The October 1953 issue of Space Review ran eight pages. Every previous issue had run twelve. The reduction is visible before the reader opens the cover: thinner in the hand, lighter in the mailbox. Whatever had happened inside the International Flying Saucer Bureau, the physical object tells part of the story before a word is read.
The front page carries four items. The first is a report by August C. Roberts, to whom the issue is dedicated, on a fireball incident in New Haven on 22 August 1953. Roberts and a member named Joseph Barbieri investigated the scene: a ball of fire had punched a hole at least a foot square through a large Omelia signboard made of twenty-gauge steel, ripping and curling the metal. A local resident two hundred feet away had seen a streak of light, heard an explosion that shook her house, and watched her lights dim. A man driving past saw a red ball of fire about six inches in diameter trailing a tail, pass in front of his car, tear through a tree, and disappear at high speed toward East Rock. Roberts examined the sign and found no evidence of fire or powder burns, but foreign elements were embedded in the metal. He took pieces with pliers and brought them to IFSB headquarters for analysis.
The second item is a “Late Bulletin”: “A source, which the IFSB considers very reliable, has informed us that the investigation of the flying saucer mystery and solution is approaching its final stages.” The same source, the bulletin continues, had received data from the IFSB and “suggested that it was not the proper method and time to publish this data in Space Review.”
The third is a response to “numerous inquiries” about whether the IFSB had information on anyone having been taken for a ride in a flying saucer. “To the best of our knowledge no such incident has ever taken place.”
The fourth is boxed and headed “STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE”:
“The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by orders from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are sorry that we have been advised in the negative.”
“We advise those engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious.”
On page two, Bender’s final editorial does not mention saucers. It is about nuclear weapons. Russia’s stockpile, America’s hydrogen bombs, “the worst holocaust this Earth has ever seen.” If only the money had been spent on space travel. “The men in the saucers are much wiser than we think, why should they destroy us, when we will no doubt do it ourselves.” Below the editorial, in capitals: “MAY I TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY IN SAYING FAREWELL TO ALL MEMBERS AND OFFICERS. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE HELP AND KIND DEEDS YOU HAVE GIVEN IFSB. , The Director.”
The issue is not entirely valedictory. Frank Scully’s promised article appeared: “Footnote to Flying Saucers,” a characteristically confident retrospective on his 1950 book. Scully reported sitting in on an Air Force Reserve briefing and finding the official position “changed greatly” since 1949. “They no longer think believers are victims of mass hysteria. They happen now to have 750 sightings which have them stumped and most of these were reported by their own technicians and were caught on their own radar scopes.” He believed the saucers were magnetically propelled, were mapping Earth’s magnetic fault zones, and were “here to stay.” Lonzo Dove’s Mars Explosions article reached its conclusion, citing G. deVaucouleurs’ 1950 book on Mars and arguing that “the saucer activities on Earth explain the synchronous Explosions on Mars, while the Mars events explain the origin of the flying saucers.” Judith L. Gee, a London news reporter, contributed a thoughtful essay speculating about beings operating in “a different octave of sense” whose “dimensions of height, breadth, depth and duration, may be different from ours.”
The sighting reports, reduced to a single page, included the Brush Creek, California episode: two titanium miners who claimed a saucer had landed at their camp on two occasions and “a little man got out and scooped up a bucket of water, which he handed to someone inside the ship.” They asked the sheriff’s office whether they could fire on the little man and were told to try to capture it alive. When the saucer was expected to return on 20 July, newspaper reporters, photographers, and curious visitors descended on the mining camp. The little man did not appear. “The little town received nationwide fame from this little incident and from all reports they sold more soda pop that day, than any day known.”
On page seven, the formal announcement. At a meeting on 9 September 1953 in Bridgeport, the five members of the executive staff had agreed to “completely reorganize.” Effective 1 January 1954, the organisation would “no longer be known as the International Flying Saucer Bureau.” All subscriptions ended with this issue. Provisions for refunds appeared on page eight, along with a tear-out form offering members three choices: a refund, back issues of Space Review, or placement on the mailing list of the new organisation.
The “Comments on the Above Statement” described what would follow: a new organisation directed by Bender and Krengel, “comprised of individuals, each a specialist in his or her particular field,” confining itself to “matters pertaining to the universe in general.” There would be no paid memberships. There would be printed newsletters, “though the format and frequency of publication, is still under consideration. The name Space Review is being retained.”
The name was retained. The archive holds three more issues: Vol. III, No. 1 (February 1954), Vol. III, No. 2 (April 1954), and Vol. III, No. 3 (August 1954). The publication that was supposed to have ended with this cryptic warning continued for another ten months.
On the back cover, an advertisement: “For a Complete List of FLYING SAUCER BOOKS, Write to: SAUCERIAN PUBLICATIONS, Box 2228, Clarksburg, W.Va.” Gray Barker, Chief Investigator for seven months, had already built the publishing operation that would carry the IFSB’s story forward. His own magazine, The Saucerian, was advertised on page three (“Fact , Fiction , Philosophy about the Flying Saucers. Published bi-monthly. Edited and published by Gray Barker.”). The Bureau was dissolving. Barker’s work was beginning.
