Australian Saucer Record

History

The Australian Flying Saucer Research Society published the Australian Saucer Record from its headquarters at 22 Northcote Street, Kilburn, a working-class suburb north of Adelaide. The earliest issue in the archive is Volume 1, Number 2, from 1955. Fred P. Stone edited the publication throughout its run, which continued through nine volumes to 1963. The magazine sold for two shillings per copy. Membership in the society cost ten shillings per annum, and interstate members received a free copy of each issue. Overseas readers could have it posted for two shillings sterling. The Hyde Park Press on Collins Street, Adelaide, handled the printing.

The society held monthly general meetings, initially at Rechabite Hall and later at members' homes in the Adelaide suburbs. The March 1955 meeting opened with the president addressing the question of whether saucers were man-made. The April meeting featured a talk on radar evidence. A discussion group convened separately at Mr. A. Cotton's home in Kilburn, with a smaller but enthusiastic attendance. Members were urged to collect newspaper cuttings and bring them to meetings or post them to headquarters. The society also maintained connections with overseas organisations and exchanged publications.

South Australia's geography gave the Record a distinctive character. Adelaide sits at the southern edge of a vast, sparsely inhabited interior stretching north through the outback to the Northern Territory. Sighting reports came from farmers, stockmen, and travellers in remote areas where the nearest town might be a hundred miles away. The Vol 1 No 2 issue printed a detailed account from near Tintinara, in the south-east outback, where a witness described a close sighting. Queensland and interstate members contributed reports from their own regions, connecting the Adelaide-based society to a national network of observers.

The publication compiled newspaper clippings from Australian papers alongside overseas reports. The Adelaide Advertiser, the Sunday Advertiser, and the Melbourne Sun were regular sources. International reports came credited to NICAP, Saucer News, and British publications like Practical Mechanics. Einstein's death in 1955 received a tribute in the Vol 1 No 2 issue. The society tracked scientific developments relevant to the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including Dr. Peter van de Kamp's announcement to the American Astronomical Society of a planet orbiting Barnard's Star and Soviet news agency Tass reporting that a Leningrad scientist had devised a "linguistic key for deciphering unknown texts."

A Special Edition appeared in 1962, and the final archived issue is Volume 9, Number 1 from 1963. The society's longevity from the mid-1950s into the early 1960s places it among the earliest sustained UFO research efforts in the Southern Hemisphere, predating the formation of VUFORS (1957) and overlapping with the earliest years of Australian government interest in the phenomenon.