Raymond A. Palmer
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 👤 Person
Contents 5
| Type | Person |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Ray Palmer |
Raymond A. Palmer (1 August 1910 – 15 August 1977) was an American magazine editor and publisher who did more than almost anyone to spread interest in flying saucers in the late 1940s and 1950s. He edited Amazing Stories, co-founded Fate magazine, and published Kenneth Arnold's account of his famous 1947 sighting.[1]
Amazing Stories
Palmer was hired to edit the science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories in 1938 and greatly increased its sales. From 1944 he promoted the "Shaver Mystery", stories by Richard Shaver about ancient races and evil beings living underground, which Palmer claimed were true. The claim split science-fiction fans.[1] After the flying saucer wave of 1947 he linked the sightings to the Shaver stories.[1]
Kenneth Arnold and Maury Island
Palmer became friends with pilot Kenneth Arnold, whose sighting near Mount Rainier in June 1947 began the flying saucer era. He paid Arnold to look into the Maury Island story in Washington state, which turned out to be a hoax. Two Air Force officers sent to investigate died when their aircraft crashed, and the Air Force told Palmer's employers he had helped instigate the affair. The publisher then ordered him to stop running Shaver stories.[1]
Fate and Flying Saucers
Palmer and Curtis Fuller launched Fate in 1948. Its first cover story was Arnold's own account, "I Did See the Flying Disks!", and George Adamski sent his first UFO photographs to the magazine in 1950. Fate became a key magazine for believers, reaching about 120,000 readers per issue.[1] Palmer and Arnold co-wrote The Coming of the Saucers, and Palmer later turned his science-fiction magazine Other Worlds into Flying Saucers.[1]
Legacy
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Palmer died in 1977. Ufologists John Keel and Peter Kor argued that he was almost single-handedly responsible for launching the flying saucer movement, and religious scholar Jeffrey Kripal gives him a central role in bringing the paranormal into popular culture.[1]
References
- Raymond A. Palmer — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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