Journal of a UFO Investigator
Page 29
(The second of the two quotations at the beginning of chapter 4 is adapted from Shaver’s story “Thought Records of Lemuria,” in the June 1945 issue of Amazing Stories, the first from a column of Barker’s in the June 1957 issue of Flying Saucers magazine, reprinted in 2003 by Rick Hilberg. The “Shaver” quotation on page 73 is in fact Barker’s formulation of Shaver’s ideas: They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, pages 62-63. The passages quoted by Rochelle and Julian on page 63 are from an actual letter sent to Jessup in 1956 by the eccentric drifter Carl Allen, and the description of the moon-tower picture on page 125 is inspired by a cover illustration drawn by Albert Bender for the November 1953 issue of Barker’s The Saucerian. Other details of the “Gypsies’ ” book are my own invention.)
The best exploration to date of Barker’s enigmatic life and tangled motivations, his real sincerity and freewheeling approach to truth, is Robert Wilkinson’s brilliant 2009 documentary film Shades of Gray. Barker’s papers are housed in the Gray Barker Collection of the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library. There, doing research for this book in September 2004, I was welcomed and given every possible assistance by curator David Houchin.
Danny’s experience in the Philadelphia Library, in chapter 5, draws upon an incident reported by folklorist Peter Rojcewicz in Journal of American Folklore, vol. 100 (1987), pages 148-161. Others who’ve inspired this book’s treatment of UFOs include the late Karl Pflock, whose Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe (2001) is the definitive account of the Roswell legend, and Jerome Clark, my friend from the distant days when I was myself a teenage UFO investigator. In his magnum opus The UFO Encyclopedia (1990-96, second edition 1998), Jerry has gifted us with an inexhaustibly rich source of knowledge, which no one with the smallest interest in UFOs or UFO belief can afford to do without.
The North Carolina Writers Network, through its annual conferences, helped me learn that literary agents are not necessarily figures of dread. Through its critiquing service, it allowed me to make use of the “book-doctoring” of poet and short story writer Ruth Moose, who gave me the right feedback at the right time.
And speaking of agents ... I’m lucky to be represented by one of the finest, the supremely savvy and sensitive Peter Steinberg. Not only did Peter find a splendid home for my book—it’s his genius, for taking a story and making it better, that I have to thank for three plot alterations that raised the novel to an entirely new level. For all the good things that have happened to this book, I’m deeply grateful to him, his wonderful assistant Lisa Kopel, and his overseas colleagues at Intercontinental Literary Agency (Sam Edenborough, Tessa Girvan, Nicki Kennedy, and Jenny Robson). Also to Bill Martin and Beverly Swerling Martin of Agent Research and Evaluation, whose expertise first guided me in Peter’s direction.
At Viking, I’ve been blessed with two of the finest editors I can imagine. Kendra Harpster, who shepherded the manuscript from acquisition to production, persisted in asking exactly the right questions of the book and refused to be contented with any answer that did not move it toward becoming all it could be. Josh Kendall has taken it from there, bringing his panache and sound judgment to the book’s benefit in a multitude of ways. Thanks also to Amanda Brower and Laura Tisdel, for their careful reads and penetrating suggestions, and to Maggie Riggs, Josh’s tirelessly helpful assistant. And to Carolyn Coleburn, Gabrielle Gantz, Alex Gigante, Pearl Hanig, Daniel Lagin, and Jennifer Tait.
I thank novelist Philip Gerard, for a conversation more than six years ago which helped me see unrealized potential for the book. I thank reference librarian Barbara Harris of the Roswell (New Mexico) Public Library, who helped me research the history of the town and the air force base when I visited Roswell in September 2006; and the staff of the Free Library of Philadelphia, who helped me get the details of the library scenes just right. I thank writers Paul Cuadros, Alison Hill, Jake Horwitz, John Kessel, Duncan Murrell, James Protzman, John Reed, Howard Schwartz, Daniel Wallace, Allen Wold, and the late Professor Martin Lakin; readers Ayesha Coleman and Benjamin MacLeod; and our family friends Shirley Bullock, Gina Mahalek and Jackie Wilson, Steve Eubanks and Steve Mullinix, for help that they themselves know best. And I thank our “beloved community” of faith, the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (ERUUF) of Durham, North Carolina, which has given Rose and me a place of worship and inspiration, amply fulfilling for us the promise of one of our favorite Unitarian Universalist hymns:
Come, dream a dream with me ... that I might know your mind.
And I’ll bring you hope when hope is hard to find,
And I’ll bring a song of love and a rose in the wintertime.
Durham, North Carolina
July 2010