SATURN TAUGHT THIS MAN TO PLAY PIANO

 

Howard Menger, the UFO contactee who brought back a record instead of a moon rock

Howard Menger was a New Jersey sign painter who went public in late 1956 with one hell of a résumé: lifelong encounters with beautiful extraterrestrials, telepathy, flying saucers and trips aboard spacecraft. His appearance on Long John Nebel’s legendary WOR radio show helped turn him into one of the strangest celebrities of the original contactee era.

But forget the saucer for a moment.

Howard Menger said Saturn taught him to play the piano.

According to Menger’s 1959 book From Outer Space to You, sometime in 1956 his automobile seemed to steer him toward an isolated cabin. Inside was a man playing extraordinary music on a piano-like instrument. Two blond visitors appeared and introduced the musician as being from Saturn.

Menger protested that he couldn't play.

The Saturnian essentially told him: sit down anyway.

Menger later wrote that he suddenly found himself playing an instrument for the first time. The visitors supposedly explained that particular combinations of musical frequencies could act on the subconscious, awakening awareness, understanding and something resembling universal brotherhood.

So naturally, Howard made an album.

Authentic Music From Another Planet, Slate Records 211, contains narration, “Marla,” “Theme from The Song from Saturn,” and the centerpiece, “The Song from Saturn.” A U.S. government UFO bibliography dates the LP tentatively to 1957; intriguingly, the Smithsonian Institution today preserves a copy in its Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives, although its catalog gives the imprint more cautiously as “196x.”

Menger claimed that when performing the Saturn piece, his fingers could be guided by the same mysterious force responsible for the original transmission.

That means we have entered territory considerably stranger than “UFO witness plays piano.”

This is received music.

And this is where Aleister Crowley slips through the side door.

There is no solid evidence I can find that Menger knew Crowley or consciously borrowed from him. But Menger himself wrote that the “occult sciences” touched some of the same subjects he believed his visitors were revealing: reincarnation, hidden senses, other dimensions and the evolution of consciousness.

Then comes a wonderful historical aftershock. The 2023 archival collection Spectra Ex Machina: A Sound Anthology of Occult Phenomena includes Howard Menger — “Intro & The Song of Saturn” immediately followed by Aleister Crowley — “The Call of the First Aethyr.” The anthology specifically collects recordings associated with occult and mediumistic phenomena.

Not proof of a secret Crowley-Menger pipeline.

Something more interesting, perhaps: two men from different eras claiming that information could arrive through channels ordinary consciousness didn't control — and leaving audio artifacts behind.

Today we'd call Menger's story UFO mythology, contactee culture, outsider music, occultism, channeling, or simply an astonishing piece of American weirdness.

At FMPU, we don't really need to choose.

Howard Menger said Saturn gave him a song.

And unlike most UFO stories, you can put the needle down and listen to the evidence.