New Saucerian is pleased to reprint "Flying Saucers Are Watching Us: An Astonishing New Theory That a Race of Ancient Aliens From Outer Space is the Long-Sought 'Missing Link' in Human Development" by Otto O. Binder, the famous comic book artist and science writer, who often ate lunch with Fortean researcher John A. Keel in New York City. Keel wrote that Binder was the "very first ufologist," because Binder began writing about UFOs and flying discs in the early 1930s.

This book in particular is of note, because it was published BEFORE Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods," making it the very first "Ancient Aliens" book of all time. Binder wastes no time in getting to the same points we see today on the popular "Ancient Aliens" TV program.

As an artist, Binder was responsible for the creation of characters like Supergirl, Brainiac, and Krypto the Super Dog (as well as the entire "Bizarro" line of comics), and wrote stories for major comics like Superman, Captain America, and The Submariner.

"Flying Saucers Are Watching Us" is a must-have for today's serious UFO/Fortean researcher. The "alien hybrid" topic is still as hot - and unexplored - as it was 50 years ago.

It can be predicted with some certainty that the premise of this book will be rejected outright by any scientific authority, or any part of the Establishment. That puts me in good company.

• Copernicus dared not publish his heliocentric theory of the solar system before he died, for fear of reprisals by the Establishment (then the Church).
• Galileo was nearly burned at the stake for declaring his pioneering telescope had found craters on the moon, four moons of Jupiter, and spots on the sun (impossible—the sun was perfect).
• Newton’s gravitational theory did not meet instant acclaim, but was bitterly opposed by the scientific authorities of the time.
• Darwin’s theory of evolution was still being fought in the courts of Tennessee as late as 1928.
• Freud’s revolutionary exploration of the mind’s dark regions was labeled “sheer charlatanism” by loud and learned voices for many years.
• Harvey was castigated for daring to state that blood circulated in the human body, and the authorities peremptorily declared him wrong without even checking on living humans.
• Pasteur’s “little beasties” invisible to the eye, that caused diseases, were the laugh of the day to every medical expert in the world of that time.
• Lister’s first antiseptic (to fight Pasteur’s germs when recognized) was called a useless or dangerous devil’s brew.
• Morton gave the blessing of ether to the world but could not anesthetize himself from the cruel persecutions he suffered at the hands of medical scientists who sonorously said “It is God’s will that man should suffer when ill or undergoing surgery.”

Roentgen’s X-rays, Hertz’s radio waves, Morse’s telegraph, Bell’s telephone, Edison’s electric light, the Wright Brothers’ airplane—and an endless list of other great discoveries—were all, without exception, hooted and howled at by the current authorities who knew what was possible and what was sheer “poppycock.”

This is not to put myself in the company of such great men, nor to unequivocally claim my thesis is correct. It is to point up that entrenched authority opposes all new concepts almost without fail, so that in fact, they do not even admit the reality of UFO’s today, much less consider any theory of their origin and purpose as this book quite boldly brings forth.

Nor will the reaction of the reactionary establishment (if any) concern me personally.

However, it may concern the man on whose brilliant scientific insights this book’s theme is largely based—Max H. Flindt, engineer and scientific researcher. His former posts include that of Senior Lab Technician at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California; technical work for Doctor Seaborg and Doctor Teller (both Nobelists); a position at Lockheed on highly classified space work as a Laboratory Analyst in Research; at present, is in research under Professor Emeritus Percy Baumberger of Stanford University in biological studies such as human blood characteristics.

Max Flindt also has a unique patent to his credit, Magnetic Mercury, which he developed while working for the Atomic Energy Commission.

Flindt’s greatest research project, however, was on his own for a book titled On Tiptoe Beyond Darwin. Briefly, he propounds that mankind is a hybrid product of prehistoric unions between spacemen and early terrestrian primates or humanoids, deliberately bred ages ago in order to establish a future earth colony. And he backs up his revolutionary concept with massive scientific data and brilliant deductions, more than any authority (if he can let down his arrogance) can shrug off.

Flindt does not, be it specifically noted, ever imply in his scholarly work that our ancestral spacemen came in “flying saucers” or that the UFO’s sighted today have any connection with his thesis. All interpolations of “saucermen” and “UFOnauts” in the book are mine, not Flindt’s.

Nor is Flindt in any way responsible for my suppositions, extrapolations, opinions, and conclusions on any phase of my particular earth-colony concept. These are purely my own. This applies also to the many references and quotes from the books and writings of John A. Keel, Dr. Ivan Sanderson, Dr. Carl Sagan, Paul Thomas, Brinsley le Poer Trench, Dr. Jacques Vallee, Aime Michel, Bryant and Helen Reeves, Coral Lorenzen, Brad Steiger, Joan Whitenour, Captain David C. Holmes, Harold T. Wilkins, Gabriel Green, Joseph Goodavage, John Fuller, or any writer for James Moseley’s SAUCER NEWS. If any have been left out, they are credited in this book.

Also, various nationally circulated magazines typified by Saga, or specialty UFO issues put out by Dell Publications, Trend Books, and such from which I’ve quoted, are all likewise exempt from any slightest endorsement of this book’s premise or any of its speculations.

My appreciation to all of the above for the literary borrowings from them, and for which due credit is assigned in the book.

But most of all, my deepest gratitude to Mr. Max H. Flindt, without whose magnificent anthropological, paleontological, and biological research gems, this book could never have been written.

—Otto O. Binder

Otto O. Binder

was a distinguished science writer, specializing in space and the UFO phenomena. He was the author of ten science books, and wrote many science-fact articles for national magazines. He also wrote under contract for NASA.

He was editor in chief for five years for Space World, a magazine devoted to astronautics. He was the author of the syndicated panel, Our Space Age, a six day a week feature. He was a member of {tip content="National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena"}NICAP{/tip}, Washington D.C., as well as the following: National Aerospace Education Council, Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Rocketry Association, National Association of Rocketry, Aerospace Writers Association, among others.

Flying Saucers Are Watching Us

ISBN-13: 978-1532830556
ISBN-10: 1532830556

Tower Publications edition published 1968
Saucerian edition published 1985
New Saucerian edition published 2016

Copyright © 1968 by Otto O. Binder