Alien Dawn: An Investigation into the Contact Experience [Hardcover]

Colin Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998

The Bestselling author probes reports of alien visitations and other strange phenomena.

When bestselling writer Colin Wilson met Harvard psychiatrist John Mack at a conference in 1995, he was propelled on a journey of discovery into one of the most daunting mysteries of our time--the UFO phenomenon. Mack told Wilson of his work with people who believed they had been abducted by "aliens," and this conversation launched Wilson on a full-scale investigation into everything he could unearth about mysterious and bizarre events related to "alien" visitations. Groundbreaking and compelling, Alien Dawn describes Wilson's own attempt to make sense of a vast body of documented research involving strange and unexplained phenomena, including poltergeists, lake monsters, ancient folklore, time slips, out-of-body experiences, mystical awareness, and psychic travel to other worlds. He studied the accounts of Uri Geller and Andrija Puharich, who were convinced they had been chosen by aliens to deliver a momentous message to earth. He probed into people's claims that they had experienced contact with beings possessing supernormal powers possibly from other dimensions of space--or even time. The result is a vast, complex jigsaw puzzle of encyclopedic dimensions--the most comprehensive bird's-eye view of the subject ever undertaken, with conclusions sure to startle the reader.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In over 80 books, Wilson (From Atlantis to the Sphinx) has reported on a wide variety of alternate realities involving crime, sex and the occult, all based on the underlying premise that our everyday consciousness is meager compared with powers potentially available to us. This attempt at a synthesis of the alien/UFO phenomenon shows Wilson's encyclopedic strength to be also his weakness. In his zeal for inclusiveness, he reports not only on the history of UFOs from mythology through Kenneth Arnold to Philip Corso (The Day After Roswell), but also writes about Uri Geller, LSD research, crop circles, ley lines, the Loch Ness monster, remote viewing, Jung, hypnotism, poltergeists, Ouspensky, out-of-body experiences, quantum physics and a great deal more. There is little new here: much of the book is composed of unfootnoted second- and third-hand accounts of UFOs, alien encounters and (perhaps) related phenomena drawn from other sources, resulting in an unfocused catalogue of anecdotes, the larger import of which is rarely assessed. Periodically Wilson asks, as if talking to himself: "What, then, are we to make of it all?" At times he finds unbelievability a plus: after all, if someone were simply fabricating a story, wouldn't they make it more plausible? By the time readers reach the chapter titled "Oh no, not again!" the phrase has an unintended inflection. In the end, Wilson seems to regard aliensAwhatever they areAas agents in the transformation of human consciousness, but he provides little solid support for, or elucidation of, such a hypothesis. Eight pages of photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Anyone attempting to work their way through the literature would find ample reward in beginning with Alien Dawn..." -- Rain Taxi --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: Fromm Intl; 1st Fromm International ed edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880642262
• ISBN-13: 978-0880642262
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,753,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wilson's on top of it again, June 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Alien Dawn: An Investigation into the Contact Experience (Hardcover)

UFOs and alien-experiences such as abductions have never been the target for a full Colin Wilson-enquiry. After his previous "From Atlantis to the Sphinx", this theme is a logical next step to the ideas he's been persuing lately. Did intelligent alien beings visit the earth in ancient times, and are they still? Were there any contacts between these beings and humans? In the lot of what has been written about UFOs and aliens, this book is as original and provocative as the best of Wilson. Although I consider myself quite well-informed about the subject, the book never bored me, and I found Wilson's scope on the subject very interesting, thought-provoking and very entertaining. Steady Wilson-readers won't be disappointed, and to the reader only interested in the subject, this book is a must.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A logical direction for Wilson's thought., January 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Alien Dawn: An Investigation into the Contact Experience (Hardcover)

It surprised me to read that Colin Wilson has only very recently turned himself to the study of the UFO phenonomenon. His account of it dovetails nicely from earlier investigations into the extraordinary, such as the encyclopedic and probably still useful "The Occult." Wilson's gift for synthesis shines through as he weaves the disparate threads of UFO lore with the rich tradition of paranormal and mythic studies, linking UFOs with psychic abilities, the history of goblins, and the cutting edge of quantum physics. Wilson's great credibility comes in part from an insistence that humanity possesses a number of potential mental abilities (labeled Faculty X in his work) that manifest themselves as astral projection, prophecy, telepathy, etc., without any claim to have developed them himself. I find it much easier to believe Wilson's account because he never claims to have met anyone from Venus, or to have been there himself.

The great science fiction writer Philip K. Dick would have made an interesting subject for a chapter in Wilson's book. Dick had as complex and interesting a synthesis of the UFO phenomenon and religious mysticism as Wilson presents. If you read VALIS, a late PKD novel, you get an account of alien involvement in human life that greatly resembles accounts Wilson presents. Dick's penultimate novel (I think) "The Divine Invasion," recasts the Christian narrative in terms of alien invasion. In both Dick's and Wilson's work, it becomes nearly impossible to figure out what the phenomenon are, what our perceptions are, and what the metaphors stand for. Alien encounters seem finally to be not nearly as important as the fact that they are a recent manifestation of something that's paralleled human development from before our conscious history even began.

People who study the UFO phenomenon from a purely technological and materialistic point of view, who think we're reverse engineering crashed saucers and who can identify the planets from which aliens come, may not like this book as it dismisses such accounts as too simple-minded. Having read Wilson's earlier work, I was well-prepared for his imaginative leaps and intuitive volleys. This isn't exactly an introduction to the history of UFOs as a modern phenomenon. It's more like a Talmud--a commentary on the sources that enriches and extends an already powerful and extraodinarily textured narrative.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking look on Alien existence., January 19, 2000

By 

Norm Hall - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alien Dawn: An Investigation into the Contact Experience (Hardcover)

Colin Wilson has to be one of the most interesting writers of our time. His latest book looks into the Alien/UFO question. It is not your typical UFO book. It covers the subject in a psychological format that will have you thinking about UFOs in a different light. The final chapter which is titled; "The Way Outside" is mind-blowing and worth the price of the book all by itself. This book is not to be missed!