If there are real aliens (by that I mean ETs or something from other realm of existence that maybe we don’t understand), I seriously doubt they have any good intentions with regard to us.

Personally, I think we do have an unexplained presence, up to no good at all, that has no intention of helping us or saving us.

Frankly, I’m convinced we’d be better off without their presence.

Of course, to an extent that comes down to my belief based on my analysis of the evidence.

Unfortunately, to an extent, everyone’s opinion of what lies behind the UFO puzzle (something or nothing) is belief driven, no matter how we argue it or claim otherwise.

We can hopefully try and keep belief systems to a minimum and try and base our conclusions on facts alone.

But hard facts in ufology are hard to find, and so belief (on all sides of the fence) will always raise its head.

But that’s ufology. And it’s also somemthing that can be applied to pretty much every aspect of human life.

What I wonder, though, is to what extent they’re aware their insistence the evidence must prove itself on their terms - no matter how scientific they consider those terms to be - is also a product of yet another belief system?

People say, why don’t the ‘Spacemen’ come out in the open? (Ditto, for that matter, God!)

But the truth is, if they did - and if enough of us stopped running for the hills long enough - the first thing we’d be sensible to ask ourselves is, how do we really know they’re who they say they are?

How could we really be certain the strange DNA they gave us wasn’t something concocted by the likes of the supposed New World Order? That the miraculous feats they performed really weren’t some Steven Spielberg-esque technological sleight-of-hand? Etc., etc.,…That the whole thing wasn’t just some stunt to dominate the global population even more?

And even if we were convinced, how could we really be certain of what their intentions were?

For that matter, like no doubt many members of the likes of the supposed NWO probably imagine themselves to have, ‘the Aliens’ may well have the very best of intentions - but then the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Besides which, what one half of the human race may agree is for the best, the other may indeed violently disagree.

The point being, while many ufologists may look quaint and quirky, even clownish to Clarke and Roberts, from another point of view, their approach to the subject can be viewed as just as quaint and quirky and clownish.

It looks like nobody can write well about the more recent years, as I note in my review of Shockingly and Watch the Skies.

http://spookyparadigm.blogspot.com/2006/10/watch-skies-and-shockingly-close-to.html

I guess Dolan does it in the second volume of his book (I haven’t read vol. 1 yet, though it is sitting here next to me on the wait list.

I’d say it’s very different to Shockingly, as it’s basically a social history of the way in which the subject developed in the UK. But for a class study, I think it would be a good one, as the story is one that arguably could be applied to ufology all over the world, I think: how the subject began, developed, how belief systems are formed etc.

I was going to use Shockingly in my class this summer, but I decided to go with Brenda Denzler’s Lure of the Edge this time around.

I forgot: for review copies, contact the owner of Heart of Albion Press, Bob Trubshaw, at albion@indigogroup.co.uk
For fans of British folklore, mythology, and Fortean history, Heart of Albion put out some excellent titles. Check out their website: http://www.hoap.co.uk

It’s actually not muck-raking at all. Rather, it basically reveals the facts as they are, which even on their own (without prodding needed from Andy and Dave) are entertaining, bizarre, outrageous, and thought-provoking.

That’s the thing that the book demonstrates: that the people in the subject back then were an intriguing, unusual bunch (has nothing changed today? LOL) whose work influenced whole swathes of the public, the UFO book reading public, and even people in the official and establishment worlds.

Rather than muck-rake, Dave and Andy tell it as it was back then, which was highly controversial on its own.

This title sounds like a more muckraking version of Keith Thompson’s book, Angels and Aliens, which is another often overlooked title dealing with the history of the UFO subject. Thompson examined the subject from a mytholigical/ social viewpoint. Very highly recommended. We interviewed Thompson in the Excluded Middle zine way back when and found him to be not only a highly intelligent and perceptive guy, but also quite friendly and accessible.

This excerpt is still relevant, over a decade later:

EM: In your book, you invoke the Myth of Sisyphus as a tale of futility that could give us a wise place to stand.

KT: Yes, that’s how I ended it. You know the story. Sisyphus is sentenced by the gods to roll a rock to the top of the hill, knowing full well that it will roll back down to the bottom. He must do this for eternity — no reprieve. He defies the gods by saying yes to his task, even though this amounts to affirming endless labor intended as torture. The task of making sense of UFOs is Sisyphean. Each attempt to explain these hovering shapes manages to get the rock to the top — and then each theory falls, inevitably, like his rolling rock. On it goes. I find this strangely heartening. The human spirit always agrees to make the climb to the top, not knowing why. For me it comes down to an article of faith that, in the entangling of human and divine fates, to be human is not to be at a loss. I want to keep asking questions. Keep pushing the rock.