Customer Reviews

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Reporter's Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T.

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book sits in my bookcase as one of my all-time favorites. I've now read it three times, and find it fascinating and mesmerizing each time. And some parts of it really freak me out.

I'm not a UFO-guru, but this book asks the one burning question: "If we are NOT being visited, then what exactly IS going on? Why are people in remote locations of the world, with no desire to achieve fame, reporting the same bizarre experiences?". This book tries to address that.

Educational, yet entertaining. And it does so in an intelligent, well-presented manner which doesn't come across as pushy or hokey.

Highly recommended! Good luck trying to sleep after reading this one.

C.D.B. Bryan's journalistic report of his attendance at a huge UFO & alien abduction conference in the early 1990's held at M.I.T. is a clearly written and fair minded look at a complicated and often controversial subject.

Despite the fact that most recent polls indicate that the majority of Americans & indeed the world believe "we're not alone", there are many who refuse to accept or are fearful of discussing the alien abduction phenomenon. Similarly, even when UFO enthusiasts come to agreement about various elements within their own community, there are breaks in the ranks in terms of everything from the effective use of hypnotic regression to the incredibly disturbing notion of alien/human hybrids being harvested.

It can all be dizzyingly confusing and even discouraging for the newly interested and so Bryan's book remains one of the more well organized and objective treatments on the subject. The author never tries to sway the reader in any direction. He stays steadfast to his job of reporting what he saw and trying to make some sense of it without being judgmental or partial to a particular mindset.

In-depth, informative, solidly entertaining and yes at times even patently unbelievable, but it's never boring nor a waste of your time. This would be a great starting point for the novice researcher and a great reference book for the seasoned UFO devotee. I subtracted one star for lack of photos, since a few photos of conference participants would have been a welcome addition and personal touch to this otherwise excellent book.

This book added to my suspician of a government cover up, opened the pandoras box to Alien abduction, government cover-up, military technology, Similarities between everyone abductee. Theories on all of this and more kept me reading this book cover to cover. Skeptics that want to remain skeptical should not read this book. If you have a closed mind but dont want it to be pried open do not read this book. However anyone else should definitely pick up a copy. Every question I had became answered and questions I never asked were asked and answered. It blows your mind at what could be and what is going on out there. With the help of this book I have come to believe that the government is hostile toward whatever it is that IS out there. We had no part in deciding their welcome, who knows what is to come.

Back in the days when I was on my alien kick this was one of the most convincing pieces of evidence. Several professionals met at MIT to seriously discuss the abduction phenomena. I found their objectiveness with the evidence refreshing. Many worked together to get "at the bottom" of this intriguing issue. I would highly recommend the excellent book: Gods of Eden by William Bramely.

I am nearing the end of this book and have found it incredibly interesting and just as frightening!

I was skeptical about the reports of alien abductions until I started reading this. Now it takes me a while to pluck up the courage to turn off the lights when I stop reading each night!

A definite must-read for all you skeptics!

If this book is fiction, it stands up all the way. If not its a bonus, but a pretty scary one if we`re under that much control. What do I think? I underwent a total paradigm shift every time I opened the book so perhaps the question is unfair.

Yale-educated C. D. B. Bryan was a prize-winning novelist (for "Friendly Fire" in 1976 later made into a successful film), accomplished journalist, professional academic writer and ex-military intelligence officer who died of cancer in December 2009 at age 73. This thoughtful book, published in 1995, is an account of his attendance at the 5-day academic conference on the alien abduction phenomenon held at MIT in the summer of 1992 which was co-chaired by Professor John Mack of Harvard University Medical School and MIT molecular-physics Professor David Pritchard.

10% of the conference attendees were journalists, on the whole a skeptical bunch out for a good story and intrigued by the high-calibre academic credentials of the conference organisers and speakers in this most prestigious of venues (MIT was and is seen as the foremost academic scientific university in the USA if not the world), on this most unusual subject-matter.

Right off the bat in the first chapter, Bryan writes:

"One might expect that a `scientific conference' on such a subject ...ought to be dismissed out of hand...but for the credentials of those chairing it, the site of the conference...and disturbing credibility of the hundreds of individuals who, uncontaminated by exposure to any previous UFO lore or to each other, have so hesitantly, reluctantly, timidly come forward with their utterly incredible accounts of having been abducted and examined by spindly-limbed, 3˝ -4˝-foot-tall telepathic gray creatures with outsized foreheads dominated by huge, compelling, tear-shaped black eyes...it is in the similarities of these abductees' stories and the consistency of their details that the true mystery lies...as John Mack would ask at the Conference, `if what these abductees say is happening to them isn't happening, then what is?' "

Presenters at the conference included John Mack, David Pritchard, Budd Hopkins, Professor David Jacobs of Temple University, the folklorist and writer Dr. Tom Bullard of Indiana University, Stuart Appelle of NY State University, Jenny Randles, abduction researchers John Carpenter and Yvonne Smith, Professor Mark Rodeghier of the University of Illinois, John Miller and many others. Bryan listens to the presentations, interviews and socialises with researchers and abductees, reads the data and gets to know the subject. From his understandably initial skeptical position, he becomes gradually convinced that this odd phenomenon is something real and important, and starts to pay serious attention.

The book is quite long at 450 pages. A seven-page chapter introducing the conference and the subject matter is followed by a chapter devoted to each of the five days of the conference proceedings, occupying in total the first 200 pages of the book. The second half of the book comprises 13 separate chapters of post-conference interviews and focuses in particular on the long and complex story of two abductees with IDs disguised as "Carol" and "Alice." These two are also known as Beth Collings and Anna Jamerson, who later co-wrote and published a book "Connections" about their multiple and interconnected experiences with this phenomenon and which, for the serious student, is worth reading as an informative (if somewhat paradigm-stretching) contribution to the subject.

This close-up focus on specific individuals and their experiences is of course a standard journalistic device to "personalise" the narrative. Though interesting to a point (some of the details are downright weird, but supported by pretty compelling evidence), Bryan does spend a lot of pages on this case and it must be said the first half of the book makes for better reading.

In the concluding chapter, the author examines "Various Theories" about what the abduction phenomenon might be. He concludes not as a "believer", but convinced there is a real phenomenon here; he admits the academics at the conference are not pursuing delusions and acknowledges their courageous stance about the issue which, at some level, is real and needs to be understood.

Bryan was a thoughtful and intelligent journalist. It is to his credit that such a successful and well-known writer from the mainstream should investigate this subject impartially and thoroughly and devote a great deal of his time to understanding it. CE4 is one of the better (of more than 60 so far published) books on the abduction phenomenon because of the author's analytical and non-partisan approach and his high "mainstream" credentials. It's well written and well organised.

A criticism might be the lack of photos or illustrations: the book is 450 pages of solid text. The original hardcover had a substantial print-run of 50,000 copies excluding overseas printings in a number of languages and you can still find a few brand new copies here and there. It's definitely worth reading.

The full 1992 MIT Conference proceedings were also published in a large, 600-page double-columned volume titled "Alien Discussions" which is hard to find, sought-after and expensive, but well worth investing in if you can find a good copy - and afford it.

That's about all I can say about this book... it's interesting. But it leaves me no more convinced about the varacity, and if anything now I'm somewhat concerned that vulnerable, hurting people may be being misled into believing that past traumas have some sort of paranormal or occult explanation. The last chapter dealing with various theories on the phenomena is the only really worthwhile part of the book.

I haven't read any of the many other abductee books, and I will probably not read any after this one. So, though I am only mildly interested in the subject, I found the book worthwhile.

What's good about this book is the author's sincere attempt to be non-judgemental and objective when recording data from abductees. I think this book would be quite useful to any position in an argument about who's responsible for the UFO's.

A very entertaining read at times, does have its slow chapters.

Read how a reporter changed his mind on the subject of abductions just by the fact that he opened his mind. The book gives a thorough summary of the MIT conference and after that gives accounts of people involved with the abductions. Bryan gave a very realistic, fascinating and terrifying view of what has been happening to thousands...