Customer Reviews

Fastwalker: A Novel

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As a novel I'd say it's a little uneven, yet has a number of gripping, moving scenes that make it worthwhile and entertaining as an adventure tale. Plus it has a little humour sprinkled through it, and a budding romance between two key characters.

Even more important than the entertainment value is it presents many of Vallee's informed opinions and speculations about the UFO phenomenon, after a lifetime of study.

There is another uniquely intriguing aspect of the book:
The idea that much of the book's depiction of a long time secret organization within the US gov't that specializes in the UFO field, the novel calls "Alintel" - may be based on real facts about US gov't black ops. programs.

I'd urge anyone interested in this aspect of the book to search online for detailed comments by Dr. Jack Sarfatti about Fastwalker. Sarfatti, a physicist, knew Vallee and many of his circle in the San Francisco area over the years. Sarfatti says Fastwalker "is an essentially factual report thinly disguised as sci-fi"...[and]..."Vallee's book is not really sci-fi. It is what Tim Leary called 'science fact-ion', allegedly thinly disguised top secret black ops."

The notion that Vallee was privy to some inside knowledge about secret gov't programs is not far fetched at all. He has revealed he was involved early on with the CIA sponsored "remote viewing" program which ran 20 years, along with people like Russell Targ, Hal Puthoff and Ingo Swan.

And Sarfatti reveals that a UFO research organization NIDS, privately financed by a real estate tycoon named Bigelow, had Vallee on its scientific advisory panel. And "NIDS was staffed by former CIA, Army Special Forces, and FBI".

A few of Vallee's ideas that are contained in Fastwalker, and also in his non-fiction writings and statements are:
That the UFO phenomenon is real, but it may not be as simple as ETs flying craft from solar system X to Earth, and back again.
He suggests it may have to do instead with inter-dimensional contact, that UFOs appear from another dimension that is parallel with, even intertwined with Earth, yet different from Earth.

Vallee believes the US gov't response to the phenomenon is a complex one.
The gov't knows it's a real phenomenon, but its understanding of it remains limited.
Also, the gov't has been guilty of shenanigans surrounding the phenomenon, such as deliberately staging elaborate simulations of UFO events and contact in order to gauge human reactions, and to conduct psychological warfare experiments.

Vallee also believes the gov't has been quite involved in infiltrating
UFO cults and UFO research organizations, in order to help it gather data, but also to shape perceptions, and to help encourage and disseminate various beliefs about UFOs, sometimes bizarre ones, to help muddy the waters of public perception. To discredit, and to hold UFO beliefs up to ridicule, has been a gov't goal at various times.

The above ideas are ones Vallee presents both in Fastwalker and in his non-fiction works. But Vallee has said that writing in novel form allows him freedom to express things he wants to say about UFO phenomena that
may be inhibited when writing non-fiction. It seems writing Fastwalker allowed Vallee to expand upon his ideas, do some speculating, as well as present certain factual things in fictional guise, because he didn't feel so free to write about them as non-fiction!

Vallee also touches on the unique methods of propulsion that UFOs
use, and their ability to move in ways that seem physically impossible.
Zero point energy as a possible propulsion source is touched on.
This is something Dr. Sarfatti has done some research on, and his
comments in this regard, findable online, are interesting. Those who
understand physics (I don't)might benefit too from the equations Sarfatti presents re. zero point energy, and warping of space-time, as possible explanations for UFO propulsion.

What's important about Fastwalker is that it's more than just an entertaining novel about UFO phenomena!

"Fastwalker" is one of the latest novels written by well known Ufologist Dr. Jacques Fabrice Vallée.

The issue I have, has been published in 1996 by Frog, Ltd., in Berkeley, California, and it contains a total of 220 pages.

In the "Note to the Reader", Vallée puts a warning. He says:

"This is a work of fiction inspired by real events, but primarily designed to entertain. As such, it does not necessarily reflect my own views as a scientist researcing the UFO phenomenon."

With this warning, Vallée tries to play safe from any criticism, debate, and or danger that his ideas could trigger.

Anyway, I would like to call the attention of the reader to the fact thaf he recognizes that his work is "inspired by real events", and that saying that "it does not necessarily reflect my own views" does not mean that effectively it reflects his own views on the subject.

Anyone who has read the books about UFOs written before by Vallée will find its ideas developed to a degree he did not do before. The story and the characters belong to fiction, but it is my viewpoint that the ideas exposed by Vallée are real and they constitute as such, the core of his written work.

The Prologue (pages 1 to 6) with the "abduction" of an Papuan aborigine and his return to his forest, is a brief but excellent introduction to what will come later. In the middle Vallée refers to psywar, MK ULTRA, MK DELTA and some other experiments.

The important thing in this Prologue are the words put in the mouth of one important fictional character, that of General Bushnell, when he says:

"Anyone who didn't believe that we could accomplish this missions in less than twenty-four hours using today's off-the-shelf technology hasn't paid attention to scientific developments in the last twenty years. And anyone who doubts such experiments have in fact been conducted since World War II without the public or Congress being aware of them is woefully out of touch with reality." (page 5).

Very well said. It's a reality in spite of the fact that here is part of a fiction story.

This assertion by General Bushnell, takes us directly to the very existence of a "cryptocracy"(as it is defined by another character of the novel, on page 46).

Which means an organization of Intelligence, that is apart and above any other existent in the USA. That is "Alintel", a name Vallée took from "a French-language novel published by Mercure de France in Paris en 1986".

"Alintel" is the creation of a President of the United States in the `50s -according with the novel-- "designed as a black project: No records, no traces, no bureaucratic trails. There were only twenty-eight members at the beginning." (page 86).

The goal of Alintel is "a long-term control of the planet". The creation of the myth of spaceships coming to Earth from outer space, and of ETs, or EBEs as their crews, fill that purpose.

Alintel manipulates people and situations. The main thing is a psychological control of the masses, using masked dwarfs and sophisticated technology.

Along the way, Alintel is behind almost any UFO organization, and ET cults. Vallée writes about NICAP, APRO, etc.

A key element in the novel appears on Chapter 12, where a character named Desmond Byrne - a Professor of Phylosophy-- is the vehicle Vallée uses to say some down-to-earth things about the whole UFO subject, and about some real individuals, as for instance our friend Dr. J. Allen Hynek who is protrayed as an "honest man".

It is in this Chapter when Vallée writes about the Battelle Memorial Institute, the Robertson Panel, the Pentacle Memorandum, the BlueBook, Projects Stork and White Stork, etc.

One very interesting thing put in the mouth of Byrne, is this:

"there is a real cover-up", but "It isn't the reality of this particular phenomenon they are covering up, it's what they've done with it. All the little horrors they can't reveal, the sins they've hidden from us all these years". (page 110).

But probably nothing defines better the real situation about the UFO subject that the phrase Vallée puts in the lips of another character named Vulcan:

"The right hand of Alintel is concerned with strategic deception. In the last forty years we have conditioned the U.S. public, indeed, the world masses, to expect visitors from outer space." (page 196).

Is it still room for a real phenomenon?

Yes, and the answer that Vallée gives is this:

"Beyond the human level there are many layers of consciousness around the Earth -but not space people." (page 199).

I read this novel in less than three days. It is amazing and fascinating.

It should be read by every seriously dedicated UFO investigator, and for any person who wants to understand better the whole issue.

The fact that Vallee decided to write (cooperate) on a `fiction novel' (not seen from Vallee since his youth) is a curious note in and of itself. Fast Walker is a somewhat focused story while thinly woven around a `balanced' set of characters, representing the UFO genre, more prevalent in the Eighties. The lives of an abductee; a UFO writer/researcher; a military `working group' and a fanatical UFO cult leader all converge toward a climax as the plot thickens. The book is quite useful for contrasting various elements of the UFO scene while creating a sense of `being there.' The outlook portrayed in the end raises a battery of questions and an alternate theory for the UFO question when compared to recent, mainstream thought. Entertaining.

Loads of preposterous, expository dialogue, presumably to bring us all up to speed on the subject, run through this novel, but the gist is pure Vallee: a real phenomenon, contrived manipulation of same, wrong explanations by both skeptics and believers, a rather haunting scene of multi-dimensional Observers [quite apart from the notorious Grays]. The hideous misuse of hypnosis by an amateur is shown in one sequence, all too true in the world of Ufology. One wonders whether Vallee's experiences made him think that they should be in 'un roman', or that they could only be safely placed in a novel, as they exposed touchy subjects. Anyway, rather fun to see the Master at play.

The fact that Vallee decided to write (cooperate) on a `fiction novel' (not seen from Vallee since his youth) is a curious note in and of itself. Fast Walker is a somewhat focused story while thinly woven around a `balanced' set of characters, representing the UFO genre, more prevalent in the Eighties. The lives of an abductee; a UFO writer/researcher; a military `working group' and a fanatical UFO cult leader all converge toward a climax as the plot thickens. The book is quite useful for contrasting various elements of the UFO scene while creating a sense of `being there.' The outlook portrayed in the end raises a battery of questions and an alternate theory for the UFO question when compared to recent, mainstream thought. Entertaining.

Basically, Vallee takes his own theories on what UFOs are all about and slots them into a "fictional" account. (Like that other "fiction" book ALIEN RAPTURE). Vallee is big on deception, the idea that aliens aren't really alien at all but something else and are tricking us into thinking so.

The ideas are interesting, but as a story, the book is kind of lame.

I got this because I'd read about Jacques Vallee and he seemed to be taken pretty seriously as a writer of various things esoteric; he had good credentials.

I have not read his non-fiction, and perhaps I am again finding as I have recently, that because a person writes good non-fiction, does NOT mean they can write fiction.

This guy doesn't seem to know how real people interact, it made me wonder if he is so academic, and has been for so long-- does he really not understand people?

He has a female character who has an abduction experience. This character is above-average intelligence and works at a law firm. Yet she goes to a religious kook and airs her experience on his tv network, instead of either going to a therapist, or simply doing her own research. A character like this would never end up in the situations she puts herself in.

There is some very awkward stuff where the main character asks her out, and where the main character uses some social manipulation to get some things done. But it is so creepy and far-fetched that we wonder: is this writer something like an awkward 12-year-old? He tries to make the reader believe that certain things are happening between people, and this is necessary, to carry plot events along. Yet none of these things would ever happen by people in the powerful situations that these and others find themselves in.

It's too bad, because Vallee has some interesting and useful ideas about the abduction/ufo/alien phenomenon, and one can tell that he's done his research, with numerous clear references to documented past and current phenomenon both government and private.

But no one wanting to learn more about this subject or willing to take it at all seriously will come away from this book having any chance at doing so. The writer's portrayal of people and social situations is simply so flawed that he can't be taken seriously. He just comes across as a freaking weirdo who knows nothing about humans.