing up with a prolific writer as a father, one would expect Raymond B. Palmer to follow in his dad’s footsteps, but as he put it, “The writing talent missed a generation. I have terminal writer’s block.”

“Growing up with my dad and hearing all the stories, it wasn’t anything unusual to me. Back then people would make fun of flying saucers and Shaver with his stories of underground caverns, but some would come and talk to Dad about his work. To me, he was just my dad.”

“He wanted me to grow up to search for adventure. I read books like Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and John Carter of Mars series, but I was most interested in exploring the creek and woods, fishing, hunting, swimming in the pond, and helping the neighbors with farm work—all the things a boy would normally do outdoors.”

As the only boy in the family, Raymond B. Palmer had a special bond with his father, sometimes riding along on trips to investigate mysterious claims.

“One time, I went with Dad down near Illinois to see a man who had a radar telescope or something, and he said he was picking up strange signals from space. We met him at a lake, and so I was more interested in the fishing than what they were talking about.”

After the popularity of the Shaver Mystery had faded, Richard Shaver moved to Arkansas, and Raymond A. Palmer built a publishing business on Main Street of Amherst. Palmer Publications and Amherst Press published magazines and books on a wide variety of esoteric topics, along with providing commercial printing services.

After graduating from Amherst High School, Raymond B. Palmer went to work for his father, learning all stages of the printing process.

“The upstairs of our building had all the typesetting, the editors, where they would put together the books or magazines or anything else customers had ordered. Next to them was the camera room. So you’d take what they called the galleys and they’d have to shoot them to make negatives. Then you’d make your printing plates, which came downstairs to the presses. I did more of the presses and production work. At our peak, we had 25 people working there.”

Raymond B. Palmer went on to build a career as a printing press specialist working for companies as well as taking on freelance jobs. Demand for his technical knowledge and experience even saw him traveling throughout the United States, to Canada, Australia, and Europe. “I like to travel, and for many years going to work meant I was going to the airport.”

Raymond A. Palmer continued to write and publish right up until his passing in 1977.

“Dad was the writer, and without the writer, you don’t have the books or magazines. When Dad died, I wasn’t interested in taking on the family business. My mom and I kept it going for another five or so years until we found a buyer.”

Today, Raymond B. Palmer owns Legend Press.

“I have access to a printing machine, but I’m getting older and I don’t want to do the printing myself anymore, so I outsource that. Sometimes I’ll trade freelance work for access to someone else’s machines. Occasionally, people call me asking for help fixing or maintaining their equipment. There aren’t many small publishers left because it’s so much cheaper and faster to use computers and copiers or doing on-demand printing, but the quality is nowhere near what it used to be.”

Although he is retired from industrial publishing, enjoying the same outdoor pleasures of his boyhood, Raymond B. Palmer has not lost the desire for adventure his father instilled in him.

“I’ve been talking to someone about doing a documentary film about Dad, and I might start going to conventions as a speaker. There are so many stories to tell, and once I get into it, you can’t shut me up.”

Palmer hopes that by sharing stories about his father, the people he interviewed, and the tales they told, he might spark the imaginations of younger generations and inspire their interest in science fiction and reading.

“Back then, ‘science fiction’ was not purely fantasy. It was fictional, yes, but it used scientific principles to create the story. Einstein said something to the effect of, ‘What’s more important, knowledge or imagination? Imagination because knowledge is limited, but imagination encircles the world.’ Science is good for repeating things or improving on an idea that already exists, but an original idea, an original thought, comes from the imagination. And that’s what Dad’s legacy was all about.”