Page 21 of Flying Saucers Magazine - August 1960

"Except that we substitute acceptance for belief, our methods will be the conventional methods; the means by which every belief has been formulated and supported: or our methods will be the methods of theologians and savages and children." . . Charles Fort In "THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED"

I know it was back in January, and I think on the 26th when the telephone rang and a familiar voice from New York came over the wire.

"This is John. I'd like to go on the air with you over the beeper phone."

I hadn't spoken with Long John Nebel, who runs the most popular all-night radio show in the East, since I had been on the program in the summer of 1959 (and reported in the December, 1959, FS). I had been alerted about the call, however; for I had been listening to Long John on my portable radio and had heard him mention he was putting a call through to me.

"You're coming in loud and clear," I was pleased to tell him as the engineer plugged the long distance line into the transmitter panel.

"One of our engineers recently spent a great deal of time in West Virginia," John told me and the vast audience; "they made a survey and then installed some special equipment here. I hear the show is coming in clearly all over your state."

I had guessed the subject Long John would discuss, for I had just heard him read a letter I had sent him a couple of days before. It was, indeed, a most unusual letter.

It began

"Dear John:

"I don't know whether you have heard about it already, but I have received a most unusual invitation: A ride in a flying saucer to South America and back!"

Then the letter had fined John in with a few details and asked him to refer to the January 15th issue of THE SAUCERIAN BULLETIN for the full story.

I knew Long John didn't "buy" the saucer ride, for he has always been skeptical about actual contacts with people in flying saucers. But I could also tell that he was intensely curious about the entire matter.

As I began speaking over the air (when you know that more than a million people are listening to your voice, you try to be at your best, have all the facts organized and watch your grammar! I began to mentally organize the entire fantastic chain of circumstances which were to lead me to wait, half expectantly, half skeptically, for a saucer to land and pick me up in Clarksburg, W. Va. I knew also that I must speak honestly to John, and make it clear that I shared his skepticism, even though many of the listeners would like me to endorse the reality of the trip one hundred per cent.

As I reflected on the beginnings of whole matter one person in particular stood out in my mind. That person was Ottmar Kaub, of St. Louis, Mo., with whom I had been corresponding since 1958. Kaub, whom I had never met, was greatly enthusiastic about getting more facts about flying saucers before the public; most of his letters had contained suggestions for organizing clubs whereby such information could be disseminated more widely.

I gathered that Kaub also believed in the reality of the contact cases when he sent me an elaborate plan for establishing what he termed an "Interplanetary Mailbox."

"It is up to some of us," he wrote, "to establish an interplanetary mailbox on some isolated privately owned farm in order to transfer mail from earth people now living on Venus and Mars to their friends on earth; and also for earth people to send confidential communications to the planets."

How could a plan for such a novel postal service be implemented? Kaub had the details. The saucer people, he explained, could drop the mail at a designated spot, where it would be picked up by a go-between (presumably a terrestrial) and placed in standard envelopes with proper postage. Then it would be taken to some large city and casually placed in various mail boxes from which it would be delivered in the customary manner by Uncle Sam.

"All letters from us to the space people will be addressed to the gobetween, who will open them and forward this mail to the proper planet."

Although I owned a small farm about 60 miles from Clarksburg, I figured I probably was not the right Earth man to inaugurate such a service. How, for example, would one let the space people, if indeed they were real, know that I had put up such a mail box? I never had been any good at mental telepathy. So instead of trying it myself, I sent the entire plan to Buck Nelson, who claimed that the space people had already landed on his farm several times. I put him into contact with Kaub, and lost track of the matter.

A more recent letter from Kaub, this one dated a year later, Oct. 15, 1959, made me wonder if he and Nelson had not indeed established the celestial mail service.

"The Space Brothers," he wrote, "have given Dr. Mario permission to make up a party of 20 people to take a trip in a space craft."

Readers can imagine how my jaw dropped open at that one! Or how I almost fell off my chair when I scanned through the letter and saw, "We are writing this letter to invite you to make this trip. If you accept, regard it as merely a first trip which may later eventuate in longer trips, and who knows, maybe one to another planet."

For years I had been getting a stiff neck looking up at the sky hoping merely to SEE one of the things; now to be OFFERED A RIDE in a saucer was a matter just a little beyond my comprehension at that moment.

I was at the office at that time. I went over to a table, poured myself a cup of strong black coffee from our percolater, lighted two cigarettes (I do this when I'm excited) and began to read every word of the remarkable epistle.

"Dr. Marlo confers with them several times each week," the letter stated, as I tried to remember just who Dr. Marlo was and his possible connection with Kaub. Then I figured that Dr. Marlo must be the Dr. George Marlo, head of a St. Louis saucer organization known as U.F.O. World Organization.

Dr. Marlo had not only conferred with the space people, but had made many trips into space with them!

And not only into space but (Ray Palmer would be interested in this one!) five trips into the center of the earth via the North and South Poles!

Six people had already accepted; many more had been invited, including Ray. If I were worried about how to get to St. Louis, where the trip would presumably originate, Kaub immediately overrode any objection: "The UFO Research is very powerful and has plenty of money behind it. They can and will provide transportation here for you and return or pick you up right there."

Although my first reaction, after reading the letter several times, was that it appeared to be fantastic beyond all belief, two or three factors dug at my mind.

This was not just another of the "contact" cases, usually unproven and without witnesses.

To my knowledge none of the previously reported meetings with space people and rides in saucers had been announced prior to such encounters. The events were always reported after they happened, when conscientious investigators had little to check on.

Here was a contact with spacecraft and apparently space people announced beforehand, presumably for some definite future date. If I were invited to ride in a saucer alone, and it DID COME ABOUT, few people would believe me. But again this new situation was different: a number of people had been invited along with myself. If a group of people took such a trip, they should be able to prove they had actually done so.

Even though this proved to be only another of the more dramatic saucer claims which wouldn't hold water, I decided I should at least find out more about it. So I framed a number of questions which I figured would explode the almost logicality of the invitation, and sent it off to Kaub. After dropping the letter in the mail slot I had supper and returned to the office. When I opened the door I found a Special Delivery letter which had been pushed under it.

The letter was from a good friend of mine. He, also, had received the saucery invitation.

"I have declined their invitation, and hearing that you were also invited, want to unload some doubts that are in mind for what they might be worth.

"The thing that most startled me," my friend continued, "was that he (Kaub) mentioned that the CIA knew about and approved the trip. If the CIA doesn't have anything to do with it, he's in for trouble, for it's bad to toss names of Government agencies around like that. If the CIA is in on it, there are a number of things to look out for."

I didn't know where my confidant was obtaining his information, but he then listed several things for me to look out for and do - if the trip really materialized:

"Somebody may contact you, driving a '57 or '58 Buick or Pontiac. They will have loads of saucerzines in the car, and give you the impression they are really interested in the distribution of such information. When they talk to you, watch out they don't get you to concentrate on any particular object, particularly any shiny object they may have, such as a saucer model. Watch out if they should begin talking to you in a monotonous tone."

My friend seemed to be suggesting that whoever might contact me about the trip (I presumed terrestrials pretending to be spacemen) might attempt to hypnotize me. I knew that my confidant believed in a theory that Adamski, Menger and some of the other contactees had been hypnotized and made believe they had traveled out into space.* This evidently was what he was getting at.

* On a recent Long John telecast over WOBTV. New York. Howard Menger admitted to John that there was a possibility be could have been hypnotized during one or more of his alleged contacts. - 0. B.

"If you go on any trip, just go along with it all, and pretend you're hypnotized. But get plenty of sleep before hand, and try to decline any `fruit juices' they offer you."

When you're invited to take a ride in a saucer in one mail and then the next mail brings a suggestion that there is something real but very fishy behind it, one tends to take the second communication more seriously than if he were reading it "cold." I must confess I went through the motions of working the next day, all the while evolving plans to "fool" any fake spacemen who might come calling! I remember deciding that if I went along with the whole thing I would have nothing to lose. If the trip were for real I would have perhaps one of the most exciting experiences in history; if it were some kind of "setup" and I played along with it, I might get the key to some kind of master plan behind the entire saucer mystery.

My fears of "silence group" meddling were somewhat allayed, and my observation that this was an unusual claim indeed strengthened, by a speedy air mail reply from Kaub. To my amazement he answered all my questions in a definite manner.

Just when would the trip take place, I had asked. He gave me the date of the trip, but warned, "This information is most confidential as it will help you to identify the Space Brothers who will pick you up. They know where we are any hour of the day or night and what we are doing."

This sounded logical. If the date were announced publicly, some hoaxter might get into the act and show up on the date, pretending to be my contact.

I noted he stated the space people would pick me up, already answering partly my second question, "Will the Space Brothers be agreeable to pick me up in Clarksburg, thus saving the money for ground transportation to St. Louis?"

"You do not have to come to b L. Louis," he replied. "They will tell you where to be." From his reply I assumed the pickup point was to be in or some where near Clarksburg.

Would I be permitted to announce my departure before making the trip?

"So long as others have been told about the trip, you are free to do so also. In fact, Dr. Mario wants the publicity so that we can hold the Brothers to their word."

Would witnesses be permitted to see the takeoff and landing? Yes, but no members of the press would be allowed.

"May I take a camera with me on the trip if I accept?"

Absolutely, Kaub replied, adding,

"I am taking only a cheap $18.00 Sunbeam camera; but one of the boys on my list has $1,000 worth of equipment, including a motion picture camera."

How would I identify the space people if they contacted me?

"Dr. Mario says that all the Brothers whom he has met have shown to him their credentials from the Planetary League. They are missionaries and have an `M' on their shirt under their coat. It is up to you to accept them or not when they contact you (this struck me as the only equivocal reply)."

Finally, I had asked him to give me the complete passenger list, which he refused to do.

"Nearly all are going from the St. Louis area, so that will make it easy for the Brothers," he elaborated. "A lot of false information already has been circulated about the trip. One magazine in England stated Dr. Marlo is taking 10,000 people. It looks as though some prankster is busy. Also, someone invited President Eisenhower and some members of Congress. Such dignitaries have not been invited. I am the one who has selected all of those invited, which was about 25. The total list at present is not over 20, but the Brothers have cut it down to about eight persons altogether. Only about two others outside St. Louis beside yourself are on the list. The rest are people in St. Louis who would not want their names publicized until after the trip."

The letter also eased my mind somewhat about any possible CIA connection:

"I have mentioned that we have the approval of the CIA, but that is not correct, as they have reconsidered and VERY WISELY decided to have anything to do with 'Dr. Marlo's experiments.' So do not quote them at all as being concerned in this matter."

So, as I told Long John, I decided to accept, feeling I had nothing to lose. If the trip, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, turned out to be for real, I had one of the biggest stories in the history of journalism to gain-as well as to convince myself once and for all that the saucers were real.

Now Long John has always been pretty tolerant of me and some of my wild saucer tales I've repeated on his "Party Line," and I knew he was going to let me hang up without razzing me too hard. I usually get off easy by snatching a bit of John's own act of "not buying" what I say but nevertheless getting it across.

I was wrong, however, for I began to sense John had something up his sleeve.

"I've just been talking to Jackie Gleason," he told me, and I knew I was in for it. For Gleason, nationally-known actor, television comic and musical comedy star of the Broadway sellout hit, "Take Me Along," had been very rough on "saucerers" when he had appeared on the show. Although I suspected some of his forays during his open seasons on contactees had been half in fun, I knew that he was up to something in regard to our "beeper" interview.

"Jackie Gleason," Long John continued, "as you know, is loaded with dough. He has given me the word to tell you he'll put up $10,000 against your $500, that the trip won't come off. If you can make the trip and bring back some evidence proving you did so, here's a chance, Gray, to pick up a nice piece of "change."

My mind raced 40 miles an hour to think up a good excuse to get out of that one! For one thing, I didn't have $500; secondly I wasn't THAT MUCH SOLD ON THE TRIP to put it up if I had it. Then I thought of something:

"John, I don't have the $500. But I tell you what I'm going to do. YOU LOAN ME THE $500. Then when I win the $10,000 from Gleason, we'll split the ten grand."

"Gray," John replied; "you know sometimes I question your methods of research, and your sanity, but I must give credit for one thing -you have proved just now that you are a good business man!"

It went without saying that John didn't take me up on the loan proposition.

* * *

"If ever a man should travel at more than thirty miles an hour, the flesh would be seared from his bones by the pressure of air." - Samuel Johnson

* * *

I thought that would get me off the hook with Jackie Gleason, but a few nights later he called me up and corned me. Long John had thought up some sort of fantastic "beeper" phone hookup whereby Gleason and myself were talking to each other from our respective homes in Clarksburg and Manhattan, the conversation coming through the WOR transmitter -and with Long John and Frank Edwards, the noted Mutual news commentator, also in on the conversation.

Jackie jumped all over me vocally. "You mean to tell me, Gray," he began in an incredulous vein, "that you agreed to go on this trip at the prompting of two people you don't even know? With a person who calls himself a `Doctor,' when you told John you didn't know what his doctorate is in?"

I had to admit I just hadn't asked. After all, one assumes that when a person signs his name as "Dr so and so," the person has a degree of some kind - and it might be construed as impertinent to ask him the type of degree he holds. Dr. Marlo had told me, I related to Gleason, that "Marlo" wasn't his real name - that he had used that name when he was at one time on the stage as a magician.

My files had revealed some further information on another Doctor, a Dr. Bernard, who also figured in the trip. The destination of the saucer ride was to be the island of Sao Francisco, off the coast of Brazil, where Dr. Bernard operated some sort of health settlement. I remembered a letter written to Richard S. Shaver and published some months ago by Ray Palmer, which seemed to connect with the Dr. Bernard mentioned by Kaub. I had looked up the particular issue of SEARCH and reread the strange letter. I could only summarize it briefly for Gleason:

It related how Dr. Bernard had sent a party of explorers to enter a tunnel discovered in the area in which Colonel Fawcett disappeared years ago. The tunnel was completely lined with stone blocks. It was quite dirty and gave evidence of not having been used for a long time. After a day's hike they slept and arose to hike again. Then the tunnel became perfectly clean, giving the impression of inhabitants beyond!

They walked a second day and slept.

The third day of the underground trek brought them to the sound of voices, speaking loudly, which frightened them; so they turned back.

After they retraced their steps some distance, a branch tunnel at tracted their attention. Inside it they saw a little man with a long white beard who looked much like the traditional dwarf of folklore.

The little man didn't see them, but again the group became frightened and returned to the surface; but after they related the strange tale, Dr. Bernard encouraged them to re-enter the tunnel, which they did.

Again, it was a long, hard walk; but after two and a half days they came to steps in the tunnel leading downward. At the end of the third day they reached an immense cavity with an illuminated "sky." The "sky" gave off a yellow phosphorescence which illuminated a city below. The explorers saw many small men, women and children. Again the party became frightened and returned.

Dr. Bernard added that in addition to subterranean cities not far below the earth's surface, a subterranean world known as Agharta existed in the center of the earth. The capital known as Shamballa, is well known to the Tibetians and people of Mongolia, he said.

On another exploration trip into caverns, one of Bernard's men discovered a 300-foot vertical tunnel, and descended it by rope. At the bottom he came to a door which automatically opened. Behind it stood an eight-foot Atlantean, protected by a plastic-like substance from the radioactive outside air. He spoke to the explorer through a loud speaker, saying that he came from the center of the earth by means of a electronic vehicle. The Atlantean also said that flying saucers were sent from the interior of the earth to the outer atmosphere to halt nuclear tests.

All this, as we said before, according to Dr. Bernard, who also wrote a similar letter to the Borderland Sciences Research Associates, now headed by Riley Crabb.

"Charts prepared by underground Atlantean scientists," he wrote, indicate that air pollution by radioactive fallout will become so bad that the human race will not survive on earth for longer than 10 years. All that can be done is save a few worthy individuals by bringing them into the tunnel opening we discovered, which is one of the four entrances to Agharta in the entire world.

"Since it is my work to save a remnant of the American people, and since I will soon locate inside the transparent screen behind the secret door (After an elevator has been installed - G. B.) where I may breathe air free from radioactivity."

When I read the two letters, something had rung a bell, all right, but I couldn't place Dr. Bernard. It took several days, off and on, of digging through files, until I came across two letters from him, dated in July and September of 1957.

The letters were on stationary headed "New California Subtropical Health Settlement." They discussed a possible shift of the earth's axis, underground races, and the dangers of atomic fallout. One of the letters accompanied a publication which urged prospective settlers to come to the island of Sao Francisco and purchase tracts of land at $150.00 per acre (minimum tract 5 acres).

The letters also settled Dr. Bernard's doctorate, for they carried the degree, Ph. D., after his name.

The first trip had been set for the day after Thanksgiving, I soon had learned from Kaub. However, at the last minute the trip was postponed, and Kaub indicated that it would definitely take place on Jan. 29, 1960 (though I was not at liberty to reveal the date beforehand).

As time went on, plans for the saucer trip grew, along with the widespread enthusiasm it had inspired.

Frank Edwards, still talking with us on the conference hookup, expressed great surprise in having received an invitation; though he erroneously misinterpreted the fact that the letter was from Kaub, not myself. I had only forwarded it, at Kaub's request - as I had also forwarded similar letters to Daniel Fry, George Williamson and one or two others.

To realize the scope the trip had taken on I quote from the letter sent to Williamson:

"Dr. George Malo and myself, his secretary, are happy to invite you on this historic trip on a gigantic spacecraft to the Island of SaoFrancisco off the coast of southern Brazil. This island was purchased a few weeks ago by two of the miltimillionaire and active members of the UFO World Research.

"About 50 to 100 people are being invited. A representative of the U. S. Government will be on board, at their request. I have written a letter of invitation to the president of Brazil (later accepted according to Kaub - G. B.).

"Among those accepting so far are Gray Barker, Ray Palmer, Jack Benny, Art Linkletter, Jack Paar, Arthur Godfrey. We are also inviting Trench* of England. Distance is no obstacle to the Space Brothers. All will be picked up in scout ships and transferred into the big mother ship.

* The Hon. Brinsley Ie poer Trench, former editor of the BRITISH FLYING SAYCER RFVIEW. Trench resigned the position recently, explaining his action as occasioned by health and other personal reasons. We personally know that Trench was not "shushed up," but we also know that the capable researcher did not drop the TWO subject. as he way later reveal to a startled public. - C. B.

"Dr. Marlo is now free to reveal that in his 14 years in this work he has been in the spacecraft a total of 60 times, four times with his automobile, and seven times inside this inhabited inner earth. He confers with the Brothers almost daily and has a two-way communication device for talking with them."

Evidently in agreement with Ray Palmer's argument that the earth is hollow, Dr. Marlo issued a bulletin titled "North Pole-Flying SaucersAnd You," from which I quoted:

"There is really no North or South Pole, but we will call these Poles that for location reasons.

"First of all, 'Spacecraft' or 'Flying Saucers' come from a number of places. Most of them, however, come from the land beyond the North Pole. The temperature there is 76 degrees, believe it or not.

"The so-called 'Island In the Sky' is the land beyond the North Pole or the 'Inner Earth' and has untold wealth. The nations are seeking for the entrance to it. Many nations know the entrance, but the big problem is how to get there alive.

"The race of wonderful people there are 700 to 1,000 years ahead of our nations in inventions. Their huge machines control everything there and on our earth. They have machines which control the weather, and among other things, control people too. They have projecting machines which can send pictures thousands of miles away without a receiving set. No question about it, they are responsible for some of the strange things we have seen here on our side of the earth. They mean us no harm."

A few weeks before the deadline for the saucery junket, I received one of the many notes which came regularly from Dr. Marlo - though the notes were usually brief, befitting an executive organizing such a novel tour.

This particular letter stated I had met one of the space people a few days before, and he named the date. Ha added, however, that I might not have recognized the saucerian at the time of meeting. This was one time I could be certain of Dr. Marlo's correctness in one respect: If I had actually met a space man I had known nothing about it at the time.

After I had replied to that effect, I did remember that I had met a rather unusual drunkard.

Driving back into town from lunch at a place outside the city limits, I stopped at a light, and a man motioned to me. Now I do not make a habit of stopping to talk with strangers, or giving lifts to hikers, but I decided to make an exception. For he was a clean, exceptionally well-dressed elderly man, and the weather was very cold.

So I rolled the window down, and he asked very politely if he might ride into town. I opened the door and he got in.

The man then apologized profusely for being drunk (though I could smell no alcohol), and I thought, "Well, I've been taken in after all," particularly when, as we were reaching his destination, he said he was broke and wondered if I could let him have 50 cents.

I am always a pushover for handouts, so I felt in my pockets. I didn't have 50 cents so I gave him a dollar. I let him out while he was still thanking me profusely and apologizing for being intoxicated.

Later I inquired around the section where I had picked him up, but nobody knew a person answering the description. Perhaps he was from another section of town, for my friends in that area know everybody who live there and would have been aware of such local fellow who had a habit of hitting the bottle hard.

So the only person I could remember speaking with whom I didn't know personally (unless it was the mailman who complained about my icy steps), was the apologetic inebriate: but if the space people are pretending to be doing lost weekends in order to meet and talk to earth people, let me suggest they dowse themselves with shaving lotion so that they also SMELL drunk.

Among readers who wrote me for further information after reading about the trip in THE SAUCERIAN BULLETIN was a close friend of mine, and a very careful investigator, Rev. Leon C. LeVan, of the New Jerusalem Christian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa.

I had come to know Rev. LeVan well just after my book came out. He read the book. hopped on a bus, and got off in Clarksburg with a sheaf of papers containing about 150 questions to ask me, carefully written out. After sitting down in two sessions and answering all of them to LeVan's satisfaction I found Gleason's' barrage of queries mild.

I kept in touch with Rev. LeVan after that. His searching investigation of the Howard Menger contacts led me to become interested in the case and eventually publish Menger's book, FROM OUTER SPACE TO YOU. Later Rev. LeVan became a member of the NICAP Board of Governors (he has since resigned).

I was rather surprised when Rev. LeVan telephoned me, for I knew his widespread investigations had led him in great doubt as to the reality of the contact cases he had investigated. Rev. LeVan wanted me to wangle an invitation for him to go along on the ride!

In speaking with Gleason I tried to use this as an analogy.

"Now I expressed in my letter to Long John that I was skeptical about the outcome of the trip. But I decided to along with it, for after all, it could happen."

In talking further with LeVan I found he was not "swallowing" the trip at all. Like myself, he felt the invitations had been unusual. I remember his saying, "After all, here is a thing about which they will either have to `put up or shut up,' and I realized it was the definite and concrete nature of the invitation which had interested him.

I told him I would write to Kaub and see what I could do. Kaub replied quickly and notified LeVan he was being put on the passenger list.

Rev. LeVan telephoned me again:

"Kaub says I should be there with you on the 29th."

"Good!" I replied. "I'll need moral support, and if the trip doesn't come about we'll at least have a chance to get in a long talk."

"I'm coming down there the evening of the 28th. Maybe we should keep our bags packed so if it does come about we could leave immediately. I, for one, am going to sleep with my clothes on."

"I don't think that will be necessary," I told him, for I had just telephoned Kaub about that very thing. Kaub had said we would have time to get ready, and to go about our business as we would on an ordinary day. Thousands of space people were working on this project; one or more of them would contact us in some fashion and tell us where to go aboard the a scout ship. A small ship would pick us up, then rendezvous with a huge mother ship at some undetermined point.

"Don't worry about a thing. The mother ship is huge. They have food and clothing on board. There will even be doctors on the trip."

There was such a matter-of-factness in his tone, as he went on to tell how at that moment Dr. Marlo was having further conferences with the space people, that it was quite easy to attach a reality to it - just as if I were contemplating a plane trip to California.

But what if some spacemen DID call us? What if they said they were ready and to come on? Would I be frightened? Would I back out?

I began worrying about minor technicalities. What about passports, for example? After all, we were going to a foreign country, and I remembered that when I went to London two years before I had to go through a lot of red tape. Then I remembered a statement in one of Kaub's letters which noted that the President of Brazil had accepted the ride and would work out the matter of visas and passports.

And so, January 28th rolled around. I was looking forward to Rev. LeVan's arrival that evening, and decided to telephone Kaub again, so I would have the latest news to impart to him.

I talked with Kaub, then replaced the receiver with my private prediction a reality. I rang up Rev. LeVan, hoping to catch him before he went to the bus station. I was lucky.

"You might as well have the bad news short and fast," I told him; "Kaub just told me the trip is off!"

In talking with Gleason later, I repeated Kaub's reasons, as I had communicated them to LeVan:

"Kaub said something new had come up. Before that date he had often written about a number of investigators who had called on him.

"But get this: Dr. Marco claims that a 'Mr. Z,' presumably a government agent of some kind (though Marlo did not say that), called on him and ordered him to make the space people call off the trip. And he did just that."

"Why did he give in so easily?"

"He said that 'Mr. Z' threatened to call him up before `The Secret Saucer Committee' if he refused. `Do you mean you're going to railroad me with some mental health scheme?' Dr. Marco asked, and` Mr. Z' replied, 'No we have OTHER MEANS. You would serve time under another name!"

"That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of," was Gleason's comment, and though on the air I felt I should stick up for my going along with the thing, secretly I had to agree with him.

After the conference call I realized there were many things I had neglected to add because of lack of time, and because they were even more fantastic that those I had related.

Dr. Mario had written that 'Mr. Z,' whom he finally revealed was a 'Mr. Zucco,' had given in to a future saucer trip, provided there wouldn't be so much publicity. Mr. Zucco's prohibition of the trip had been only a bluff anyhow - for the representative of the certain Agency had been wanting to personally meet the space people and go for a ride himself, and was simply trying to make a deal with Marlo.

I would be receiving no further information from Dr. Marlo for a few days or maybe weeks. For he was departing, another letter stated, to the center of the earth by way of the North Pole. He would leave an assistant, a Dr. Burgdorf, in St. Louis to answer correspondence (I have not heard from him, either, since Dr. Mario's departure).

THE END