STATING THE OVNIOUS

Aliens are unimaginably advanced but haven’t figured out stealth technology.

Personally, we think if aliens were able to traverse the immense gulfs of space to visit Earth, by definition they’d be technologically advanced enough to prevent us from seeing them. But UFO believers are legion, and UFO websites continue to grow in popularity, particularly in France, where unidentified flying objects are known as Objets Volant Non-Identifié, or OVNIs. The images here are from the French website forum-ovni-ufologie.com. From top to bottom they were shot—or perhaps faked, depending on your beliefs—in Catalina, U.S.A. July 9, 1947, Bulawayo, Rhodesia 1953, Barra-da-Tijuca, Brazil 1952, Liege, Belgium 1990, Phoenix, U.S.A. 1997, Lac Chauvet, Puy de Dôme, France 1952, and above Lago di Cota, Costa Rica 1971.

Femme Fatale Image

ABOUT

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1906—First Airplane Flight in Europe

Romanian designer Traian Vuia flies twelve meters outside Paris in a self-propelled airplane, taking off without the aid of tractors or cables, and thus becomes the first person to fly a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Because his craft was not a glider, and did not need to be pulled, catapulted or otherwise assisted, it is considered by some historians to be the first true airplane.

1965—Leonov Walks in Space

Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his spacecraft the Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes. At the end of that time Leonov’s spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter Voskhod’s airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit’s pressure to bleed off, was barely able to get back inside the capsule, and in so doing became the first person to complete a spacewalk.

1966—Missing Nuke Found

Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the deep submergence vehicle Alvin locates a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 1.45-megaton nuke had been lost by the U.S. Air Force during a midair accident over Palomares, Spain. It was found resting in nearly three-thousand feet of water and was raised intact on 7 April.

1968—My Lai Massacre Occurs

In Vietnam, American troops kill between 350 and 500 unarmed citizens, all of whom are civilians and a majority of whom are women, children, babies and elderly people. Many victims are sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies are mutilated. The incident doesn’t become public knowledge until 1969, but when it does, the American war effort is dealt one of its worst blows.

1937—H.P. Lovecraft Dies

American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer ever. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as it was eighty years ago.

2011—Illustrator Michel Gourdon Dies

French pulp artist Michel Gourdon, who was the less famous brother of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, dies in Coudray, France aged eighty-five. He is known mainly for the covers he painted for the imprint Flueve Noir, but produced nearly 3,500 covers during his career.

Uncredited cover for Call Girl Central: 08~022, written by Frédéric Dard for Éditions de la Pensée Moderne and its Collection Tropiques, 1955.
Four pink Perry Mason covers with Robert McGinnis art for Pocket Books.
Unknown artist produces lurid cover for Indian true crime magazine Nutan Kahaniyan.
Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.

VINTAGE ADVERTISING

Things you'd love to buy but can't anymore

Vintage Ad Image

Around the web