December, 1943: Television writer and associate editor of Amazing Stories
magazine, Howard Browne, was handed a letter for consideration by his boss,
Senior Editor Raymond A. Palmer. The letter was from one Richard
Shaver, an Amazing Stories reader, and it claimed to reveal the hidden
truth that a race of degenerate mutant beings called "Deros" existed far
below the Earth's surface in a vast and ancient network of caverns, tunnels
and subterranean cities. From these underground strongholds, Shaver
claimed, the Deros used various advanced mechanical devices called "Mechs,"
to scan the Earth's surface, project both thoughts and 3-D images into
the minds of unsuspecting humans by way of highly specialized "rays," to
extract thoughts and images by means of these same rays, to kill or destroy
at will, and to protect the secret of their subterranean existence from
surface-dwellers at any cost.
Browne, presuming the letter's author to be either a prankster or a
madman, tossed the letter into the trash. Editor Palmer, however, recognized
the extraordinary nature of Shaver's missive and not only retrieved the
letter from oblivion, but went on to publish it in Amazing Stories.
Thousands of letters poured in from readers supporting Shaver's claims
with their own stories of Dero encounters. Palmer traveled to Pennsylvania
to meet the author in person, and procured reams of material Shaver had
compiled on the Deros and their activities. He worked day and night to
transform Shaver’s ramblings into readable, entertaining prose, and released
his first
revised installment, I Remember Lemuria, in March, 1945.
HOLLOW EARTH HISTORY
Presaging such contemporary "ancient astronaut" theorists as Zechariah
Sitchin, Shaver’s I Remember Lemuria revealed that, early in Earth's development,
a race of near-immortal, technologically advanced extrater-restrials came
to our world, where they were worshiped as gods by our ancestors.
These "Elder Gods," as Shaver labeled them, ruled the globe in antiquity,
and stories of their exploits form the basis of all our ancient myths,
legends and religious beliefs.
But a time came when changes in our sun brought a devastating new radiation
to the Earth, dramatically shortening lifespans and causing great physical
and mental degeneration among their kind. The Elder Gods abandoned
the Earth's surface, creating great under-ground cities 4 to 20 miles beneath
the radiation-bathed crust.
When they eventually found this subterranean quarantine too confining,
they decided to leave the Earth altogether. Due to time and transport-space
limitations, they left much of their "Mech" behind, sealed away in the
deep caverns. They also left behind many of their own people, who subsequently
degenerated under the negative radiation, as well as through intensive
in-breeding in their underground lairs, into crazed and twisted dwarves,
completely lacking conscience or the capacity for compassion. These "degenerate
robots," or "Deros," Shaver believed, have inhabited the abandoned caverns
for millennia. Driven by their mental degener-ation, which developed into
a kind of hereditary insanity, they wage a never-ending war against human
surface-dwellers, using their "Mech" rays to drive individuals insane,
stir up war between nations, and to kill, intimidate or lead astray researchers
seeking to expose their dark existence and purpose.
Fortunately for we surface-dwellers, another faction of this same race,
labeled "Teros" by Shaver (short for "inte-grative robots"), managed to
avoid their fellows' degeneration by building their cities much deeper
underground, where the effects of the bad radiation were negligible.
Sane and conscientious, though fewer in number, these "Teros" have taken
up arms on our behalf, using their own "Mech" devices to counter, wherever
possible, the destructive activities of their crazed brethren.
Issue after issue, Shaver (with ample assistance from editor Palmer)
expanded his expose' of the underground world, detailing its structure,
the location of entrances, the bizarre ways of its inhabitants, etc. As
would Eric Von Daniken more than a generation later, Shaver built his case
for the Deros referencing classical mythology, contemporary Native religions,
and even Christian history, hinting that at the root of the Western concept
of
Hell lay ancestral memories of very real and terrifying abductions
to underground Dero torture facilities – an eerie precursor to today's
UFO/alien abduction lore.
WATCH THE SKIES!
The Shaver Mystery soon caught the public imagination, and Amazing Stories'
circulation grew fourfold almost overnight. Shaver's warning reached
millions when he appeared on the Long John Nebel radio show. A university
roundtable held to determine the scientific validity of his claims ruled
that nothing Shaver reported was, at least technically, impossible and,
as no evidence of a hoax had ever been presented, his story deserved serious
consideration.
But the June 24, 1947 Kenneth Arnold saucer sighting over Mt. Rainier,
Washington shifted popular attention to the skies, and the Shaver Mystery
soon vanished from both the public mind, and, with the exit of editor Ray
Palmer, from the pages of Amazing Stories as well.
In the 1950s, Palmer, then editor of Flying Saucers from Other Worlds
magazine, attempted to breathe new life into the Shaver Mystery by shortening
the publication's title to simply Flying Saucers, and declaring that UFOs
originated from deep inside our own world. He emphasized the fact that
Shaver had described disc-shaped Dero flying machines as early as 1945,
well in advance of the Arnold sighting.
But the man in the street was looking up, and his attention would not
be drawn earthward again until long after Richard Shaver and his Mystery
had faded to little more than footnotes in paranormal history.