The Shaver Mystery

A welder heard voices in his equipment describing the Dero — degenerate beings in ancient caves, tormenting the surface. A magazine ran it as fact for years.

1943-48: Amazing Stories editor Ray Palmer ran welder Richard Shaver's accounts of the Dero — degenerate remnants of an elder race, working ancient machines in caverns, projecting torment onto the surface world — as substantially true, and circulation reportedly hit the magazine's peak while science fiction fandom revolted. Shaver's 'voices through the welding equipment' origin is textbook clinical; Palmer's amplification is textbook publishing. The node matters structurally: it built the underground-menace vocabulary (caverns, rays, abductions below) that Dulce, the DUMB lore, and half the Underworld thread would later furnish with military decor.