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© University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Contents Acknowledgments vii Preface to the Paperback Edition ix List of Abbreviations xxiii Introduction: A Mystery of Mythic Proportions 1 1 Who Goes There? The Myth and the Mystery of UFOs 25 2 The Growth and Evolution of UFO Mythology 52 3 UFOs of the Past 97 4 From the Otherworld to Other Worlds 124 5 The Space Children: A Case Example 176 6 Secret Worlds and Promised Lands 201 7 Other Than Ourselves 229 8 Explaining UFOs: An Inward Look 252 9 Explaining UFOs: Something Yet Remains 286 Appendix: UFO-Related Web Sites 315 Notes 319 Select Bibliography 375 Index 399 An illustration section follows page 165 © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Mary Castner, Mark Rodeghier, and Michael D. Swords for CUFOS, James Carrion for MUFON, Phyllis Galde for Fate magazine, Janet Bord for the Fortean Picture Library, and Richard F. Haines, whose help in providing illustrations for this book is greatly appreciated. I owe especial thanks to Jerome Clark and David M. Jacobs for reading the manu- script and devoting efforts above and beyond the call of duty to whip my unruly writ- ing into shape. A final thank-you goes to my long-suffering editor, Michael J. Briggs, who had to wait far too long for me to finish, but who did so with patience and always a helping hand. vii © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Preface to the Paperback Edition This preface provides the only added material to the new paperback edition of this book. I do not pretend that either this or the original edition solves the mystery of UFOs; I believe that is beyond the scope of any one book or author. I do hope, however, to further appreciation of two sides of the issue: one is the cultural means by which we understand and speak of UFOs, and the other is those personal experiences that give us reason to think and talk about UFOs in the first place. The interaction of these two influences shapes UFOs as we know them, and an understanding of both is necessary to see the whole of the issue. I should first note that most critics of the original hardbound edition have been kind and fair, treatment not always guaranteed in such a controversial field. Yet a few misread my intentions and even accused me of denying the existence of UFOs, ridicul- ing witnesses, and serving as an agent of disinformation because I did not provide a privileged platform for their own views on the subject. Strangely, I found myself in a tight spot between those who damned me for rejecting even the most unlikely UFO claims and those who damned me for not dismissing them all. I plead innocent on all counts. One other complaint—that I devote too much space to irrelevancies like myths and folklore—I will cheerfully acknowledge. Only I do not see this attention as a waste but rather as essential background to separate the uniqueness of the phenomenon from the product of cultural influences. Some readers already recognize the importance of cultural, social, and psychological elements in shaping UFO narratives and beliefs, but many members of the UFO community dismiss these considerations as mere diver- sions or worse, a form of debunking. I’m especially keen to speak to the latter concern because I genuinely believe that the so-called literary exercises throughout this book offer a valuable means for better understanding both UFOs and their public reception. UFOs have endured as a popular mystery ever since the first flying saucer sight- ing in 1947. In recent times, TV news and major newspapers no longer mention the subject, newsstand UFO magazines have disappeared, and most long-running UFO organizations have closed or gone dormant. (As proof of these trends, the Center for UFO Studies ceased to publish the International UFO Reporter in 2012.) However, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) continues to thrive by publishing a monthly ix © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. x preface to the paperback edition journal, sponsoring an annual symposium, leading a national network of investigators, and operating a versatile sightings database. The Internet abounds with UFO-related websites of dizzying variety and variable quality. Commercially published and self- published UFO books appear in a steady stream. UFO organizations and research flourish around the world. UFO-related TV documentaries such asAncient Aliens continue for multiple seasons, and MUFON has partnered with the History Chan- nel to produce Hangar 1, a series that explores genuine cases from the organization’s files—and that’s all just in the United States. The general notion of UFOs and extraterrestrial visitation leaves an even broader footprint on popular culture. Not a year goes by without movies that draw on these themes being released, and five TV series in the 2014–2016 seasons—Extant, Falling Skies, The Whispers, Under the Dome, and Colony—have pitted the people of Earth against alien invaders. Aliens continue to infiltrate cartoons, toys, and commercials. They also occupy public opinion as a possibility, a probability, or, for one fraction of the population, a certainty hidden from us by a government “truth embargo.” These ideas have become so ingrained in our entertainment, informal education, and awareness of how the world may truly work that they more bear the heft of hard facts than airy speculations. These are obvious truths. Some statements about UFOs as people see them are equally uncontroversial: these fleeting, sometimes frightening appearances turn up worldwide, startling lone individuals at one instance and whole crowds at another. The MUFON UFO Journal for September 2015 announced that the Mutual UFO Net- work received 8,678 sightings reports for 2014, while Peter Davenport’s National UFO Reporting Center tallied 8,554 reports for the same year. These numbers represent a typical year’s harvest, but since few UFO witnesses ever become UFO reporters, the full count is likely far higher than these statistics, sizable as they are. Beyond doubt a great many people at some time in their lives have witnessed something in the sky that they regard as unusual, unidentified, or anomalous. Most are honest and sincere, whether they speak out or remain part of the silent majority. Ufologists and skeptics agree that most of this total resolves into natural or man- made causes such as Venus, satellites, aircraft, and meteors. All the snarling involves a minority of cases that do not appear conventional, that in fact seem inexplicable, unearthly, or even so anomalous that we cannot name them. The skeptics tell us that the glass is not half full or half empty; it is actually bone dry. They argue that, if we knew all the facts, even the most recalcitrant case would dissolve into a combination of human error, psychological predisposition, and conventional but rare phenomena or ordinary events seen under uncommon circumstances. Many proponents counter that UFOs clearly bring alien visitors who may come as explorers, saviors, or invaders seek- ing conquest and takeover; they may have shaped much of human history, and perhaps the entire course of government, since 1947. Whatever their depth of commitment, all © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. preface to the paperback edition xi proponents accept that some UFO reports do not and never will reduce to conventional solutions. Beyond such contradictory convictions, the certainties blur and the knives come out. Both ufologists and the general public usually regard UFOs as a scientific problem: Are they “real”—that is, material—objects or not? That question stretches beyond the basic yes-no physical issue to ask about the nature of the phenomenon and its sociologi- cal and psychological aspects, and even beyond that to religious, philosophical, histori- cal, and other humanistic concerns. For some people, UFOs pose spiritual problems or hold personal significance that do not call for formal understanding, but most of us seek our own comprehension of the subject within a framework of rational scientific inquiry and humanistic scholarship. We crave objective truth and consensus knowledge. Science and rigorous scholarship begin with reliable facts. They are important in everyday decisions from criminal trials to whether or not I carry an umbrella to work, but they are absolute essentials for any rational inquiry about events in the real world. Without this solid foundation, even the cleverest argument has no substance, and any supporter of UFO reality has no place to stand. Well, then, aren’t we in luck? We have many tens of thousands of reports, and if 80 percent or 90 percent or even 97 percent turn out to have conventional solutions, thousands more still remain as evidence of an unknown phenomenon. Many of those unknowns are not unidentified in the trivial sense of too little information to judge but are rather genuinely substantive observa- tions full of data-rich descriptions, some backed by multiple highly qualified witnesses; physical traces; photographic records; radar returns; and supportive evidence such as calculations of height, speed, and heat output. Surely, such facts establish a convincing case for the reality of UFOs. Even so, the debate over the reliability of UFO evidence continues.