The Secret of the Saucers: Chapter V. The Past Is Never Dead!
The Christmas holidays arrived with their gay, festive spirit and usual bustling excitement. By then things had settled back to normal and I had experienced no further contacts. Flying saucers seemed to have vanished from the skies; practically no accounts of sightings appeared in the newspapers. Although I had completed the manuscript for The Twentieth Century Times, I couldn't get up the courage to have it published. Mabel kept saying: "Orfie, if you publish that, people will think you are completely crazy. Why don't you just forget it! Nothing good can ever come of it. Everything is going along so smoothly now; we're both working and the boys are happy—let's just leave it that way." "But, Mae . . ." I'd remonstrate. "Don't you understand; these things really happened to me! It is my duty to tell what I know!" "And just what thanks will you get for it? Do you want to be ridiculed, laughed at and considered a crackpot or a psycho? Think back! Remember how everybody talked when you first told that wild story about a trip in a flying saucer. What did it get you but ridicule! Even if it did happen, Orfie, forget it! Just forget the whole thing for your family's sake. Let's be happy and enjoy life." The next publisher I tried told me how rambling and incoherently the thing was written. "You forget I'm not a writer, "I replied. "I've done the best I can and all of the facts are there." He laughed. "You say the facts are here—but are they? You start off by saying these experiences are true and yet before the narrative is completed you have inferred several times that they could be imaginary. In fact, right here on the front page you make the statement: 'This story is either a yarn or it is real!' What kind of facts are those? And how can you expect people to accept the paper as actual fact?" "I've thought of all that," I replied. "Frankly, After considerably more talk along these same lines, he agreed to publish it, but only if I would permit him to edit it and delete major portions of the story. I flatly refused and he in turn refused to have anything to do with publication of the manuscript. And so it went. I tried publisher after publisher with the same discouraging results. At last, however, I found a small publishing house that was willing to print the piece word for word as written if I would pay all publishing costs and take all of the papers myself. I agreed to do this. But as we parted he shook his head and said: "Pardon me for saying this, Mr. Angelucci, but I honestly think you are making a grave mistake. Not only are you throwing your money away, but you are liable to make yourself a public laughing stock." "I'll have to risk all that," I answered. "There is no alternative for me; I must publish that paper." Thus on February 19, 1953, the one and only issue of The Twentieth Century Times came off the press, an eight-page, tabloid-type newspaper which carried word for word an account of all my experiences I felt it was wise for me to release. I breathedTHE PAST IS NEVER DEAD!
