As editor of Amazing Stories and Fate, Ray Palmer was the first
major commercial exploiter of flying saucers. He promoted some
exotic UFO theories, notably that saucers were based inside a
hollow Earth.  Mary Evans Picture Library  In the early 19th
century an American eccentric, John Cleves Symmes (1779-1829),
sought funding for an expedition to enter the Earth through one
of two 4,000-mile wide polar holes. Inside the Earth, he was
convinced, a benevolent advanced civilization existed.  Though
an object of derision to most people, some took him seriously,
and the idea of a hollow Earth was championed in a number of
books throughout the rest of the century and right into the
next.  Today, hollow-earthers believe flying saucers zip in and
out of the polar holes. The people inside are descendants of
Atlantis and its Pacific equivalent, Lemuria.  There is even a
strong Nazi wing of the movement. According to Canadian neo-Nazi
Ernst Zundel, the principal advocate of this theory, Hitler and
his elite troops escap