Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Back at Official UFO Magazine




Official UFO gained a new editor, Dennis William Hauck, who brought along a good working knowledge of UFO history. This was extremely lucky for me, because I re-submitted my movie article to the magazine upon learning of his arrival. Though my writing through the years has certainly been no stranger to the world of rejection notices, Saga's decision to return the movie article served up one heck of a crushing blow after all the work I had done. Nevertheless, I respect that editorial decision because the editor's job is, by necessity, to pick and choose based upon any number of criteria.


Dennis immediately recognized the importance of the movie, "U.F.O." and its depiction of Al Chop (see letter), unquestionably a prominent figure involved in the early government UFO investigation, from the public information aspect. The article was accepted in the fall of 1976, for publication a few months later. Dennis also sent along a package of special issues for distribution to students in a UFO class I taught at a small college at the time.


In the meantime, Tom Towers wrote a brief note (see), hoping that the article found a home. Coincidentally, the portion of my article that editor Hauck decided to cut for length was all about Towers, and as mentioned in a previous entry it would be about 30 more years before the excised portions were rewritten for an appearance in the CUFOS International UFO Reporter.
Despite the talents brought to Official UFO by Hauck, he, too, would have a short stay there and tendered his resignation as O'Connor had, a pattern followed by one or two other editors who succeeded Hauck.