Walter Siegmeister

Walter Isidor Siegmeister (1903 – September 10, 1965), also known as Raymond W. Bernard, Robert Raymond, and Uriel Adriana, was an early 20th-century American alternative health advocate and esoteric writer, who formed part of the alternative reality subculture. He is credited with the merger of the Hollow Earth theory and religious beliefs about UFOs. He also founded several fruitarian or vegetarian utopian communes in several countries.

Early life Walter Isidor Siegmeister was born into a family of Russian Jews in Manhattan, New York City, probably in 1903. His parents, William and Bessie Siegmeister, were both born in Russia. His father, William Siegmeister (d. 1932), was a physician, and immigrated to the United States aged 15. A 1930s commune he ran on an island near Panama banned sex, drinking water, getting haircuts, and romance.

He went to Ecuador in 1941 where he met John Wierlo (pen-name: Johnny Lovewisdom, aka "the Hermit Saint of the Andes") who had arrived in 1940, where they spoke of plans for a paradisian utopia and a super-race in the Ecuadorean jungle. He was also interested in eugenics and attempted to create a "master race" through selective breeding in the jungles of Ecuador.

Hollow Earth Siegmeister was a proponent of the Hollow Earth concept and UFOs. His ideas were never taken seriously by academics and have been dismissed as pseudoscience. He is credited with the merger of the Hollow Earth theory and religious beliefs about UFOs.

Many of his works copied from other authors, much to their chagrin. His Hollow Earth books were published under the pen name Raymond W. Bernard. In 1960, he published Flying Saucers from the Earth's Interior, largely basing his arguments on the works of Ray Palmer; Palmer's claims about UFOs were false, and even Siegmeister included Palmer's statement that a source he had worked from had been "falsified". However, he did not include Palmer's statements about how the alleged North Pole flight within the Earth was also fake, citing it as evidence for his theories. After the publication of the book, Palmer complained that he had been copied and stolen from, and that Siegmeister had "quoted and misquoted" him "entirely out of context and many times falsely". He also said that he owed him money for advertising fees which he had not paid, and accused him of real estate fraud; writer Daniel Loxton said these claims were "apparently true".

In 1964, he found a New York publisher for another book, The Hollow Earth, which was based on Flying Saucers from the Earth's Interior. The book describes a purported conspiracy to conceal the existence of the Hollow Earth and its access points at the poles. Siegmeister claims that the North Pole flight was covered up by "certain secret agencies", which is an influential theory to Hollow Earth believers. Siegmeister's Hollow Earth ideas are mentioned in detail in Alan Baker's Invisible Eagle, 2000. Loxton described this book as "probably the best known source on the subject".

Daniel Loxton described him as "a shady operator" and "an untrustworthy character" in his piece on Hollow Earth theories.