The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects [Hardcover]

Joseph Allen Hynek (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0809282097 | ISBN-13: 978-0809282098 | Publication Date: January 1976 | Edition: First Edition

"Two of our country's most eminent scientists, both of who have studied the UFO phenomenon for two decades, have collaborated on this report of what serious scientists tnow believe is true about flying object"s

Product Details

• Hardcover: 301 pages
• Publisher: Quality Books; First Edition edition (January 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809282097
• ISBN-13: 978-0809282098
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,743,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A CLASSIC UFO BOOK WRITTEN BY TWO PROMINENT RESEARCHERS, January 12, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (Paperback)

J. Allen Hynek (1910-1986; see his other books such as The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry) and Jacques Vallee (b. 1939; see his other books such as CONFRONTATIONS: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact, REVELATIONS: Alien Contact and Human Deception, and DIMENSIONS: A Casebook of Alien Contact) were two of the most prominent UFO researchers in the 1970s and later. This jointly-written 1975 book (much of which are interviews with the two, separately or jointly) is a fascinating summary at that point in time by two sober researchers.

They begin by stating, "The UFO represents an unknown but real phenomenon. It implications are far-reaching and take us to the very edge of what we consider the known and real physical environment." However, they also caution that "what is unidentified to one person or persons may certainly be identifiable by persons of greater technical training and experience. It has been demonstrated clearly that the great majority of what at first are reported to be UFOs are, after study by competent personnel, determined to be really IFOs, or Identifiable Flying Objects."

Hynek was, of course, a scientific consultant to the Air Force's Project Blue Book. About the "Blue Book" period, Hynek notes, "We had so much crud in the Blue Book! It wasn't until '66 that I decided I had to revise my views and take a new look, literally a new look at the whole thing from a different vantage point. Then, suddenly, things began to make sense to me."

Hynek's position is given in an interview: "One could spend all his energy confronting skeptics. That same energy is much better spent investigating the subject. Why waste time on people who have never bothered to learn the basic facts? It's their problem!" But he is skeptical of many famous reports; e.g., "It seems that these creatures, like the Pascagoula ones, certainly don't resemble the products of higher evolution as we conceive it. Who would think of a clawed creature coming down and being a representative of a very advanced technology? It just doesn't fit!" An expert on hypnosis interviewed admits about "regressive hypnosis," "A lot of times people use their imagination. A lot of times people fabricate things, from either wishful thinking, fantasies, dreams, things such as this."

Vallee (who has suggested in his books such as Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds, The invisible college: What a group of scientists has discovered about UFO influences on the human race, and Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults that UFOs are not necessarily extraterrestrial) asks, "Could it be a human phenomenon? In other words, do we really need aliens fo explain UFOs if they are real? Or could the human race have been developed in a very remote past out of a contact between an advanced race or primates and extraterrestrial visitors?" (Hynek notes, however, that Erich Von Daniken's books such as Chariots of the Gods are "illogical and unscholarly.")

Although 35 years old, this book is still of great interest to those who are interested in the serious study of UFOs.

5.0 out of 5 stars Hynek and Vallee pull no punches in a no-nonsense journey to the edge of reality, August 21, 2011

By 

Archer Books "Archer Books" (Dubai UAE) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Edge Of Reality - Progress Report On Unidentified Flying Objects (Paperback)

Anyone interested in the subject of unidentified aerial phenomena/unidentified flying objects and how the `problem' has been managed by governments and military authorities worldwide will know the names of J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee. Both were trained professional astronomers: Hynek died in 1986 following many years working officially with the USAF on `Project Blue Book' and its various offshoots and Vallee, at the time of writing in August 2011, is still very much with us as a global authority in the development of IT systems and a successful San Francisco-based venture capitalist. Both were known as very sharp guys and somewhat out-of-the-box thinkers, each a published author with a substantial public profile. Both authors featured in Spielberg's 1977 blockbuster movie CE3: French film director Francois Truffaut played a character modelled on Vallee, and Hynek himself acted as a consultant to Spielberg and had a cameo part in the film.

This truly excellent book, published in 1975, features nine chapters mostly made up of insightful head-to-head debates between Hynek and Vallee about all aspects of the UFO issue, and moderated by Dr. Arthur Hastings. The ground covered is extensive and the level of discourse quite deep. Vallee summarises the puzzle of the phenomena nicely in the first chapter:

"We know there is an unknown phenomenon being manifested. It appears to centre on a technological device, a machine that is capable of transporting occupants. The behaviour of both the machine and the occupants appears to be consistent with the idea that we are faced with an alien form of life. However, their behaviour is not consistent either with what you would expect from space visitors, or with what we know about physics. That's the dilemma." (p25)

A couple of chapters examine a small number of cases personally investigated by the authors in great detail: the remarkable `Ely' case involving a long and complex UFO encounter by two brothers whilst driving a truck, resulting in severe and unexplainable damage to the truck; and the famous 1959 Boianai case at Goodenough Bay in New Guinea, involving communicative interaction between humanoid occupants of a large low-hovering disk with some 30 local people at a Mission School, including a RC priest. Discussion of these cases kicks off the interchange between the authors, and for the next 200+ pages the level of dialogue never disappoints, and is often thoughtful and enlightening.

It is instructive to re-read these conversations after the intervening decades, and especially enlightening to re-visit the authors' projections of `possible scenarios for the phenomenon by the year 2000'. As Vallee has said openly in interviews during the past couple of years, he's not really any the wiser about the issue now than he was in 1975, and most of these questions for him are still open.

Highly recommended to any reader or investigator who wants to engage with what is understood about these phenomena at a deep level, to consider the evidence and where it might lead in all its nuanced complexity from two of the smartest minds ever to focus on this elusive and puzzling subject.