The Shaver Mysteries were...strAInge
A look at one of SciFi Fantasy's oddest moments
The Shaver Mysteries
The Shaver Mystery began with Richard Sharpe Shaver’s claims of an ancient language called Mantong and a hidden subterranean world of dero and tero, then exploded after Ray Palmer published “I Remember Lemuria!” in the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories. Palmer blurred fiction, confession, Fortean speculation, and pulp marketing so effectively that the controversy boosted Amazing Stories, inspired reader letters and clubs, and helped set the stage for postwar UFO culture.
Primary Sources
https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v19n01_1945-03_Ziff-Daviscape1736
March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories, the key starting point for the public Shaver Mystery, containing “I Remember Lemuria!”
https://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/index.htm
Readable online text of I Remember Lemuria and The Return of Sathanas, with a useful intro connecting Shaver, Palmer, deros, Lemuria, UFO lore, and later paranormal mythology.
https://archive.org/details/AmazingStoriesVolume21Number06_692
June 1947 issue of Amazing Stories, a high point of the Shaver craze, featuring four Richard Sharpe Shaver pieces: “Formula from the Underworld,” “Zigor Mephisto’s Collection of Mentalia,” “Witch’s Daughter,” and “The Red Legion.” The Archive entry notes that the issue and contents are public domain due to lack of copyright renewal.
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=amazingstories
University of Pennsylvania’s serial archive page for Amazing Stories, useful for jumping through available scans issue by issue. It lists the crucial 1945–1950 Amazing issues where Shaver-related material appeared.
https://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/AS.htm
Luminist’s Amazing Stories archive page, another useful scan index. It identifies Shaver as author of the notorious Shaver Mystery stories, with Ray Palmer’s collaboration, and frames the basic theme as ancient extraterrestrials surviving in hidden underground caverns.
Background on Shaver, Palmer, and Amazing Stories
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/richard-sharpe-shaver-4462/
Strong biographical overview of Richard Sharpe Shaver, including the Mantong letter, Palmer’s role, the claims about underground entities, reader response, Shaver Mystery Clubs, and Shaver’s later Arkansas years.
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/shaver_richard_s
Concise science-fiction reference entry on Shaver and his later Shaver-related work in Other Worlds and The Hidden World.
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/palmer_raymond_a
Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry on Raymond A. Palmer. Especially useful for Palmer’s role as editor, his promotion of Shaver’s work as fact, and the circulation claims around the Shaver Mystery.
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/amazing
Background on Amazing Stories under Palmer. The entry notes Palmer’s mid-1940s support for Shaver’s paranoid subterranean mythology and the post-Palmer shift under Howard Browne.
https://thepulp.net/pulp-articles/ray-palmer-and-the-shaver-mystery/
Excellent pulp-history overview of Palmer and Shaver. Includes the sequence of Amazing Stories issues carrying Shaver material from 1945 through 1950, plus the Mantong origin story and fan backlash.
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/war-over-lemuria/
Publisher page for Richard Toronto’s War over Lemuria: Richard Shaver, Ray Palmer and the Strangest Chapter of 1940s Science Fiction. Probably the best modern book source for the episode. The page describes the Shaver Mystery as a worldwide 1945–1948 controversy and gives the table of contents.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-shaver-mystery-the-most-sensational-true-story-ever-told/
Los Angeles Review of Books essay/review on Shaver, Palmer, Toronto’s War over Lemuria, and Fred Nadis’s Palmer biography. Very useful for framing the Shaver Mystery as a turning point between pulp science fiction, Forteana, UFO belief, and fringe religion.
Fandom Backlash and the “Hoax” Fight
Modern Amazing Stories article reproducing and discussing the 1947 Philcon / Philadelphia Resolution against the Shaver Mystery. Useful for the episode section on organized fandom trying to distance science fiction from Palmer’s Shaverism.
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/paranoia
Science Fiction Encyclopedia context entry on paranoia in SF, with a direct note that Amazing Stories improved circulation in 1945–1947 by publishing purportedly fact-based Shaver stories about manipulation by malign underground robots.
Hollow Earth and Earlier Context
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hollow_earth
Useful for placing Shaver in the long Hollow Earth tradition. The entry notes that Shaver’s inner world is more hellish and paranoid than the earlier, more Edenic hollow-earth fantasies.
https://archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/63884/2/Mckee-%20Shaver.pdf
Gabriel McKee’s “Richard Shaver’s Subterranean World and the Displaced Self,” a scholarly article useful for a more serious reading of Shaver’s underground mythology, mental distress, and the “influencing machine” idea.
Fate Magazine and the UFO Connection
FATE’s own history page. It notes that Palmer and Curtis Fuller launched FATE in 1948, and that the first issue featured Kenneth Arnold’s first-hand account of his 1947 UFO sighting.
https://iapsop.com/archive/materials/fate_magazine/
IAPSOP archive page for FATE Magazine. Useful for scans and for connecting Palmer’s post-Amazing career to early UFO culture. The page says the first issue carried Kenneth Arnold’s UFO article and helped create the UFO furor.
https://www.luminist.org/archives/OC/FATE.htm
Luminist archive page for FATE, with early issue links and cover thumbnails. Good for visual references and period atmosphere.
Episode Notes / Angles
Frame the Shaver Mystery as the moment when pulp SF became a pipeline into modern fringe belief: lost continents, ancient super-science, underground bases, mind-control rays, reader testimony, editor hype, and then flying saucers.
The key characters are Richard Shaver, the claimant and mythmaker; Ray Palmer, the editor-promoter; Howard Browne, the skeptical office voice; organized SF fandom, trying to protect the genre’s reputation; and the readers, whose letters turned the whole thing from a story into a movement.
Best line of argument for the episode: it was not simply “a hoax,” and it was not simply “a man’s delusion.” It was a feedback loop. Shaver supplied the cosmology, Palmer supplied the megaphone, Amazing Stories supplied the audience, and the audience supplied the confirmation.
Best transition to UFOs: June 1947 is the hinge. That same month, Amazing published the big Shaver issue, and Kenneth Arnold’s Mount Rainier sighting ignited the flying-saucer era. After that, the underground dero myth did not vanish. It got folded into UFO culture as hidden bases, ancient aliens, abductors, and secret technology.
Possible closing note: The Shaver Mystery is strange because it is both ridiculous and historically important. It is pulp fiction, outsider cosmology, mental-health tragedy, editorial opportunism, and one of the seedbeds of modern paranormal media all at once.
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