“What If I Told You It Was All True…?”

I arched my eyebrows at Professor Vanes. “All true?” What was he talking about now?
I’d been warned by my colleagues at WKBW that this eccentric astronomer could be a little erratic in his ways.

“What if I told you it was all true?”

A moment ago, we’d been taping a perfectly mundane interview about reports of volcanic activity on Mars, just to fill a spot on a quiet evening’s newscast. But suddenly, the Professor pulled nervously at his salt-and-pepper goatee, and fixed me with a thousand-yard stare. I shuffled uncomfortably, failed to shrug nonchalantly, and turned the tape back on.

“All that crazy jibe about flying saucers,” the Professor breathed. “lights in the sky… aliens from other worlds… mutilated cattle… ‘Men in black’…”

I began to protest. I was a serious journalist, not some Enquirer hack who spent their days pasting Spock ears onto baby photos! Flying saucers? C’mon! It’s 1987 already!  

“What if I told you it was all true?”

The protest evaporated on my lips. That stare now seemed to bore through the back of my head. I tried to laugh. It was the laugh of someone who’s realised they’re alone in an elevator with a nut.

“I see you start to smile. But not so fast, my young friend. Everything you’ve heard about UFOs is true. Everything. Since 1947, alien flying saucers have been intruding into Earth’s atmosphere, attacking our aircraft, abducting our citizens, manipulating our minds, and trying to take over our world.” 

Professor Vanes reaches into a draw of his impossibly cluttered desk. I expect a knife, and tense to spring out the window.

But it’s only documents. Transcripts. Reports. Dozens of them. Some look forty years old. Many are older. There’s things signed by Truman and Eisenhower. A roll of film he says comes from a Russian fighter plane, shot down over China. Another of a captivating woman, hair to her waist, but dressed in what looks like a Nazi uniform.

And then he shows me the photos. Impossible photos. A base hidden on the dark side of the moon. Astronauts on Mars. Hundreds of thousands of people rallying for alien ‘contactees’, all over the world. A city floating over thick clouds, like New York got tired of the smog and came up for fresh air. And the UFOs — Saucers — everywhere. Flying over London, over Paris. Above Australia and South America. In hidden, underground bases. In snapshots of grinning pilots. Fighting in the skies over Washington D.C.

And — dear God — the aliens. Actual freaking aliens. Some look human, but aren’t. Some are definitely not. I don’t want to look. This can’t be real. Why can’t it be fake?

But there’s too much. Reams of it. The weight of evidence crushes down on me, grinding my comfy world-view to dust.

“Humanity was powerless to stop them,” says the Professor, and now I really am listening. “but something had to be done. The governments of the world needed to keep this at arm’s length, so they came up with a secret army to fight the invaders. Unseen, unrestricted, and utterly deniable.”

He leans forward. “Let me tell you about Saucer War One.”

Why the Hell couldn’t it have been just a knife?

Welcome to Saucer War One!

In Saucer War One you’ll discover the truth about the wars waged by the saucer pilots of ANTIC against the alien menace. Unseen wars fought right above our heads, 60 years ago!

Only now, with the accidental leaks of secret documents and photos from the archives of whistleblowers like Professor Vanes, can we disclose this incredible story. This is the suppressed history you never learned in school. The terrible, incredible truth of an underground government, alien civilisations, ancient galactic empires and the deadly duels of impossible aircraft, wrestling for supremacy.  

Saucer War One is a tabletop miniatures game of flying saucer combat, set in the 1950s. Against a background of B-grade Sci-Fi films, Cold War paranoia, Bebop Jazz and Rock n’ Roll, Saucer War One takes you through an alternate history in which alien civilisations challenged Humanity for dominance of the Earth. Players field squadrons of beautifully detailed miniature saucers, maneuvering to bring machine-cannons, missiles, and exotic super-science weapons to bear. But victory is not decided by combat alone; Saucer War One is a fight for the hearts and minds of Earthlings. Can you gain the most believers for your cause, and ultimately triumph? 

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Hello everyone, Martin here again, out of spiel-mode now. So, there you have it; Miniature Martin’s first (intended) release. Saucer War One will be a comprehensive tabletop experience of a war that never happened (maybe…)

Over the next few weeks, I’ll continue to flesh out the world of Saucer War One, its personalities, nations, technology, and the causes and motives of it all.

There will also be insights into game mechanics and rules writing, ufology research and the amazing mythology that has grown around flying saucers. You might even find (as I have), that there’s much more to this UFO stuff than X-Files, tinfoil hats, and alien proctologists. You might even come to suspect that there really is something going on in our skies. (Don’t ask me what it is, though. If you know, bring a letter to the usual place on Tuesday. Make sure you are wearing a red carnation.) Also, there will be sneak peeks at saucer miniatures and game artwork, as they come to hand.

So, I hear the masses cry, (all three of you,) “When oh when can we get our hands on Saucer War One, and make our lives complete?!?”

Keep your eyes open, my dear saucerians. The objective will be to get Saucer War One off the ground in July, 2021, via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Before that, we have an amazing journey ahead. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

Watch the Skies!