Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

to put together an imaginative and informative piece. He prophesied that the first moon landing
would take place within five or ten years and argued that a lunar military base would have
enormous strategic value. 'It is entirely within reason', he wrote, 'that the nation which demonstrates
the courage, intelligence and industrial proficiency necessary to establish a base on the moon will
rule the world.'
'Fortress in the Sky', under the byline of Captain B.A. Northorp, was the cover story in the May 1947
issue of Air Trails. The reason Hubbard did not use his own name could be found buried deep in
the text. Although he packed the feature with authoritative and impressive detail about the
composition and environment of the moon, he simply could not resist the opportunity for further
self-aggrandisement. In a section discussing the technical problems of reaching the moon by
rocket, he wrote: 'Here and there throughout the world many men have been thinking about rockets
for some time. I recall that in 1930, L. Ron Hubbard, a writer and engineer, developed and tested -
but without fanfare - a rocket motor considerably superior to the V-2 instrument of propulsion and
rather less complicated.'
Campbell was still a meticulous editor and a stickler for accuracy. If he believed that his friend was
developing rocket motors in 1930 at the age of nineteen, he was also extraordinarily naïve. It is
more likely that he turned a blind eye to keep Ron happy in the hope that he would soon return to
the pages of Astounding.
Ron and Sara only stayed a matter of weeks in New York. In the New Year they were on the move
again, this time to the unprepossessing environs of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, just south of the
Pocono Mountains. There Ron fulfilled Campbell's hopes by writing a novel, The End Is Not Yet,
about a young nuclear physicist's attempts to prevent the world being taken over by constructing a
new philosophical system. It was serialized in three parts in Astounding later in the year, although it
was not as well received as some of Ron's earlier work.
On 14 April 1947, the long-suffering Polly filed for a divorce in Port Orchard, Washington, on the
grounds of desertion and non-support. She was still unaware that her husband had 're-married';
she did not even know he was living with another woman. That situation was soon to change.
Three weeks after Polly set divorce proceedings in motion, Ron scandalized his family by moving
into The Hilltop with Sara. 'It was an awful slap in the face for his mother,' said his Aunt Marnie. 'Hub
and May deeply disapproved. It was very difficult for them as they had Polly and the children living
with them. The family clammed up about it and never mentioned it. When Ron took Sara up to The
Hilltop I said to my sister, "Well, we loved him as a child, Midgie, but he's a perfect stranger to us
now."'[6]
The family would have been even more shocked had they known that Ron had married Sara; only
Ron's friend, Mac Ford, knew the truth and he kept quiet. 'I ran into Ron one evening when he was
taking the children to the theatre in Bremerton,' Ford said. 'We hadn't seen each other since before
the war and when we were talking in the lobby he mentioned something about marrying again. I
thought it was strange because I knew that he was not divorced from Polly, but I did not say
anything because I didn't want to get involved.'[7]
Hubbard filed an agreement to the divorce on 1 June and an interlocutory decree was awarded on
23 June. Polly was given custody of the children, costs and $25 a month maintenance for each
child. Knowing Ron, she did not cherish much hope of the maintenance payments arriving
regularly, if at all.