Flying Saucer News

History

James S. Rigberg launched Flying Saucer News from 1591 Third Avenue (at 90th Street), New York City, in March 1955. Volume 1, Number 1 cost twenty-five cents. Subscriptions were two dollars for twelve issues. The phone was UNiversity 8-1107. The shopfront was open Monday through Saturday, noon to 10 PM. It was not merely a publisher's address. Rigberg ran a physical bookstore specialising in flying saucer literature, metaphysics, and occult philosophy, and the magazine functioned as the house organ of that space.

The first year of publication came monthly, with six issues surviving from 1955 alone. Contributors in the early period included Dr. G.N. Holloway, Dana Howard (the contactee author), Evelyn Whitell, Frank Scully, Martin Kornberg, Reverend Leon Q. Le Van, Orfeo Angelucci, and Sonny Castator. A contributor identified as "Bondon" provided sketches. The editorial orientation was firmly contactee-sympathetic: the April 1955 issue ran a lead article titled "Saucers Are Interdimensional" and reported on flying saucer conventions alongside the Giant Rock community.

By the mid-1960s, the content had expanded well beyond flying saucers. The January 1965 issue advertised the Temple of Occult, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Tibetan mysticism, and reincarnation texts alongside UFO material. Rigberg stocked everything from E.A. Wallis Budge's ancient Egyptian translations to Madame Alexandra David-Neel's travels in Tibet. The magazine's own content mixed sighting reports (readers wrote in with personal observations, like Raymond Avila's August 1966 sighting from East 99th Street) with metaphysical philosophy and book reviews spanning the full occult spectrum.

Joan Whritenour and Jean Chapman served as co-editors for a period in the late 1960s. By September 1970, Michael Lindner had taken the Assistant Editor position and contributed cover illustrations. Bernard O'Connor drew cartoons. The address had shifted to 346 West 45th Street (later 359 West 45th Street), in the theatre district, with a new phone number: 212-582-6380. The masthead now read "Flying Saucer News, Publishing House and Book Store."

Rigberg used a cumulative numbering system rather than annual volumes, which means the "Vol. XXXVIII" of September 1970 represents issue 38 over fifteen years of publication, not thirty-eight volumes. By May 1982 (the last issue in the archive, numbered Vol. LXXI), the publication was still running from the West 45th Street bookshop, still priced at twenty-five cents, and Rigberg was still listed as Publisher and Editor. The shop hours had shortened to noon until 6 PM daily including weekends.

The reader community was small, personal, and loyal. Issues carried thank-you notes to donors who sent between seventy-five cents and two dollars. Readers wrote to the editor about their engagements. The magazine published personal correspondence addresses for readers who wanted pen pals interested in saucers. A reader in Belleville, New Jersey sought correspondence. Pat Morgan in Devon, Pennsylvania wrote to announce her engagement to John Prytz of OBUIC. The publication operated more like a community bulletin board than a research journal.