Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 54 — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

When the Flying Saucers land will you be ready? ONE DAY WE WILL DISCOVER THAT we are not alone. One day the ships from space will land, thousands of them, driving down from the void and making planetfall in our own backyard. We shouldn’t be surprised when they do. We have had hints enough, mysterious lights seen in the skies, strange, in- explicable shapes seen by watchers, spotted by aircraft, vouched for by thousands of observers and disin- terested witnesses. You have heard of them as has everyone in the civilised world. We call them “flying saucers” and ignore them as a joke, a hoax, or as something invented to titivate the appetite for sensation. But perhaps the crews of those saucers are watching, examining, testing perhaps the world which we have always considered to be par- ticularly our own. They hover in their vessels, not intruding, vanishing when seen, silent, enigmatic visitors from an unknown world, content apparently to merely observe and wait. Wait for what? For their main fleet, perhaps? For the peoples of their own planet? We do not know. We can only surmise, and as our experience is limited, we must extrapolate on the basis of what we ourselves would do had we con- tacted another world. We would observe it, of course, making the essential tests of air and water, soil and radiation, watching the native peoples and learning from what we saw. Then, when we had deter- mined whether or not the planet was suited to us, we would send back word and wait for the main body. And the natives of the planet need not even suspect what was about to happen. Until the ships landed and they found that they were not alone, It could happen to us. What would we do? First, of course, there would TWENTY-ONE comicbooks.com