In 1945, Ray Palmer, a diminutive dwarf who had suffered a near-crippling accident early in life that stunted his growth, had been working as the editor of the popular pulp fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. One day, Palmer happened to receive a long, rambling letter from a man who claimed to psychically “hear” a strange series of communications from individuals living under ground in extensive caverns that filled the inner Earth. Palmer, a writer of some repute himself, took the liberty of using the raw information sent to him by the author of the letter, a Mr. Richard Sharp Shaver of Pennsylvania, and created from it a fantasy story titled, “I Remember Lemuria.”

Thus, the Shaver Mystery was born.

Timothy Green Beckley, Editorial Director and mastermind behind Global Communications, has issued the definitive source on esoterica related to the now-famous Shaver Mystery, published in several volumes. Otherwise long forgotten and lost among the science fiction favorites of yesteryear, the efforts of enthusiasts like Beckley have guaranteed a place in history for Shaver and Palmer’s strange stories. And yet, perhaps the strangest thing of all pertaining to the tales is that many of those involved, as well as readers who enjoyed the stories from issue-to-issue, maintained that there was indeed some fact upon which they were based.

Initially intended to be read and enjoyed only as fiction, Shaver’s weird ramblings would inspire Palmer and the publishers of Amazing Stories to continue publication of “Shaver Mystery” stories for several years, increasing the readership of the magazine by thousands. All along, Shaver had always maintained that his “communications” were real, and that his notion of cavern systems inhabited by strange beings beneath the Earth were based on fact. After the publication of the landmark “I Remember Lemuria,” Palmer professed that the letters in response to the issue–usually numbering less than fifty–were now close to 50,000! Stranger still, the content of many of the letters detailed how many of the readers of Amazing Stories had had their own strange experiences with these deep-Earth dwellers, which Shaver categorized into two groups: the monstrous Deros (a sort of shorthand meaning “detrimental robots”), and their good-natured counterparts, the Tero people, who were more live humans in appearance. One famous letter Palmer received told the story of a woman who, serving as a medical specialist in France, had entered the sub-basement of an old building via an elevator. A cavernous opening existed in the base extremities of the building, and upon her discovery of the entrance to an underground realm, the woman was captured by these “Dero” creatures. She claimed to have been held prisoner for several years, and after prolific rape and torture she was finally discovered and released by the benign Teros.

Palmer himself had begun to wonder about the circumstances surrounding all this insanity, and finally decided to go right to the heart of the entire matter; he planned a visit to Richard Shaver’s home in Pennsylvania. After a late-evening coffee session, Palmer was led upstairs and shown to the spare bedroom, where throughout the evening he claimed, to his astonishment, to hear five individual voices of men, women, children, and even an “old gruff man.” Palmer was terrified to hear a discussion that pertained to the dismemberment of a “human woman” someplace four miles away–and four miles down. Discussing the experience with Shaver afterward, the strange host claimed he had asked the “beings” to “go easy on him (Palmer),” and Palmer, though finally growing in his conviction regarding the Shaver Mystery himself, finally was able to get a night’s sleep uninterrupted.

This would be only one of many strange stories Palmer would recount, and although Richard Shaver’s own sanity would later come into question on many occasions, the prolific interest in his visions of an inner-Earth struggle would continue, inspiring a generation of devotees and researchers that included Timothy Green Beckley himself, who knew Palmer personally. Of his own discovery of Richard Shaver’s visions of conflict in a subterranean world, he admits being “chilled to the bone,” admitting it was “stuff that nightmares were made of, and I was intrigued just as Ray Palmer had been.”

If you have ever wondered about the existence of subterranean mysteries and proto-human races that could exist in their cavernous corridors; or, if you are an enthusiast of vintage science fiction and esoteric Americana, I give my highest recommendation that you read, absorb, and above all, enjoy Timothy Green Beckley’s excellent collection of Shaver Mystery lore contained within “The Hidden World” series. Also, to learn more about Beckley and his own research, you may listen to this recent interview with him on Greg Bishop’s Radio Mysterioso program:

“Mr. UFO” Tim Beckley on Radio Mysterioso

To buy “The Hidden World no. 1, Edited by Tim Beckley,” click here.