The great thing about Worthpoint is that you can find past auctions on eBay and sometimes retrieve workable photos of obscure publications such as Laura Mundo's Pied Piper From Outer Space.
In this particular auction they provided not only excellent shots of the front cover but also the Introduction, Foreward and first page which provides a great cliffhanger: "Consequently, when a flying saucer came down in the park, as I was crossing it late one night not long ago, coming home from a PTA meeting in Dearborn, Michigan, U. S. A. (where I lived with my husband and two teenage sons), and a spaceman and woman got out of the ship and said..." and you're hooked! Too bad your addiction is tied to obscurity! The book is seemingly impossible to find except in UFO archivists' dusty drawers.
The Introduction provides dates of birth, marriage and divorce straight from the woman herself. Which is a genealogist's wet-dream, though not always an accurate rendering of reality itself. In this case it will suffice as there is no real need to get too fine with the facts about Laura's birth and marriage, except in the cases of anecdotal information, as her life is far more interesting than any statistical error.
One thing of note concerning her divorce from Otto Marker in 1950 is that she states that they remain good friends. I suspect that somebody was unfaithful in the marriage - perhaps both were - but my guess lies with Otto, as Laura soon packed up and moved to Miami for a year. She did eventually come back and live in the marital home and went by Mrs. Laura Marxer before changing it back to Mundo.
The cover art was done by Joe Grzych but all others were made by Laura herself. Which I am curious to see if I can ever get a copy of this scarce publication. She did have a penchant for doodling as was evidenced on the cover of her high school opinion book.
The Foreward by her longtime associate James Wales - who later continued the Mundo Monitor after her death in 1989 - begins auspiciously with the opening line, "Here... Laura Mundo has written quite an astounding and provocative bit of science-fiction... WHICH COULD BE THE TRUTH!" Is this historical fiction, a fairy tale or a mishmash of each? The notation in the booklet suggests that it might have been her own or a review copy. Either way, the end of Wales' statement that "NOT ONLY IS TRUTH OFTEN STRANGER THAN FICTION...FICTION CAN SOMETIMES BE TRUER THAT 'TRUTH'!" is all too appropriate for the entire package and Laura's life work and legacy itself.
In this first chapter Laura ponders, "As far as I know...I was born on THIS planet!" Though she leaves it up for debate. As we recall from The Saucer Life podcast that Earth , in her estimation, had a sort of Australia penal colony origin where soul-minds in need of re-education were sent to rehabilitate themselves into more enlightened beings. Honestly, this sounds just as scientific as the Big Bang.
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