The following letter was sent to Richard Shaver by Dr. Raymond Bernard himself. Shaver, in turn, passed it along to Ray Palmer, who published it in the October 1959 issue of SEARCH Magazine, p.48:
Dear Mr. Shaver:
“I have discovered several ‘dero’ races, who live in subterranean cities. If you came here I could bring you to the dero people, but they are NOT malicious
“First of all, they are vegetarians, as they cannot keep animals where they live, and a vegetarian diet makes people peaceful. They are simply the ‘Nibelungs’ or dwarfs, and with long white beards, of fairy tales, and they have dwarf women and children. Last week my investigators returned and said they visited their city (which has its own system of illumination) and are able to bring any of my American friends to visit it, but I require one condition: absolute secrecy, as I don’t want governments to send armies Into the tunnel to disturb these peaceful people.
“To reach them requires a 3-day journey of about 40 miles through a tunnel. This entire distance is through a tunnel carefully lined with cut stone blocks below,. above and on the sides. That was quite an engineering feat. I think the tunnel was made long to keep out curiosity seekers, and only the most determined will travel that distance.
“Here is a report of my investigators:(They are two ranchers, father, and son; who discovered the tunnel accidentally):
“’ We left our house 5 A.M. for the tunnel on top of a mountain and reached it at 3 P.M. We were tired and camped near the entrance of the tunnel. For three days we proceeded through the tunnel. We told time by our watches, as we could not tell when it was day or night. We went to sleep at 10 P.M. and awoke at 3 A.M. and continued walking. By the third day, the tunnel started to go downward by steps. It was built of stone blocks on all sides. By the night of the third day, the tunnel suddenly opened into a great space covered with what appeared as a sky with a yellow light that made everything luminous, like daylight.
“‘We saw a city with many houses and saw many people in the distance. They were dwarfs with long white beards and long hair and we saw women and children and heard them crying. The third member of our party got frightened so we had to return…’
“These men found three such tunnels. They entered another for three days, but after hearing voices further in, they got scared and returned. Now they are entering the third.
“But these people of your dero race (except not malicious, as you injected much imagination into your account of subterranean people) are degenerate offshoots of the real Atlanteans who live in the hollow center of the earth. How to gets there is a great secret.
“If you wish to come here and visit these dero people I can arrange it. There is no charge as we are not after money. But you better come soon because I intend to enter the deeper subterranean world, perhaps never to return. Why should I return to this miserable radioactive world, which the Atlantean teacher told us will be as dead as the moon by 1969 when I can live in a non-radioactive paradise?
“To enter you must pay the price:
“1: STRICT VEGETARIANISM, to get a clean body inside, free from decaying proteins; the Atlanteans have refined sense organs and do not like people near them who are walking cemeteries of putrefying corpses of animals.
“2: Absolute continence, or conservation of phosphorus which is not wasted via the gonads and conserved to feed the brain cells.
“3: A vow of silence so that you don’t ‘spill the beans’ and endanger these people who do not want any lunatics with atomic weapons to invade them.
“4: You must give up all surface attachments for money, fame, etc.
“If you, Richard Shaver, meet these qualifications, I will bring you to the subterranean world. No price charged except the price above stated. Show this all to Ray and tell him he and his family are welcome too. But I wonder if he would pay the price? Any way he can do a good service on the surface to save others by publicizing our discovery in a cautious manner as we don’t want madmen with atomic weapons invading these people to learn their scientific secrets concerning ‘vril’, their source of energy beyond atomic energy, which empowers their flying saucers… two of which came here yesterday to visit us.
“It is pure nonsense to claim they come from other planets. They purposely say so to conceal their true origin so as not to endanger their people. But now that the human race has only a few years left to survive on the earth, the subterranean’s have adopted a more open policy. You ask how to reach them. Their entry is in Matto Grosso, in Chavantes territory, where Fawcett was heading when last seen.
“Fawcett is still living in a subterranean city. The Atlanteans refuse to let him out because he has too loud a mouth and may speak too much or be forced to deliver lectures before scientific societies about his expedition. The subterranean’s do not wish to risk invasion. However, those who are worthy will not be molested by the Indians who guard the entrance to the subterranean world. Just how to enter without danger is a secret I will tell only to qualified persons. The location of the entrance is (in the) Roncador Mountains in northeast Matto Grosso (Brazil), where Fawcett was heading after leaving Cuiaba.
Dr. Raymond Bernard
Director, New World Pioneers
Postal Box 485, Joinville
(Mr. Shaver gave us this letter, apparently sent at the same time as the article we received from Brazil, and which is reproduced in the next issue. Apparently Mr. Shaver is unwilling to risk visiting the ‘dwarf’ people, admitted by Dr. Bernard to be ‘degenerate’. The idea of their being peaceful because they are vegetarians doesn’t convince Mr. Shaver, who points out that human beings are not vegetables, and he says he’s seen [via telaug] human beings being eaten in caverns. As for the ‘Atlanteans’, Shaver just doesn’t know. This is new to him. – Rap.)