Free Online Talk · The Saucerian: UFOs, Men in Black, and the Unbelievable Life of Gray Barker with Author Gabriel Mckee
Monday, June 9, 2025
7pm ET (NYC time)
Free! RSVP with email at checkout
PLEASE NOTE: Video playback of free events is only available to Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanatomy.org.
The strange-but-true biography of the colorful founder of Saucerian Books, a central purveyor and promoter of flying saucer and conspiracist knowledge in the mid-twentieth century.
Gray Barker (1925–1984) was an eccentric literary outsider, filled with ideas that were out of step with the world. An author and unreliable narrator of implausible stories, Barker founded and operated Saucerian Books, an independent publisher of books about flying saucers and other ideas at the fringes of popular discourse. In this lecture, Gabriel Mckee will present an overview of Barker’s unusual life and outrageous career drawn from his recent biography, The Saucerian (MIT Press).
Ever an entertainer, Barker established his reputation with one of the first flying saucer fanzines, The Saucerian, and with his first book, the conspiratorial and sensationalistic They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers. By the close of the 1950s, he had established a publishing imprint that brought out some of the strangest UFO-related books of the era, with a particular emphasis on flying saucer contactees. Saucerian Books became a platform for those whose stories were too unusual, implausible, or crudely written for more mainstream publishers. Though Barker himself was privately skeptical, he viewed the world of occult believers as a source of ongoing entertainment. He also may have used the perceived eccentricity of flying saucer research, or “ufology,” to obscure his homosexuality from his small-town neighbors. From his place on the fringes of midcentury American culture, Barker left an unmatched legacy in conspiratorial concepts that have become prominent pop-cultural folklore, including the Men in Black, the Mothman, and the Philadelphia Experiment. As a mastermind behind the fantastical, Barker’s promotional efforts were the precursor to contemporary conspiracism.
Gabriel Mckee is a librarian at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. His research concerns popular culture, book history, theology, and parahistoriography. His past work includes Theology and the DC Universe (Lexington Books) and The Gospel According to Science Fiction (Westminster John Knox). He is the managing editor of the Zebrapedia Project, an online manuscript repository dedicated to the science fiction author Philip K. Dick.
Monday, June 9, 2025
7pm ET (NYC time)
Free! RSVP with email at checkout
PLEASE NOTE: Video playback of free events is only available to Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanatomy.org.
The strange-but-true biography of the colorful founder of Saucerian Books, a central purveyor and promoter of flying saucer and conspiracist knowledge in the mid-twentieth century.
Gray Barker (1925–1984) was an eccentric literary outsider, filled with ideas that were out of step with the world. An author and unreliable narrator of implausible stories, Barker founded and operated Saucerian Books, an independent publisher of books about flying saucers and other ideas at the fringes of popular discourse. In this lecture, Gabriel Mckee will present an overview of Barker’s unusual life and outrageous career drawn from his recent biography, The Saucerian (MIT Press).
Ever an entertainer, Barker established his reputation with one of the first flying saucer fanzines, The Saucerian, and with his first book, the conspiratorial and sensationalistic They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers. By the close of the 1950s, he had established a publishing imprint that brought out some of the strangest UFO-related books of the era, with a particular emphasis on flying saucer contactees. Saucerian Books became a platform for those whose stories were too unusual, implausible, or crudely written for more mainstream publishers. Though Barker himself was privately skeptical, he viewed the world of occult believers as a source of ongoing entertainment. He also may have used the perceived eccentricity of flying saucer research, or “ufology,” to obscure his homosexuality from his small-town neighbors. From his place on the fringes of midcentury American culture, Barker left an unmatched legacy in conspiratorial concepts that have become prominent pop-cultural folklore, including the Men in Black, the Mothman, and the Philadelphia Experiment. As a mastermind behind the fantastical, Barker’s promotional efforts were the precursor to contemporary conspiracism.
Gabriel Mckee is a librarian at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. His research concerns popular culture, book history, theology, and parahistoriography. His past work includes Theology and the DC Universe (Lexington Books) and The Gospel According to Science Fiction (Westminster John Knox). He is the managing editor of the Zebrapedia Project, an online manuscript repository dedicated to the science fiction author Philip K. Dick.
Monday, June 9, 2025
7pm ET (NYC time)
Free! RSVP with email at checkout
PLEASE NOTE: Video playback of free events is only available to Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanatomy.org.
The strange-but-true biography of the colorful founder of Saucerian Books, a central purveyor and promoter of flying saucer and conspiracist knowledge in the mid-twentieth century.
Gray Barker (1925–1984) was an eccentric literary outsider, filled with ideas that were out of step with the world. An author and unreliable narrator of implausible stories, Barker founded and operated Saucerian Books, an independent publisher of books about flying saucers and other ideas at the fringes of popular discourse. In this lecture, Gabriel Mckee will present an overview of Barker’s unusual life and outrageous career drawn from his recent biography, The Saucerian (MIT Press).
Ever an entertainer, Barker established his reputation with one of the first flying saucer fanzines, The Saucerian, and with his first book, the conspiratorial and sensationalistic They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers. By the close of the 1950s, he had established a publishing imprint that brought out some of the strangest UFO-related books of the era, with a particular emphasis on flying saucer contactees. Saucerian Books became a platform for those whose stories were too unusual, implausible, or crudely written for more mainstream publishers. Though Barker himself was privately skeptical, he viewed the world of occult believers as a source of ongoing entertainment. He also may have used the perceived eccentricity of flying saucer research, or “ufology,” to obscure his homosexuality from his small-town neighbors. From his place on the fringes of midcentury American culture, Barker left an unmatched legacy in conspiratorial concepts that have become prominent pop-cultural folklore, including the Men in Black, the Mothman, and the Philadelphia Experiment. As a mastermind behind the fantastical, Barker’s promotional efforts were the precursor to contemporary conspiracism.
Gabriel Mckee is a librarian at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. His research concerns popular culture, book history, theology, and parahistoriography. His past work includes Theology and the DC Universe (Lexington Books) and The Gospel According to Science Fiction (Westminster John Knox). He is the managing editor of the Zebrapedia Project, an online manuscript repository dedicated to the science fiction author Philip K. Dick.