Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
On the whole, a disappointment..., January 10, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters (Paperback)
Don't throw away your crumbling copies of the 1980 edition, folks, since much that was useful in that first edition has been deleted, and the newly added material shows neither the logical dispassion nor the entertainment value of what has been lost. Looking only at the 'A's, the lively entries on "angel hair", "animal reactions to UFOs", the "Anolaima incident", the "Aurora airship hoax" and the "autokinetic effect" are all gone. The entry on "animal mutilations" remains unaltered, and badly requires updating. The enjoyable entry on the "Allende letters" has been heavily pruned. J. Richard Greenwell's interesting articles on "astronomers and UFOs" and "attitudes to UFOs" are gone. The loss of the latter is especially regrettable, since it was one of the few, highly tentative, approaches toward an analysis of the psychology of debunkers. And it is the sceptics, for the most part, who have filled the space left by these excisions. The subjects they address are of potential interest ("mind control by aliens", "paranoia and UFOs", etc.) but several of the authors seem to see the whole thing as an occasion for an mildly sadistic romp, skewering their opponents' beliefs with barbed language and ad hominem arguments (one of the first things to strike this reader was how much nastier this new edition is, compared with the original). For the most part these bullies do not compensate with valuable work of their own. Martin Kottmeyer is offered as an expert on the "psycho-social" aspects of UFOlogy, although his vague biographical entry mentions no training in either sociology or psychiatry: nevertheless, he will diagnose a paranoiac for you at the drop of a hat. His entry on UFO flaps is something of an embarrassment, as he expounds a pet theory that UFO reports follow episodes of national shame with evidence that may be politely described as equivocal. Kottmeyer also writes a lengthy article on "mind control" which spends more time on an episode of The Monkees' T.V. series than it does discussing actual government experiments. Although Kottmeyer dominates any assessment of the defects of the new edition by the sheer volume of his contribution, mention must also be made of a tendency by some contributors (not all full-blown sceptics) to lean on the now dated work of Elizabeth Loftus, whose simplistic theorizing on the formation of memory was never so much a boon to science as it was to litigation. Unfortunately there aren't any preferable alternatives to this volume at the present time. Jerome Clark's massive book appears to take a belief in the extraterrestrial hypothesis for granted. I would recommend retaining or locating a copy of the 1980 edition of Story's Encyclopedia; information on more recent developments can probably be found on the Internet without too much trouble. Nothing can compare with it for (relative) evenhandedness, variety of approach, and lack of histrionics.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Authoritative Resource in the UFO Field, September 13, 2001
This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters (Paperback)
At last, the long-awaited follow-up to the most definitive encyclopedia ever published on UFOLOGY is available. Ronald Story's, "The Encyclopedia of UFOs," published in 1980, has long been the most reliable and most-often cited authority in the field. His substantial revision of that work, with many additions, has been given a new name: "The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters." In his Preface, Story relates that he experienced a "revelation" while working on this gigantic resource work: "If it sounds alarmist, it is meant to be," he states. Story tells us that, whether or not the wide-ranging phenomenon of UFOs stems from alien contact, "the significance of the UFO-ET phenomenon is that the human species is in big trouble..." This under-priced work has over 400 entries, many written by ufology's elite. Unlike other recent "encyclopedias" of the UFO field which seem to steer clear of all theories of UFOs except the extraterrestrial one, Story presents virtually all the sides of the phenomenon including all of the major and minor theories. Without a doubt, this book will serve as the definitive source of authoritative information in ufology until Story revises it once again.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A superior UFO reference book..., July 31, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters (Paperback)
Although I would not agree that Ronald Story's "Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial" is the best reference book on UFO's, I would agree that it certainly comes close. Written in an "A-to-Z" format, this book covers just about every topic which can conceivably relate to the UFO phenomenon - from "Alien Abductions" to the "Bermuda Triangle" to "Crop Circles", and so on. It also has brief descriptions of virtually every major UFO incident in America since the summer of 1947, and it has the advantage of featuring the most recent important UFO cases, such as the famed "Phoenix Lights" sightings in 1997. However, for me the most impressive part of the book is that it also features detailed biographies of practically every major ufologist and skeptic/debunker in the field. At the end of each biography is a "position statement" in which the ufologist or skeptic gives his or her personal beliefs about UFO's, or what they might be. Not surprisingly, the skeptic/debunker's "position statements" are all relatively similar - they argue that UFO's don't really exist, but are simply hoaxes or misidentifications of "normal" phenomena such as stars, birds, balloons, ball lightning, etc. The "position statements" of the ufologists does vary, however, with some ufologists believing that UFOs are spacecraft from another planet, while others believe that UFOs are "energy beings" from a parallel universe, and so on. This book does have one major drawback - most of the articles and essays in the book were not written by Mr. Story, but rather by a hodgepodge of ufologists and debunkers. As a result both the quality and reliability of the essays and articles varies considerably - some are excellent while others are mediocre or skimpy at best. Also, the articles written by debunkers (such as Philip Klass's essay on "Alien Abductions") are highly critical and negative of the topic being discussed, while other articles written by ufologists are just as "pro-UFO" and "pro-alien", which can get confusing at times. Overall, though, this is still an excellent and detailed one-volume reference book that should answer almost any question about UFOs that you may have. In my opinion, only Jerome Clark's massive two-volume "UFO Encyclopedia" is superior to this book. Recommended!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
