Saucer Sentinel

History

D.W. Opperman edited The Saucer Sentinel from 6 Holland Court, Saginaw, Michigan, published twice monthly (first and fifteenth) under the Olympic Publications imprint. Single copies cost 7 cents; three issues ran 40 cents; six issues 75 cents; twelve issues $1.15. Number 3 appeared on 15 October 1954, placing the launch in September of that year, during one of the most intense global UFO sighting waves in history.

The subtitle read "Facts and Opinions on Flying Saucers" and the editorial column was titled "Saucer Sentiments." Opperman ran a tight, opinionated ship. He invited manuscript submissions but warned he would not guarantee publication of everything received. Back issues were available at 15 cents per copy. The format was mimeographed, densely packed, and produced with the speed that twice-monthly publication demanded.

The same issue reprinted a UPI wire story from Los Angeles (12 October 1954) about a man who claimed to see a flying saucer land in MacArthur Park, with "a little man in a white suit" emerging before a truck carted both saucer and occupant away. The witness refused to give his name "because everybody would think I was crazy." Opperman also covered a comic book publisher's challenge to the Air Force: the December issue of "Weird Science-Fantasy" (Fables Publishing Company, New York) devoted a special issue to documented flying saucer evidence, using only cases reported by military and civilian pilots, scientists, and technicians.

The letters column carried reader criticism of Truman Bethurum's "Aboard a Flying Saucer," which Opperman agreed was "far from convincing" and "not even a good yarn." He had no patience for the contactee literature emerging from Southern California. Opperman also noted the Detroit Free Press carrying a reader's letter after a Desmond Leslie lecture, warning about "an offensive supra-cult" developing around flying saucer belief. The editor pushed back: Leslie himself had discouraged cultists at his lectures.

The Sentinel tracked the Air Force's plastic balloon launches, noting acidly that they would serve a "twofold purpose": gathering data on air currents while conveniently explaining away any saucer reports for the next few months.