extraordinary%20encounters

226 Shaw’s Martians
k n owledge,” a prophet like Moses or Jo s e p h
Smith though without the religious trappings.
Even if Sh a ver technologized hell, he re m a i n e d
to the end an atheist and a materialist. To him
the caverns existed in this world and had nothing
to do with the supernatural.
Though usually depicted as a cynical exploiter
of a deluded man whom any responsible
adult would have directed to the nearest
psychiatrist, Palmer himself—for all his promotional
instincts, which he exercised vigorously
in the long course of his association
with Shaver—may have been caught up in the
belief in at least something. Perhaps, he sometimes
suggested in public statements, Shaver’s
experiences had occurred on the “astral realm”
(Steinberg, 1973). On one occasion, he defended
the “mystery” in private circumstances
in which he not only had nothing to gain but
also risked looking foolish. Though we will
never know for sure, one reasonable reading
of Palmer’s role in the affair is that this complex
man was both believer and exploiter.
See Also: Atlantis; Brodie’s deros; Hollow earth;
Lemuria; Mount Lassen
Further Reading
Kafton-Minkel, Walter, 1989. Subterranean Worlds:
100,000 Years of Dragons, Dwarfs, the Dead, Lost
Races and UFOs from inside the Earth. Port
Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited.
Palmer, Ray, 1961. “Invitation to Adventure.” The
Hidden World A-1 (Spring): 4–14.
———, 1980. “The Dero and the Tero.” Gray
Barker’s Newsletter 12 (July): 7.
Shaver, Richard S., 1945. “I Remember Lemuria!”
Amazing Stories 19, 1 (March): 12–70.
Steinberg, Gene, 1971. “The Caveat Emptor Interview:
Ray Palmer.” Caveat Emptor 1 (Fall): 9–12,
26.
———, 1973. “The Caveat Emptor Interview:
Richard S. Shaver.” Caveat Emptor 10 (November/December):
5–10.
Wright, Bruce Lanier, 1999. “From Hero to Dero.”
Fortean Times 127 (October): 36–41.
Shaw’s Martians
In November 1896, unidentified “airships”—
what today would be called UFOs—were reported
over northern California, initiating a
flurry of sightings and excitement that within
months would move eastward until all of
America was affected. This was the first UFO
wave in America, and on November 25, 1896,
the first ever UFO abduction occurred—if
one credits the testimony of Colonel H. G.
Shaw, who claimed a near escape from capture
by Martians.
Shaw told his story two days later in a letter
published in the Stockton Evening Mail, a California
paper on whose editorial staff he had
once served. On the day of his adventure, he
and a companion, Camille Spooner, left Lodi
at six o’clock in the morning and were quietly
moving along when their horse abruptly
snorted in terror and stopped in its tracks.
“Three strange beings . . . nearly or quite
seven feet high and very slender,” of more or
less human appearance, strange beauty, and
nudity, stood in front of them on the road.
When Shaw approached them and asked
where they came from, they gave a response
that to his ear sounded like “warbling.”
Speaking to each other, their voices gave off a
“monotonous chant.” They had small hands,
delicate-looking and without fingernails, and
long, narrow feet. When he briefly touched
one, Shaw had the impression that the being
weighed no more than an ounce. He wrote,
They . . . were covered with a natural
growth . . . as soft as silk to the touch, and
their skin was like velvet. Their faces and heads
were without hair, the ears were very small, and
the nose had the appearance of polished ivory,
while the eyes were large and lustrous. The
mouth, however, was small, and it seemed to
me that they were without teeth. That and
other things led me to believe that they neither
ate nor drank, and that life was sustained by
some sort of gas. Each of them had swung
under the left arm a bag to which was attached
a nozzle, and every little while one or the other
would place the nozzle in his mouth, at which
time I heard a sound as of escaping gas.
(Bullard, 1982)
Each also carried an egg-sized device that cast
an “intense but not unpleasant light” when
opened.