Saucer News / Saucer Smear

History

James W. Moseley launched Saucer News in 1954, making it one of the earliest civilian UFO publications in the United States. From the very first issue, Moseley occupied a position that no one else in ufology would ever quite replicate: simultaneously a true believer in the reality of the phenomenon and an unsparing, often gleeful critic of the people who studied it. He was the court jester of a field that desperately needed one.

Moseley came from a wealthy New York family and had no need to work for a living. He devoted his life instead to two things: investigating UFOs and documenting the community that had formed around them. In its early years, Saucer News carried straight reporting on sighting cases, contactee claims, and government secrecy. Moseley attended virtually every major UFO conference from the 1950s onwards, maintained personal relationships with figures ranging from serious scientists to outright hoaxers, and had an almost preternatural ability to be present at the important moments.

The publication covered the full spectrum. One issue might contain a serious field investigation report alongside scathing gossip about feuding researchers, a letter from a contactee claiming to have visited Venus, and Moseley's own editorial commentary mocking everyone involved, including himself. That willingness to print material that other editors rejected (whether out of quality concerns or political caution) made the newsletter crucial and infuriating in equal measure.

In 1997, Moseley renamed the publication Saucer Smear, a title that better reflected what it had become: less a UFO research journal and more a chronicle of the UFO community itself. The feuds, the personalities, the recurring scandals, the occasional genuine discoveries. He published in this format until his death in November 2012 at the age of 76, giving the combined publication a remarkable 58-year run, the longest of any UFO periodical anywhere in the world.

Moseley's editorial voice was unmistakable. He would give space to fringe figures alongside mainstream researchers, then skewer everyone equally in his commentary. Most serious ufologists read Saucer News and Saucer Smear regularly. Few would admit to enjoying it. Fewer still would deny that Moseley often got closer to the truth about the field's internal dynamics than the official publications ever did.