Frank Scully was a successful author in the 1940s and 1950s and wrote for the Hollywood publication Variety.

In October and November of 1949, Scully published two columns in Variety, claiming that extraterrestrial beings were recovered from a flying saucer crash, based on what he said was reported to him by a scientist involved. His 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers expanded on the theme, adding that there had been three such incidents in New Mexico and one in Arizona, including one that crashed near Aztec, New Mexico in 1948 that was 100 feet in diameter. The saucers supposedly worked on magnetic principles. In the book, Scully revealed two sources to be a Silas Newton and a scientist named "Dr. Gee". Sixty thousand copies of the book were sold.