A UFO DIGEST BOOK REVIEW
The Best of the Hollow Earth Hassle
Giving Evil A Name
by Mary Jane Martin, Tim Swartz, and Timothy G Beckley
Reviewed by Sean Casteel 
The original pioneer, Richard Shaver himself, contributes a fascinating chapter in which he argues that UFOs really come from the Hollow Earth and not from outer space. Shaver puts forth the disconcerting notion that the scariest thing about UFOs is how the mainstream simply doesn't believe in their existence. He argues that that disbelief is pre-intended by the aliens and compares it to the soporific a mosquito injects before it bites. The aliens, according to Shaver, use a device called a "TELAUG," short for telepathic augmentive device, which permits the aliens to read and direct human thoughts. He blames the TELAUG for the Kennedy and King assassinations, and claims the device also prevents the UFOs from being exposed to human scrutiny and will lead eventually to a total mental enslavement of mankind at the hands of the subterranean fiends. The ships were originally built with human labor eons ago, but were forced to go underground after the Great Deluge. Again, Shaver despairs of ever being believed, and thus we are powerless to prevent whatever dark plans have been drawn against us.
"The Best of the Hollow Earth Hassle" also contains some of the original cover art published by Mary Martin, and the images of demons and bewitching she-devils and mythic monsters are eye-catching, as is a section of photographs of some of the main players in the newsletter's history. A concluding section of letters to and from the editor helps to add a comforting personal angle to the extreme strangeness of the preceding material, though the stories the readers share demonstrate a good deal of bizarre contact with the unknown in their own right.
Interest in the Shaver Mysteries cuts across many demographic lines and draws a vast assortment of seekers into its weird vortex. Perhaps its appeal lies in the notion that our suffering must have a name, an enemy we can identify and struggle against. In those terms, Shaver's dero is as reasonable a paradigm as any other for the evil we are forced to do battle with.
Whether there are monsters or angels down there (Shaver would later claim that there were both good and evil creatures pitched in eternal combat in the underworld, with the two races doing their utmost to influence life on the surface), the fact remains that a community of believers can band together to create a meaningful testimony to a moment in time and to a shared vision of a fleeting but still primal truth about ourselves and our place in the scheme of things, whether paranormal or utterly prosaic. The struggle of mankind to overcome the lower demons of our nature and to celebrate what is good in us is what "The Hollow Hassle" is really ultimately about.
THE END
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