After leaving Ziff Davis in 1949, he began publishing the magazines Fate, Other Worlds Science Stories, Mystic (later renamed Search), and Flying Saucers, among others.

[14][e] Pott's disease is often accompanied by kyphosis (hunchback), and Gaenslen's standard recuperative treatment required the patient to be in the prone position in a Bradford frame (a full-body metal rectangle with a canvas sleeve) for up to a year.

[44] Members included founder Lawrence A. Keating, Moritz "Morry" Zenoff, Larry Sternig, Leo A. Schmidt, Bernard Wirth, Dudley Brooks, Gus Marx,[33] Al Nelson, Roger Sherman Hoar (who wrote under the pen name Ralph Milne Farley), Stanley G. Weinbaum, Robert Bloch, Jim Kjelgaard,[45] and Arthur Tofte.

The firm shut down about February 1938 when the owner fell seriously ill.[39] In August 1932, Palmer, Ackerman, Schwartz, Weisinger, Maurice Z. Ingher, and Conrad "Conny" Ruppert began publication of a professional magazine, Science Fiction Digest.

[55] Retitled Fantasy Magazine in January 1934 and lasting until December 1934, its primary audience was fandom and it proved to be a watershed in the science fiction movement.

[57] The 17-chapter serial was written by some of the top names in science fiction, including Roger Sherman Hoar, David H. Keller, George Henry Weiss (using his pseudonym Francis Flagg), John W. Campbell, Otis Adelbert Kline, Abraham Merritt, Edward E. "Doc" Smith, P. Schuyler Miller, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, and Edmond Hamilton.

This changed over time as he initiated employee poker nights at his apartment and coffee klatsches in cafés, and hosted visiting writers in his home.

[91] "Swift, dramatic action, with plenty of suspense and the anticipation of the fearful" was his charge to authors,[91] and initially Fantastic Adventures published both fantasy and science fiction.

[92] Among the early fiction published by Fantastic Adventures was "The Scientists Revolt" by Edgar Rice Burroughs and "The Golden Amazon" by Thornton Ayre (pseudonym of John Russell Fearn).

[142] He wrote to Shaver in March 1944: "I know the dero have failed with me, because my thinking has been greatly sharpened, and in two months I have been able to entirely revise my concept of the universe, and everything has fallen into order.

[147] Palmer wrote that he believed many readers knew they were on Earth for a secret purpose, and he encouraged them to share "things today unknown to science" with Amazing Stories.

[164] The Queens Science Fiction League, a highly influential fan organization founded in 1937 by Sam Moskowitz and James V. Taurasi Sr., condemned the Shaver "mystery".

Palmer had heard rumors that two "harbor patrol" officers had seen a flying saucer dumping material in Puget Sound near Maury Island, a few miles north of Tacoma.

Palmer also ran a severely critical analysis of the Shaver Mystery written by anti-Shaver fans, and a new column by "Robert Paul Kidwell" which highlighted debunking evidence.

[196] Palmer needed the Ziff Davis income until Clark Publishing was up and running, so he ran the company and edited its magazines under the pseudonym "Robert N.

[216] The covers featured scantily-clad women, and advertisers included the Rosicrucians, Brotherhood of the White Temple, Shaver Mystery novellas, and various books for sale by spiritualist/occult bookseller Wing Anderson.

Palmer used the same business model he had developed at Amazing Stories: editorial written in an overly friendly, informal style; a large amount of letters from readers, and short features.

[217] The magazine covered alternative medicine, anomalous archeological discoveries, automatic writing, belief in the survival of personality after death, cryptozoology (particularly sea serpents and Yeti), divination, flying saucer sightings, Fortean events, ghosts, mental telepathy, New religious movements, predictive dreaming, psychedelic drugs, and many paranormal topics.

[234] In an attempt to show that he was giving editorial space to "both sides", he printed Delmar H. Bryant's article "Hollow Earth Hoax" in the April 1965 issue of Flying Saucers.

The disagreement between the two worsened over time, and by 1971 Richard Shaver was openly accusing Ray Palmer of turning every idea he encountered into mystical and religious "claptrap".

[252] Shaver claimed the rocks were "books" written by ancient alien races[253] known as Giants, Amazons, and Mers, and a record of an antediluvian civilization that existed around Amherst.

[256] Also called Ray Palmer's Forum,[262] the stapled,[256] small format, 32-page magazine printed on good-quality paper initially appeared biweekly but later switched to monthly.

Topics covered included conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg Group, John F. Kennedy assassination, and Federal Reserve; if there is sex in heaven; and reincarnation.

[269] Chicago FBI Special Agents interviewed Palmer after he ran a story, "Venusians Walk Our Streets", by science fiction author Frank M. Vest.

When confronted with this falsehood, Palmer claimed that he did not catch the FBI reference and the "mystery metal", in his final edit, but quickly apologized for the mistake, and offered to run a retraction.

Palmer told the Special Agents that the magazine received around 50 letters about flying saucer sightings each week, and that he forwarded the most feasible-sounding ones to the Central Intelligence Agency's Chicago office.

The Milwaukee and the Portage County district attorneys began investigating Freedom Publishing, and visited Palmer's home, offices, and print shop.

[288] For more than two years in Forum, Palmer discussed his writer's block, frustrations, and goals in writing the memoir, and repeatedly agonized over the definition of "truth".

[291] In March 1973, he wrote in Forum that "something" in the world didn't want him to write the memoir, and he blamed the Anti-Defamation League, Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, Internal Revenue Service, United States Air Force, and Second Amendment "gun nuts".

[300] Black power, flying saucers, pollution, riots, secularization, student activism, the Vietnam War, and worsening murder rates were all signs of the coming crisis, he claimed.