Talk:Flying Saucers (magazine)

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Did December 1959 issue of magazine mysteriously disappear?

I'm just wondering if there could be any basis to the story that the December 1959 issue of this magazine suddenly disappeared - all copies apparently disappearing from the delivery trucks, the printing plates gone, and so on - allegedly the result of a branch of the U.S. Government confiscating all copies of the magazine in order to hide information about flying saucers printed in it.

I have just learned about this on the following web page on a Lobsang Rampa web site: http://www.lobsangrampa.org/hollow.html. Admittedly, affirming belief in a hollow earth as it does, and generally seeming to have a whiff of giant conspiracy theories about it, it may be a very questionable source - but I am just wondering if there is at least some foundation to the idea that the entire issue of the magazine did disappear.

Should it be mentioned in the article if a more reliable source can be found? If it's true (regardless of what the explanation may be or whether it must remain unexplainable) it seems significant enough to merit mention in this article. M.J.E. (talk) 13:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are notability requirements too fussy?

Another thing, while I'm here. I see the standard notice on this article saying it may not meet notability requirements, and could thus be deleted, merged, etc.

I can't help wondering if this is being a bit too fussy. This is not the first time I've got this impression on Wikipedia - it has happened a number of times that I've deliberately sought a specific article which I would have found very useful, only to find it has been deleted some time ago because it apparently failed some notability test. I really do think this goes overboard at times.

I don't know exactly how you prove notability - but I have some knowledge of the science-fiction field generally, and I have definitely heard of this magazine a number of times, and its editor Ray Palmer - although, since I am not a flying saucer follower, admittedly I know little more than the magazine's title. But I can say it definitely is known within the field. To my mind, that establishes a certain level of notability.

References in reliable sources are requested to add notability. I cannot add these, since I don't know what references there are which would satisfy this requirement. But I think it would be ridiculous to delete this article simply because these links are absent. Surely better to leave it here in the expectation (or hope) that someone knowledgeable in the field will be able to supply the links at some future time. Surely Wikipedia should be in the business of accumulating and preserving knowledge, not destroying or obliterating it.

This mania for deleting items of questionable notability is one of the things I most dislike about Wikipedia. Often these are topics that are most difficult to find information about, and in a sense maybe it's *more* important that Wikipedia should keep coverage of them.

Still, I don't suppose my lone opinion on this is likely to have the slightest effect on Wikipedia policy. I appear to be in a small minority here in holding this view. M.J.E. (talk) 13:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]