UFO Review

History

UFO Review was published by Timothy Green Beckley from offices at 303 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1306, New York, NY 10016 (later 316 Fifth Avenue, NY 10001), under the banner of UFO News Service. Beckley served as both publisher and editor. New York magazine had dubbed him "Mr. UFO," and by the time the Review launched in 1978, he had spent roughly fifteen years writing about the subject for local newspapers, regional press, and national magazines. He was president of Global Communications, a news feature service with seven full-time employees that supplied UFO stories to publications worldwide, reaching an estimated audience of over 40 million across 23 countries.

The first issue arrived in the wake of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which Beckley saw as the spark that could ignite sustained public interest. His editorial explained the problem: interest in UFOs was "at an all-time high," but there were "few sources to turn to for legitimate information on this vital subject." Beckley had tried to launch a nationally distributed newsstand magazine through a well-known publisher, but the project collapsed when market research showed UFO magazines "don't sell that well." UFO Review was Beckley's answer: a self-published tabloid he could control, distributed through subscriptions and mail order. Six issues cost $5.50; twelve issues ran $10.00.

The publication's content covered the full spectrum of the UFO field, from physical-evidence cases to the furthest reaches of the contactee tradition. The first issue alone carried a cover story about infrared photographs allegedly showing a UFO base beneath Lake Ontario, a Gray Barker piece on chasing flying saucers, a feature connecting UFOs and Bigfoot, and a report on UFO panic at Bell Island. Beckley promoted his own books through the publication: Book of Space Brothers (contactee communications, $6.95), Subterranean World (hollow earth theory, $6.95), and Truman Bethurum's People of the Planet Clarion ($6.95).

By issue 15, UFO Review had incorporated Bill Cox's Pyramid Guide, broadening its scope into what would become a characteristic Beckley blend: UFOs, ancient mysteries, alternative health, and metaphysical topics. The issue covered England's crashed UFO (Rendlesham Forest), Atlantis and the Space Brotherhood, and Mount Shasta as a cosmic centre. A Connecticut UFO flap around New Britain received detailed attention, with telephone reports to the office describing low-flying objects of various colours seen over city parks and golf courses, accompanied by unmarked helicopters. The same issue carried an APRO Bulletin case about a family in Oregon who stopped at what appeared to be a saucer-shaped restaurant along US Highway 97, staffed by identical waitresses in silver uniforms, only to find that no such building existed on the route.

The middle issues tracked the field's evolution through the 1980s. Dr. Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming conducted hypnosis sessions with experiencers whose accounts appeared in the Review. Chris Frantz wrote about the American Indian/UFO connection, reporting from the Hopi reservation and describing initiation into a "star clan." The Glenwood Springs UFO Center in Colorado served as a contact point for readers. Content increasingly mixed field reports with channelled messages, Native American spirituality, and New Age philosophy.

By issue 39, the transformation was complete. Beckley, now operating as president of Inner Light Publications, organised the 4th Annual National New Age, Cosmic Conspiracies & UFO Conference in San Diego. The speaker roster read like a directory of the early 1990s UFO/New Age circuit: Dr. Frank Stranges (who claimed to have met a space person inside the Pentagon), James W. Moseley (who after forty years of research revealed personal experiences he could not explain, including a Uri Geller spoon-bending demonstration), Bob Short (a "world acclaimed channel" describing his early years as a contactee at Giant Rock), Vladimir Terziski of the American Academy of Dissident Sciences (presenting "UFO Secrets of the Third Reich"), and Vance Davis and Sean Morton on the Gulf Breeze Prophecies. The conference included workshops on dissolving emotional fears around abductions, screenings of a Russian-made film featuring former KGB agents discussing the Soviet UFO cover-up, and a Saturday night concert by "The UFO Band."