Notes from the Hangar

History

Notes from the Hangar was the quarterly journal of the National UFO Museum (NUFOM), published from PO Box 20593, Sun Valley, Nevada 89433, with administrative offices at Suite 223, 150 [North] Center Street, Reno, NV 89501. James Keith and Jerry E. Smith co-edited the publication, which sold for $4.95 per issue. Three issues appeared across 1991, covering the second through fourth quarters, before the magazine apparently ceased publication.

Keith was already establishing himself as a conspiracy researcher and would go on to write books on mind control, secret societies, and covert technology programmes before his death in 1999. His editorial approach brought the journal into territory that mainstream UFO publications avoided: the Dulce Base allegations (covered through Jason Bishop III's detailed articles and reader correspondence), UFO disinformation operations run by intelligence agencies, connections between Scientology and space technology, and the biological theories of Wilhelm Reich and James Trevor Constable, who proposed that UFOs were living organisms rather than manufactured craft.

The first issue's table of contents reveals the editorial range: "On a Biological Theory of UFOs" (covering Reich, Constable, and Andrew Gaze), "UFO Disinformation: A Possible Solution" by Keith himself, "The Dulce Base: Fact or Fiction?" by Jason Bishop III, "Scientology and UFOs" (anonymous), and "From Orgasm to UFOs: Wilhelm Reich's Contact With Space" by Adam Parfrey. Regular features included "AnGalactic Dispatch" by Matt Love, letters to the editor, close encounter reports, and book reviews. Illustrations came from TAL LeVesque, and the cover artwork for Issue 2 was by James Koehnline.

The letters section ran long and revealed an engaged readership. Correspondents debated the Dulce Base story at length, with some praising the coverage and others warning that the editorial team had made "a bad editorial judgement" in publishing unverified claims. Keith's disinformation article connected UFO sightings to classified aerospace testing at Nevada and other sites, including Groom Lake. The publication referenced John Keel's work and carried advertisements for related publications in the conspiracy and anomalous phenomena press.