Lovecraft Mentioned in 1947

This was found in a fanzine called Tympany. Edited by Redd Boggs and Robert Stein, issue of 7 July 1947 (Vo. I, No. 9). The lead off was by Forest J. Ackerman who wrote:

Avon to issue TWO new pro mags: To clear up the confusion about what is going on at Avon. there will not be one but two new fantasy mags from that source in the near future. The higher class one will aim at literary quality for the adult reader, reviving the policy of Stirring Science Stories in presenting a mixture of straight science-fiction, pure fantasy, and out and out pure weird. Weinbaum, Merritt and Lovecraft would be the authors to expect in this periodical, were tehy alive today/ Their calibre of story is being sought. The second periodica will be the standard sort of story of stf {scientifiction}: interplanetaryarns, time travel tales, dimensional adventures, atomic action, etc., with a certain amount of wacky, off-trail and supernatural fiction included. Among those authors from whom material already has been bought for these magazines are Wellman, Leiber, Jacobi, Bloch and Long. Roy Hunt will be among the illustrators.

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Nothing to do with HPL, but in the same edition, a recap of some selected "flying saucer" reports are listed. Here's the text:

Flier Sights Strange "Aircraft" Near Mt. Ranier. Nine bright saucer-like objects flying at 1200 miles an hour over the Cascade mountains of Western Washington - - that's what pilot Kenneth Arnold reported he saw Tuesday, June 24th, while on a flight in search of a missing airplane. He said the "aircraft" were flying north at 10,000 feet and moving in a peculiar dipping manner, "like a fish flipping in the sun." A flash of reflected sunshine brought them to his attention when they were 25-30 miles away. Stunned by their "incredible" speed he clocked them between Mt. Adams and Mt. Ranier, a distance of 47 miles. It took 1:42 minutes, he reported, adding that after he had landed, he got out a map and by triangulation figured the speed of the "objects" at 1200 miles an hour. "One thing that struck me," Arnold said, "was that they were flying so low. Ten thousand feet is very low for anything going at that speed." He said they appeared to fly almost as if fastened together - - if one dipped, the others did too. He estimated the "objects" were about the same size as a four-engined DC-4 passenger plane, although they did not have wings.

Credit: David C. Sparks

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The "Flying Whizzits" - - Fortean Field Day. "Those flying saucers - - they're records that escaped from some disc-jocke," cracked a radio comedian, and scientists snapped, "Spots in front of their eyes," but following the first report of the flying objects (see above) "eye-witness" observations began to pour in from points in every corner of the United States and canada. There was a similarity in all reports: the objects were round, like saucers, traveling at a high rate of speed with little or no noise, and of such brightness that reflections from the sun were blinding. A Dr. Forrest Shaver (repeat: SHAVER) of Akron O., reported seeing the saucers at night, looking like a balloon with a light inside". A Seattle coastguardsman caught a picture of a disk. Dr. Oliver J. Lee of Northwestern U. declared that the disks "are probably man-made and radio-controlled." As Tympany goes to press, the Army Air Forces have alerted pursuit planes on the West Coast in an attempt to intercept a "saucer"; Mead Layne of San Diego, Calif., editor of an occult publication not unknown to fandom, claimed to be in contact with passengers on the "saucers", and a Detroit meteorologist therized that the disks may be signals from mars. Thirty-nine states have reported seeing the flying saucers.

Credit: Jewett, Carlson, Rapp, Guerry Brown.