Lecture: UFOs, Men in Black, and the Unbelievable Life of Gray Barker

Author Gabriel Mckee will give a talk on his new book The Saucerian: UFOs, Men in Black, and the Unbelievable Life of Gray Barker (MIT Press), which tells the story of larger-than-life publisher, hoaxer, and literary outsider Gray Barker (1925-1984).

After founding one of the earliest flying saucer fanzines in 1953, Barker established a publishing imprint that brought out some of the strangest UFO-related books of the era, becoming a platform for those whose stories were too unusual, implausible, or crudely written for more mainstream publishers. Though Barker himself was a skeptic, 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.

The Saucerian will be available for sale and signing at this event.

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. He has co-curated five exhibitions at the Grolier Club, most recently “A First-Class Fool: Mark Twain and Humor.” His past work includes Theology and the DC Universe (Lexington Books) and The Gospel According to Science Fiction (Westminster John Knox).

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