Flatland Magazine Issue #17
Alien Autopsies, Biowarfare, The Cold War, Neurotoxins, Spiroplasma, etc
Flatland Magazine:
A Review of the Suppressed and Secret Evidence.
FULL SCAN in PDF FORMAT:
This weekend while I was milling around at thrift stores, I came across this single issue of Flatland Magazine in the free bin at McKay’s. It was in pretty good condition for being thrown in with much heavier books and the cover really struck me (for obvious reasons) so while I had some free time, I decided to head over to a coffee shop and give it a read.
I wouldn’t really say that there are any conspiracies I personally subscribe to, though I suppose anyone who believes a particular conspiracy would say the same thing, never knowing it was a conspiracy theory to begin with. I did, however find this magazine published just after the millennium quite interesting to browse through.
The editor of this publication, Jim Martin, has collected a handful of interesting and intriguing stories for the reader, and each section has well documented sources and further reading options. From what I can tell, this was the final issue of Flatland Magazine, though the website continued to sell books related to the topics covered in issues of the magazine up until 2003 or so.
The Flatland catalog from December, 2001 lists hundreds of books for sale ranging from scientific papers about the negative health effects of power lines to a hardback book explaining the injustices of the American justice system. There really was something for everyone here.
Unfortunately, I have only been able to recover some of the covers for previous issues through The Internet Archive, and although I gave the bin that I grabbed this copy from a good search, I only found this one issue. I’m going to provide the covers of issues 10-16 below, along with their descriptions from an October, 2000 snapshot of the FlatlandBooks website on The Wayback Machine.
Flipping through this issue of Flatland was one thing, but I had a lot of fun exploring the Links section on the website as well. Secret Science is a website dedicated to “…Showing why secrecy in scientific matters is detrimental to our common good.” The Bureau of Public Secrets is a massive site with the focus of disseminating information about prison reform. UFOCity is pretty self explanatory I suppose, but is a beautiful website (very 2000s) with all sorts of information about space.
Like with many websites of this time —and much like I found with my Castaway series, there is a sense of community behind each of these sites. The authors and page owners are mentioned across each others work, and each of the links that I was still able to view 20+ years later had a similar disclaimer:
Whether you believe anything in Flatland Magazine or any of the affiliated websites or not, it’s commendable to just want a version of the truth out there —to want as many people as possible to have access to it in order to make their own decisions on what they believe. And at the time, I have no doubt that the early years of the internet was an exciting moment for sharing and gathering information in ways that were never possible before. Having direct access and communication with the very authors and scientific paper researchers who shared your interests was never possible before that moment in the late 90s and early 2000s.
This week I had a good reminder of the things I’ve known for a long time. From a dusty, crumpled up magazine from 25 years ago thrown in the free bin outside a used media store, to the brand new $849 text book, it’s impossible to know everything. It is much more fulfilling to discover what I can; learn what interests me. I don’t have to agree or believe anything I ever read for the rest of my life, but I can still have a ton of fun learning about it.
Well, that’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed the magazine! If you’re looking for more, please check out my page on Archive.org for the full list of digitized media. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message right here or drop a comment below. If you haven’t already, please check out the one of my previous posts below, or all of my other previous posts here. Thanks so much for checking out this week’s edition of Diptych!
See you soon!
—Forrest
Revelations: Virtual Channel Surfing #10
The very first edition of Virtual Channel Surfing was published all the way back in May of 2022, and ever since I’ve tried my best to bring you a block of television as interesting and varied as the last. We’ve covered fast cars, relaxing music, travelogs, self-help, dancing tutorials, childhood edutainment, back pain relief, muzzleloading, gyroplanes, and a lot more. The picks I have for you this week are really something else, especially considering each of these tapes were found together in a stack.
The Most Important Library
The IA is everything I, as a preservationist, digitizer, and hobbyist historian could ever possibly want from an online record of media and knowledge. It contains as much as the community puts into it, and the community surrounding the IA is beautiful and massive.
You'll Never Guess What I Bought for $1
Just a few weeks ago, as I was wandering around the labyrinth that is Bargain Hunters Antique and Flea Market Mall in Knoxville, Tennessee, I came across this box set in the corner of a booth full of old encyclopedias and dishes. For myself and many people my age, I think Bill Murray’s parody of Jacques Cousteau in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) was our first introduction to the absolutely wild life and legacy of the French oceanographer. From the accent to the distinct woolly red cap that he and the whole family wore regularly, he’s just as iconic as he is eccentric.