25 YEARS AGO: MAGONIA 26, JUNE 1987

Magonia 26, June 1978, featured as its main article an account by David Clarke of the remarkable events surrounding the investigation of the once-notorious Cracoe Fell landing case. In summary, a number of people, including two police officers saw and photographed an alleged 'landed UFO', perceived as a bright light settled on a cliff face at Cracoe, about three miles from Skipton in North Yorkshire.
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HUNTERS LOSING THE SCENT

Bret Lueder, A UFO Hunter's Guide. Weiser Books, San Francisco, 2012.

On reading Lueder's introduction to this book we learn that there is nothing new about the idea that UFOs are from other worlds, as the ancient descriptions of them have been described by popular writers such as Erich von Daniken and "heavyweights like Zecharia Sitchin". (He's not joking, apparently.)
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HAUNTED MIND

Bob Curran. A Haunted Mind: Inside the Dark, Twisted World of H.P. Lovecraft. New Page Books, 2012.

This is really a book which I wish our late colleague Roger Sandell had been able to review. Roger appeared, many years ago, on the popular TV quiz show Mastermind, answering questions on the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft and in the process scoring a near record-breaking 38 points.
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A PARANORMAL PAIR

Andrew Homer. Haunted Hostelries of Shropshire. Amberley, 2012

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David Scanlan and Paul Robins. Paranormal Essex. Amberley, 2012

Interesting collection of memorates of haunted pubs and the like, illustrated with nice photographs. Drinking places seem to have taken over from historic homes as the places most likely to get a reputation for being haunted, a theme which seems to have first come to the fore in the 1970s. 

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INTCAT RETURNS

Those Magonia readers who have been with us since the early days of the print magazine, when we were still called MUFOB might remember that most issues contained an insert on coloured paper, which was Peter Rogerson's INTCAT listing of what were then called 'Type-I' reports, using Jacques Vallée's classification system. Peter's catalogue was begun as an extension of the catalogue which Vallée published as an 'appendix' to the American first edition of Passport to Magonia. 
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INTRODUCTION TO EXOTHEOLOGY

Thomas F. O'Meara. Vast Universe: Extraterrestrials and Christian Revelation, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 2012.

If you don't believe in Christian revelation and think that we unlikely ever to encounter any extraterrestrials, then this book is possibly not for you. However, it should be of interest not only to theology students, but also to those who are interested in the interaction between scientific discovery and religious belief, which is a more important subject than is generally realised.
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MODERN MONSTERS

Gregory L. Reece. Creatures of the Night: In Search of Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves and Demons. I. B. Tauris, 2012.

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Alasdair Wickham (i.e. James Buxton). The Black Book of Modern Myths: True Stories of the Unexplained. Arrow Books, 2012.

Gregory Reece having already examined the worlds of ufology and cryptozoology, now turns his attention to the world of the horror story both in reality (or anyway purported reality) and fiction. Starting with his childhood encounter with Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, Reece enters the realm of the supernatural, the realm of ghosts and domain of devils, exploring ghosts, vampires, werewolves, demons and Satanists.

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TEMPLE OF SOLOMON

James Wasserman, The Temple of Solomon: From Ancient Israel to Secret Societies, Inner Traditions, 2011.

I came to this book with high anticipation. As, in James Wasserman’s words, the Temple of Solomon ‘is a fundamental component of the spiritual and religious yearnings of millions of people and has been the symbolic focus of the teachings of esoteric societies for three thousand years,’ the idea of gathering together in one volume all the history, legends and traditions relating to it was a promising one. 🔻

MOVING ON

Cameron M Smith and Evan T Davies. Emigrating Beyond Earth: Human Adaptation and Space Travel. Springer, 2012.

When I were now’t but a nipper 50 years ago, the factual children's magazines of the period such as Knowledge and Look and Learn used to feature dreams of the future, and the amazing world of 2000. This included colonies on the Moon and Mars, huge orbiting space stations, trips to the outer solar system and the like.
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UFOS AND GOVERNMENT

Michael Swords and Robert Powell. UFOs and Government: A Historical Enquiry, with contributions by Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Bill Chalker, Barry Greenwood, Richard Theme, Jan Aldrich and Steve Purcell. Anomalist Books, 2012.

Ufologists have long had a troubled relationship with their various governments, and many of them suspect that their governments have secrets (whether reports or artefacts) that would prove that the ufologists, or at least those of their number who believe that some UFO reports are produced by intelligent ‘anomalous’ or ‘exotic’ stimuli, are right.
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REVIEWS FROM THE VAULT

The book review in the post below this, Influencing Machines, in its original version is from a large collection of older reviews, sent to me by Peter Rogerson, which have never been published previously in Magonia magazine or online. Peter is clearing out the haunted wing of his hard-drive prior to upgrading his computer equipment, and came across these pieces in a dusty file deep inside his machine.

Most of the earlier reviews were submitted for the print magazine but not used largely for reasons of space and in one or two cases consideration of possible libel. Some of the later ones fell into the interstices between closing down the print Magonia, and getting the Magonia Review blogs up and running. Although some of the reviews are for books published quite a few years ago, I think they are all titles which are still very relevant to the topics we cover in Magonia.

There are about seventy reviews, and starting tomorrow I shall be adding them to the Review Archive pages one a day over the next couple of months. So as well as reading the new reviews which will continue to appear on these pages, make sure to click across to the Review Archive regularly and read the articles appearing there. I'm sure you will find a lot of interesting material you haven't come across before, as well as many books you will want to add to your collections - using our quick and easy Amazon link, of course! -- JR