UFO Magazine

History

UFO Magazine began in 1962 as Saucer Album, a quarterly published by the United Research Council of UFOlogy from Rick Hilberg's address at 3403 West 119th Street, Cleveland, Ohio 44111. Allen Greenfield edited the early issues with Hilberg as managing editor. The publication sold for thirty-five cents a copy and offered five dollars for quality submitted articles. By April 1963, the editors had rebranded it as "New Look" UFO Magazine, switching publisher credit to UFO Magazine Publications Ltd. and increasing frequency to bimonthly, though the quarterly rhythm proved more sustainable and the publication settled back to four issues a year.

The Hilberg household was effectively the publishing operation. Saucer Album had been printed and mailed from the same West 119th Street address that would serve as UFO Magazine's editorial office, subscription fulfilment centre, and later the UFO Filter Center's telephone reporting line (216-251-9098) for the next decade. Rick Hilberg handled layout, production, and distribution. Allen Greenfield brought editorial ambition and a network of contacts across the scattered American UFO research community of the early 1960s.

The magazine was deeply embedded in the Congress of Scientific Ufologists, a loose confederation of civilian UFO groups that held annual conventions in cities across the Midwest. The Congress adopted a Code of Ethics that UFO Magazine printed in its Fall 1965 issue, calling on researchers to approach the subject with scientific discipline and to reject hoaxes and sensationalism. In Summer 1970, the Congress formally adopted UFO Magazine's Filter Center as an official program, with Hilberg and Edward Biebel appointed as directors of the telephone reporting and investigation network.

By Volume 4 (1967 to 1969), the editorial team had expanded. Robert S. Easley joined as co-editor. The magazine advertised speciality booklets alongside its quarterly issues: Gray Barker's "Men in Black" and compilations of sighting reports. PO Box 2708, Cleveland, Ohio 44111 replaced the street address for subscription correspondence, though the house on West 119th Street remained the operational base. Volume 6, Number 2 (Summer 1970), the last issue of the main magazine in the archive, listed Dr. Dennis Livingston as science editor and a roster of associate editors including Thomas Nealings, Ronald Kolach, John Dockrill, and the pseudonymous "Mr. Kite."

The magazine's content reflected the small-press UFO culture of the American Midwest in the 1960s. Issues compiled newspaper clippings from wire services and local papers, reprinted with minimal commentary. Sighting reports arrived by mail from correspondents scattered across the country. The Annual 1965, edited solely by Hilberg, assembled the entire "Flying Saucer Flap of 1964" from newspaper sources month by month, creating a chronological record of that year's sighting wave from Rhinelander, Wisconsin to Socorro, New Mexico. Two-dollar yearly subscriptions bought four issues domestically; three dollars covered foreign postage.

Kenneth R. Smith contributed cover illustrations. The production values were typewritten pages reproduced on a duplicator, stapled and mailed in envelopes. What the magazine lacked in polish it compensated for in persistence: the Hilberg operation kept publishing through the lean years of the late 1960s when many UFO groups folded, and then revived the title in newsletter form when activity picked up again in the mid-1970s.