the March 1957 edition of the Long John Nebel radio show featured John Robinson, a sidekick of Jim Moseley reporting a dramatically spooky, if not very plausible, abduction tale. The gist of it was that in 1944 Robinson had a neighbour named Steve Brodie who one day saw (in Robinson’s apartment) a copy of one of Ray Palmer’s magazines featuring the Dero. Brodie yelled out “He speaks of the Dero!”, and proceeded to tell Robinson how he had been prospecting out west with a companion in 1938.

One day they encountered two mysterious cowled figures who paralysed Brodie by pointing a rod-like device at him. When the companion tried to flee, they fired at him and Brodie heard him scream, and smelled burnt flesh. When one of the figures placed ‘small earphones’ behind his ears he lost consciousness. From time to time he came to, in a place which fellow prisoners told him was the cave of the Dero. Each time his brain began to clear, the cowled one adjusted the earphones and he lost consciousness again.

He eventually came to, walking the streets of Manhattan two years later. Brodie showed Robinson scarred patches behind his ears, a little smaller than a silver dollar. Since his ordeal Brodie claimed he was unable to eat meat (cf John Avis). Time passed; Robinson left the apartment but on returning for a visit found that Brodie had disappeared. Another neighbour told Robinson that he had seen Brodie in Arizona, wandering about like a zombie. We are presumably supposed to conclude that he was back under the control of the Dero.