Carl Sagan, From Soup To Nuts

The Library of Congress will soon begin processing 798 boxes of Carl Sagan’s personal papers reports the Washington Post. A donation by Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane enabled the Library to purchase them from his widow, who has preserved Sagan’s papers since his death in 1996.

They include the files he labeled F/C for “fissured ceramics,” a code meaning letters from crackpots. Here are a couple of examples quoted in the Post

“I have discovered a planet between Venus and the earth… I am in Attica Correctional Facility and am unable to check out this discovery further without your assistance.”

And:

“Behind Jupiter hidden from earth, is a small planet and for the wanbt of a name, let us call it, JUPITENOUS. It is on this planet that these UFO’s come from…”

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster for the story.]