Interplanetary News Service

History

Timothy Green Beckley launched Interplanetary News Service from 3 Courtland Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1962. He was barely out of high school. The publication ran two volumes across 1962 and 1963, producing at least 12 numbered reports plus a supplement. Membership cost one dollar per year in the United States, $1.25 in Canada, $1.50 overseas. Single copies sold for 35 cents.

The advisory board assembled for this teenage editor's bulletin reads like a who's who of early 1960s ufology: Gray Barker (the Flatwoods Monster investigator and publisher of Saucerian Books), George D. Fawcett (who would become one of North Carolina's most prolific UFO investigators), James W. Moseley (editor of Saucer News and later the satirical Saucer Smear), and John J. Robinson. Gene Duplantier designed covers and ran the Canadian Branch Office. Jerome Clark served as assistant editor; Roger Bell directed the England Branch Office; Kenneth Larson ran the West Coast Branch; Rev. Guy J. Cyr contributed; and John L. Black reviewed books.

The lead article in Volume 1, Number 1 was "The Reality of the UFOs" by Ed Babcock, Director of the New Jersey Association of Aerial Phenomena (NJAAP), which laid out the case against Air Force secrecy. Contents covered saucer club news, fireball reports, local sightings, and Allen Greenfield's column. By Volume 2, the publication was running articles on "Flying Saucers in the Stone and Outer Space Age," "The Possibility of Little Men," and the Men in Black silencing phenomenon, including a new case ("Bonnie Schaefer") published for the first time.

Beckley's editorial voice was brash, self-aware, and occasionally self-deprecating. "As usual your editor starts out writing this editorial without any idea or purpose in mind," he opened Volume 2, Number 1. "But he never fails in the long run to enlighten a few people." He solicited photographs from readers, encouraged debate, and positioned INS as a publication willing to cover territory that more cautious outlets avoided.