Anomaly Archivist’s Report, June 2017
Files: (Newly Added or Updated)
- Algorithms
- Alexandrovna Horton, Larisa
- Amok Copycat Werther Effects
- The Copycat Effect (book)
- Cutchin, Joshua
- The Deep State
- Dongo, Tom
- Fracking – UFOs – Printing the Legend – Forbes 1/14/2013
- G – Jimmy G Collection – donated collection (page updated)
- Genthe, Janna “Jane” – donated collected
- Hersh, Seymour
- Jaffe, Morris
- Manchurian Candidate
- Miley, Michael
- MUFON
- Rowley, Colleen
- Russian Interference in 2016 United States Elections
- Sagan, Carl
- The Search for the Manchurian Candidate (book)
- Secret Space Program Conference 2015
- VORTEXAS Network
- Wallace, Malcolm (Mac)
It was much later that Joan Jeffers – a devoted Pennsylvanian researcher of UFO and related phenomena – told me to get a hold of Bob Girard, saying he could find any book or periodical I might remember from the early days of sauceriana, or even material from other countries. Oddly enough, I was sort of in touch with Bob already. His former partner, the late Ron Bonds, had set up Illuminet Press expressing an interest in publishing my translation of Salvador Freixedo’s “Visionaries, mystics and contactees”, a great introduction to the Spanish Jesuit’s vast body of work on the paranormal. Bob’s wife Monica provided the cover art for the project, so when I picked up the phone to call Arcturus, no introduction was really necessary.
So it was that Bob helped me rebuild my collection of UFO books, which had been lost over the course of years, some lost over the course of international moves and others forsaken as new interests commanded my attention. Getting into “new” materials was never difficult thanks to Bob’s reviews, which made the Arcturus Books catalogue a joy to read – probably more so than a number of newsstand offerings available at the moment! Some descriptions are etched in my mind, like an old samizdat whose cover “depicted a hayseed peeing into a pond with a flying saucer hovering overhead” – I’m paraphrasing here, but I still smile at the laughter the description caused in me at the time.
1993 saw the birth of my first newsletter on “UFOs in Latin America and Spain” and Bob Girard was pleased to add it to Arcturus’s offerings, cautioning me not to charge too much for it, since “mystics never have any money”. The price point must’ve been right, as SAMIZDAT (as it was called) became a strong seller for Arcturus over a time frame of five years. When I announced that I the little newsletter was folding (its news stories rendered stale by the Internet), I told him I intended to come back with a new idea. “Whatever you do, make sure it’s good!” he said, and INEXPLICATA came out within months, available in print format for many years before the same situation – the immediacy offered by electronic sources – forced it to migrate to the web, where it has remained since 2003.
We didn’t see eye to eye on everything, though. The Chupacabras Diaries, my initial offering on Puerto Rico’s paranormal predator, didn’t really meet his approval. Bob thought the correct approach to take should have been a dismissive one. He particularly disliked a chapter bearing the title “It’s In the Trees- 
Bob Girard (1942-2011) was a legendary collector and seller of rare books, specializing in UFO literature and related fringe subject matter. In today’s age of internet ubiquity, instant gratification, and declining print media outlets, Robert Girard’s name is not widely known among UFO believers nor paranormal enthusiasts. His name is, however, remembered among many long-time UFO researchers, paranormal writers, and the DIY self-publishers of the 1980s and ’90s alt-media “Zine Scene.” He is remembered as the brutally frank bibliophile who published his incisive insights in concise micro-reviews, monthly, distributed world-wide across six continents. Despite his contribution of a handful of small books (The Revolt of the Free and Futureman to name only two) and over 30 years of service to the book-hungry global network of para-cultural knowledge seekers, he has yet to be acknowledged by the history books. Though in fact, he and his Arcturus Books service are mentioned in several UFO books including within the source citations of academic (and scholar of new religious movement studies) author James R. Lewis’ The Gods Have Landed.
Before becoming “the Marcel Proust of the UFO phenomenon” (John Chambers, 2004) Robert was an enlisted man in the United States Air Force, serving from 1964 to 1968 at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey and Wichita Falls, Texas, until he received an honorable discharge at the rank of sergeant. In 1978 he and his family moved to Ecuador where they lived for two years before returning home to Scotia, New York, where Robert had spent his high school and college years. It was there that he began pursuing his dream of starting his own rare book business with a niche focus on the most esoteric and Occult books within the UFO and paranormal milieus.
“…We don’t have to describe the thrills to be found in reading UFO literature; we feel sure that you already know many of them. We have noticed this, however, in our own 25 years plus interest in UFOs and their literature: that as one’s interest in UFOs deepens, one is led into other fascinating areas of study through the study of Ufolit. To adopt a truly panoramic understanding of flying saucers, one must study such allied areas as Astroarchaeology, Astronomy, History, Mythology, Parapsychology and Religion. Through Ufolit, one’s personal vision can expand in many ways, and the entire course of one’s life may be changed—for the better.” (ArcStarBooks.com, “Never Cease from Exploration…,” June 2013)
There are a number of rare editions of classic flying saucer contactee books, several autographed by their authors. Bob had a special interest in the Contactees and at one time came into possession of George Hunt Williamson’s personal files, most of which were later sold to researcher Michael Swords for archival preservation. Bob’s interest in the Contactees went so far that he published “a reproduction of fifties contactee Truman Bethurum’s own scrapbook” (Ignacio Darnaude). We’ve just scratched the surface of his donated collection and I’m very excited to catalog these invaluable pieces of Fortean / Ufological history.
Bob Girard reviewed, bought, and sold the many different esoteric self-published zines that were, in a sense, the precursors to the explosion of alternative media websites populating the internet in the late 1990s. These DIY zines were emerging from the handmade photocopier Samizdat screeds of the 1980s and becoming increasingly well-produced with the advent of easily accessible desktop publishing software. Zines like your own Steamshovel Press (which Bob said, “feed that dark feeling in the pit of your gut”), Wes Nations’ Crash Collusion, and so many others, helped propel these topics from the printed page into the internet age.
Retired Naval Officer, former NSA employee, and 25-year MUFON board member Tom Deuley acted as both mediator and facilitator of this donation to the Anomaly Archives including his personally paying for the shipping costs of moving the 80 boxes from Port St. Lucie, Florida to Austin, Texas. The source of funding for the collection was arranged through the UFO Research Coalition which is made up of CUFOS (Center for UFO Studies), FUFOR (Fund for UFO Research), and MUFON (Mutual UFO Network). FUFOR arranged the funding for the URC and Tom hopes to have MUFON continue requesting funds for the upkeep of the collection.
Central Texas Fortean journalist and publisher Dennis Stacy (past writer for OMNI Magazine and editor of the MUFON UFO Journal and publisher of Anomalist Books)
