RELIABLE WITNESSES. A Guide to the Evidence. Part One

V.J. Ballester-Olmos and Richard W. Heiden (Eds.), The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony, UPIAR Publisher, 2023. 

This book is an important antidote to the UAP frenzy going on in the USA, and in this summary I will attempt to guide readers through the massive amount of information that is contained it its 700 pages. The reliability of UFO witness testimony is covered in seven sections; Case Studies; Psychological Perspectives; On Witness Testimony; Empirical Research; Anthropological Approach; Metrics and Scaling, and Epistemological Issues. 

🔽

THE OLD TRIANGLE

Colin Saunders, Triangular UFOs of the United Kingdom, Flying Disk Press, 2023.

When Colin Saunders and his family were driving home to Hinckley, Leicestershire, on the evening of 31 March 1999, they saw a triangular UFO flying very low overhead. They were able to stop to get a better view of it for a few moments until it went from view. Using his experience and knowledge as a draughtsman and graphic designer Colin was quickly inspired to build a 3D model of what he saw. 

🔽

PERSONAL FILES

Jason Gleaves. UFO Encounters: Up Close & Personal. Flying Disk Press, 2022.

A huge variety of strange UFO encounters have been reported throughout the years and even for the most well-read there are always new ones you have never heard of, and for newcomers the subject is just downright bewildering. 

🔽

GAINED IN TRANSLATION

Recent years have seen the appearance of a number of book exchanges, many of them at the entrances to London Underground stations. Anyone can take a book for free, with the request that in return they leave any of their own unwanted volumes. The one in the concourse of Fulham Broadway tube, for instance, has a high turnover, though staff have to seal it off whenever Chelsea are playing at home.

🔽

BEYOND PASCAGOULA

Irena McCammon Scott, PhD. Beyond Pascagoula: The Rest of the Amazing Story, Flying Disk Press, 2021.

The Pascagoula abduction incident of 11 October 1973 was not just an isolated case but a part of a wave of UFO sightings throughout that region of the United States. Not only that but Irena Scott comprehensively shows that a massive sonic boom accompanied by at least two other booms rocked the USA on the same night as the abduction.

🔻

SUMMER LIGHTNING

Irena McCammon Scott. Inside the Lightning Ball: Scientific Study of Lifelong UFO Experiencers, Flying Disk Press, 2018.

Irena has a very good background for studying UFO experiences; she worked for the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) analysing satellite photography during the height of the Cold War; she’s researched and taught at several universities, and was a volunteer astronomer at the Ohio State University Radio Observatory. From 1993 to 2000 she was on the MUFON Board of Directors and continues as a field investigator.

🔻

HISTORICAL FIELDWORK

Mike Covell, The East Yorkshire UFO Files, Independently Published, 2020.

When living in East Hull, Mike was a mere eight years old when he saw an illuminated egg-shaped object hovering the sky. From then on he became fascinated by UFOs and anything remotely Fortean. This led him to join the Hull UFO Society and to collect a large collection of books, magazines, UFO reports and news clippings.

🔻

SEARCHING THE PAPERWORK

John Greenewald Jr. Inside The Black Vault; The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed. Rowman and Littlefield, 2019.

First the good news. By today's standards this is both an inexpensive book and an easy one to read – telling the stories in short digestible chunks. The author runs popular US website 'The Black Vault' based on government files. It is also true that it does what it sets out to do – describe some well known UFO cases (mostly American for obvious reasons) in a way free of 'unverifiable' information'.
🔻

INSIDE THE BIG TENT

Timothy Green Beckley and Sean Casteel. Alien Strongholds On Earth; Secret UFO Bases Exist All Around Us. Inner Light/Global Communications, 2019.

Alien strongholds, or what John Keel would have called window areas, are believed to exist throughout the world. These areas are where aliens have their secret underground bases that maintain their fleets of flying saucer and where they can conduct their nefarious activities, often in league with mysterious human military units.

🔽

SHIFTING SANDS AT SOCORRO

Kevin D. Randle. Encounter in the Desert; The Case for Alien Contact at Socorro. New Page, 2017.

Let’s get one thing straight from the start. Despite the sub-title this book does not make ‘the case for alien contact at Socorro’, but I do not think that Kevin Randle really expected it to. Randle is an interesting and pleasantly undogmatic character amongst American UFO researchers. 

🔽

A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

Kevin D. Randle. The UFO Dossier: 100 Years of Government Secrets, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups. Visible Ink, 2016.

Kevin Randle obviously considers that some UFO reports are likely to be observations of alien spacecraft, but tries not to be too dogmatic. This is revealed in his obvious reluctance to write off particularly interesting reports as examples of natural phenomena or inaccurate observations.
Although he believes that extraterrestrial contact is a likely explanation for some UFO reports – notably Roswell and Shag Harbour – he finds most of the alleged evidence unconvincing, especially for close encounter and abduction reports.

ANYBODY HERE SEEN KELLY?

Geraldine Sutton Stith. The Kelly Green Men: Alien Legacy Revisited. McClanahan Publishing House. 2015.

The author of this book is the child of the second marriage of one of the principle characters in one of ufology’s strangest episodes; the Kelly ‘little green man’ story of August 21, 1955, the basic details of which can be found here. 

🔽

IN THE UFOSPHERE

Richard Dolan. UFOs for the 21st Century Mind: A Fresh Guide to an Ancient Mystery. Richard Dolan Press, 2014.

---

Nigel Mortimer. UFOs, Portals and Gateways. Wisdom Books, 2013

The title of this book would suggest that either the author is going to come up with some radical new approach or that it will contain large numbers of new and impressive 21st century UFO cases. It does neither, rather it is just another potted history of largely US ufology, with many of the same old stories that we have read countless times before.

🔽

ETERNAL TRIANGLES

David Marler. Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation. Richard Dolan Press, 2013.

Today it would appear that good old disc-shaped flying saucers and passé and have been replaced by huge flying triangles, so much so that the triangles now have a book of their own. In many ways this is a sensible UFO book, such as used to be written in the 1960s, which avoids tales of crashed flying saucers, ice-cream loving aliens, abductions through solid walls and secret conspiracies by human-alien hybrids, concentrating instead on unusual things seen in the sky.
🔻

SCOUSELORE

S. D. Tucker. Paranormal Merseyside. Amberley, 2013.

Any book which says “[T]he journal Magonia, the main outlet for what might be termed ‘alternative’ perspectives and viewpoints upon ufology, was based in Liverpool under the auspices of its Liverpudlian editor, John Rimmer, for a long period, which is surely worth celebrating” is pretty well assured of a good review here! However, even without this endorsement this book will be getting a good review.
🔽

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. 
🔻

SPOTTING THE HOTSPOTS

Peter A McCue. Zones of Strangeness: An Examination of Paranormal and UFO Hot Spots. Author House, 2012.

Peter McCue, a clinical psychologist and long time member of the Society for Psychical Research, asks whether there are any areas where anomalous experiences are more widespread than others, the so called window areas. After an initial examination of the evidence for ghosts, poltergeists, UFOs and bigfoot (the latter two based on rather inadequate sources), he takes a careful look at specific areas.
🔽

RANDLE'S REFLECTIONS

Kevin Randle. Reflections of a UFO Investigator, Anomalist Books, 2012

Kevin Randle first became interested in UFOs because of his mother's interest in science fiction and became more interested when he was in high school and read Brad Steiger's Strangers from the Skies (Award Books, New York, 1966).  Even in the early days of his research he became aware that some of the UFO witnesses were lying to him.
🔻

UFOLOGY'S LIVING FOSSILS

        

Frank Soriano and James Bouck. UFOs Above the Law: True Incidents Law Enforcement Officers’ Encounters with UFOs. Schiffer, 2011

---

Carmen McLaren. UFO Conspiracy. Schiffer, 2011.

---

Preston Dennett. UFOs over New Mexico: A True History of Extraterrestrial Encounters in the Land of Enchantment. Schiffer, 2011
🔻

PARANORMAL CASEBOOKS

        

Lee Prosser. UFOs in Missouri: True Tales of Extraterrestrials and Related Phenomena. Schiffer Books, 2011.

---

Malcolm Robinson. Paranormal Case Files of Great Britain, Volume One. Healings of Atlantis. 2011

---

Janet Bord. The 100 Greatest Photographs of the Paranormal from the Fortean Picture Library. Jazz Publishing/Paranormal Magazine, 2010. 
🔽