Interplanetary News Digest

History

John Otto operated from 1360 West Touhy (later 7710 Sheridan Road), Chicago, Illinois; Genevieve A. Johnston published from Joshua Tree, California. Between them they produced eight issues of the Interplanetary News Digest across two volumes in 1953 and 1954. The first issue carried Otto's manifesto: "The Interplanetary News is the only magazine in this world devoted entirely to promotion and introduction of Friendly Relationships between us, the Earth People and our much more advanced Space and Cosmic Friends." There was nothing tentative about the editorial position. These beings existed. They were benevolent. And their presence demanded a magazine.

Otto's material combined quasi-scientific diagrams (a "G" line of force vertical to the page, "A" particles at ninety degrees, "B" particles composing electrons) with evangelical Christian rhetoric. "These things ye shall do and even greater things than these shall ye do," he quoted, linking Christ consciousness to contact with space beings. The writing was urgent, didactic, and entirely sincere. He was not speculating. He was announcing.

By Volume 2 (March 1954 onward), the publication had settled into a pattern mixing contactee testimony with metaphysical essays and sighting reports. George Hunt Williamson contributed. Raymond F. Piper, PhD, of Syracuse University wrote on "Divine Love and Universal Language." Ella Elbert translated passages from Jacob Lorber's "Die Natuerliche Sonne." Joseph C. Bonner wrote on "The Solar Man." Johnston herself wrote regular columns including "Down to Earth" and "Cosmic In-Coming Tide." George Louis Pafort contributed "Cosmic Friends and Why Not." The publication also carried practical sighting reports: a "Flying Saucer in Buenos Aires," "Space Ship Lands in Celery Field," and "Space Craft Sightings and News."

The digest sold for fifty cents per copy. Its visual presentation was modest: mimeographed text, hand-drawn headings, occasional photographs. Distribution centred on the Joshua Tree/Giant Rock community and the wider Adamski circle. The English contactee community received copies too, with "Latest Saucer News from England" appearing in the table of contents.