Editing The Wanderer (Leiber novel) (section)

===The Saucer Symposium===
When Paul and Margo encounter the Saucer Symposium on the beach near Vandenberg, they give the participants nicknames.
* "Doc" (Rudolf Brecht) is a relentless debunker of UFO myths and a top-notch piano salesman.  He is one of the symposium organizers and chairmen.
* "Turban" (Rama Joan) is a mystic who wears a turban and a man's tuxedo.  She was once the wife of a New York stockbroker but abandoned the comfortable lifestyle to lecture on mysticism and participate in events like the Symposium as a search for enlightenment.
* "Beardy" (Prof. Ross Hunter) is a sociologist from Oregon State University.  He originally began studying UFO groups but became interested in the subject itself.  During the adventures caused by the appearance of the Wanderer, he gets close to Margo and eventually seduces her, in the process exposing and neutralizing her manipulative instincts.
* "The Little Man" (Clarence Dowd) is a meticulous documenter of UFO events.  He draws the Wanderer as it shows its different faces to Earth.  These drawings appear in the book.
* "The Ramrod" (Charlie Furby) is a tough-looking man who is really a fantasist.  He insists that he has been transported to planets such as Ispan, whose location only he knows, but later admits he did this entirely in his fantasies.  He is accompanied by two women who may both be his wives, part of a polygamous sect.