UFO Mags
I was having a conversation with a fellow-Brit a few days ago about the current level of UFO-related magazines on the newsstands, and she expressed her wish that the “good old days” of the mid-to-late 1990s (when UFO publications in the UK were all-dominating) would return.
For those outside of the UK, you may be unaware that back then (when X-Files mania was at it’s height) the British newsstands were full of UFO-related publications: Graham Birdsall’s UFO Magazine; Sightings; UFO Reality; Alien Encounters; X-Factor; The Unexplained; Enigma; Uri Geller’s Encounters; Fortean Times; The Unopened Files; and probably a couple of others that I’ve forgotten about.
But, today, aside from Fortean Times, they’re all gone. No more. And many of the people that worked on the magazines, or wrote for them, have seemingly vanished from the scene too.
However, as we spoke, I realized that if you take a look around there are actually more than a few newsstand publications around that have tackled the UFO controversy.
So, I figured that for the uninitiated, I’d provide a listing of where to go if you’re tired of just reading the latest UFO news in a strictly on-line fashion, and have a yearning to hold in your hand an actual published magazine that covers the subject and related issues (either regularly or occasionally):
1: Fate;
2: Beyond;
3: TAPS Paramagazine;
4: UFO Magazine;
5: Fortean Times;
6: Mysteries Magazine;
7: Paranoia Magazine;
8: Nexus Magazine;
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Dec 14 2007 
December 14th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
And for the spanish-speaking, I strongly recommend Año Cero and Enigmas. Both are published in Spain.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
What I really miss is Omni Magazine. I just received 24 old issues from EBay, very exciting. It’s strange how you can get attached to certain magazines without really knowing what they mean to you until they’re not available, and how they can hold an mini-era of your life.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Graham Birdsall did a fantastic job. The Fortean Times is still the best in my opinion- nothing else comes close. However, Beyond, which I just now learned about from the link you provided, looks pretty interesting. Might have to try and find a copy of that.
Also love Brit music magazines like Uncut and Mojo. The only other magazine I occasionally pick up is Juxtapoz. Maybe Fate could make you a editor Nick and you could turn it around and turn it into a American equivalent of Fortean Times- freshen it up, add a hip factor, and raise the standards. Or they could turn the reigns over to Greg- he had a cool magazine (you know any mag where issue number one has a interview with Robert Anton Wilson is gonna be cool). Right now I think most people buy Fate by default- it’s more widely available than Fortean Times and it’s much cheaper. But so much of it is just New Agey, “woo-woo” stuff that I can’t bring myself to buy it for the rare, well written, interesting article. I really hope Fate is not an advertiser on this site!
December 14th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
By the way, I only say I hope they’re not an advertiser, not because I don’t want you taking their money, but it would be pretty poor form of me to slam one of y’alls advertisers.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Oh yeah! OMNI was definitely top-quality stuff. It was a terrible tragedy when it went out of circulation since I was getting hooked with their OMNI comix that dealt with Mars conspiracies, and they never had the chance to get to the one about Area 51
Plus the sci-fi stories were awesome.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
The Omni fiction is really great. I believe they were published in anthologies, not sure if they’re still in print, but probably still available used.
It’s so interesting reading all these late 70s-early 80s issues…the cold war propaganda and general mindset is astounding, and there are some interesting social motifs–lots of begrudging feminist-oriented (or more aptly described as ‘women’s lib’) commentaries.
There are some ominous articles too, including one in the continuum section entitled “Gay Disease?” about a disease of unknown origin or pathology that may be striking the gay male community–that had thus far struck 15 men. 15.
The ads are hysterical–all these crappy computers and calculators selling for $3,000.
I don’t recall Omni being so debunking regarding UFOs–nearly all the UFO Updates I’ve read so far have a very debunking tone. I know in the later 80s and mid 90s there was a more inquisitive tone. At one point, they even went apeshit with a project about doodling and symbols and ET transmissions. I’m going to have to try to find out what that was all about.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I don’t mean to take over your post, Nick, or detract from the undeniable and unarguable wonderment of real magazines, but for anyone interested in some of Omni’s later online issues, many are archived in near-entirey via the wayback machine. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://omnimag.com
December 15th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Richelle:
No problem at all! I used to love Omni and had no idea these issues were online, so thanks for alerting us.
December 15th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
You’re welcome. I should have checked on that link before posting–it seems since the last time I perused the archives some pages have been un-archived or replaced with Penthouse links. Here is a way-better-than-way-back-machine source: http://www.omnimagonline.com/
Happy reading.