Customer Reviews

Investigating the Unexplained

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Paul Roland claims (on the book jacket) to be an "investigative journalist"
This book is the most uncritical acceptance of stupid things on one volume.
Take for instance the chapter on the "faked moon landings".
He claims "Prior to Apollo 11 all of Americas manned missions had orbited just a few hundred miles oabove the the Earth"
Helooo! hasn't heard about the record attempts in Gemini with agena dockings, hasn't heard about Apollo 8 or 10???
He uses the term sceptics to describe those who *doubt* the reality of the Moon Landings". The rest of this chapter is just as dumb, and obviously *not* investigated at all.

I could continue with some of the other whacked out claims, but this one is so obviously poorly researched, you get the general gist of the rest of this poorly researched book.

This book is not entirely conclusive on many subjects but it is very thought provoking.

You can tell that the author is more interested in the paranormal and his personal experiences with psychic abilities than he is with ancient or historical mysteries. He tends to focus more on his own experiences, and his experiences colour his perspective more than an author should allow when writing a research book. Many other major mysteries *are* addressed in this book (including the history of the Sphinx, extraterrestrial speculations, and scientific wonders like Nikola Tesla) and he has taken note of relatively current views on most of these subjects. I have found, however, that most of the subjects covered really deserved their own book, because every time a subject started getting interesting and he seemed to be getting somewhere, he'd move on to the next subject and leave you hanging. I frequently found myself hoping that he was going to tie each idea into previous idea (consequently making profound connections), but was usually disappointed in this regard.

Despite the disjointed nature of the writings in this book, and the inconclusiveness of many of the subjects covered, this *was* a thought provoking read, and, as another reviewer here mentioned, it works well as a modern day *introduction* to the unexplained, wetting your appetite on a number of ideas that you can choose to delve deeper into with other books. The author himself stated that his intent in writing this book was to offer ideas - not conclusions - in order to take away some of the fear people often have of the unknown, and to challenge those who "have been conditioned to accept a highly selective and complacent view of history". He wants people with closed minds to consider new possibilities, question what they 'know,' and make up their own mind.

I personally might use this book as a bathroom book since you can read small sections of it without worrying that you might be reading something out of context. (the benefits of disjointed writing!)

If you have just started your interest in the unexplained this would be A great start.It is filled with very fasinating story's of strange happenings and unexplained tales.

Roland starts off with some interesting ideas and thoughts... such as the Forbidden History and Archeaology. Like a sparkplug inside a stone... things that are supposedly shelved and forgotten about because Historians just can't place them due to the oddity of the relic.

And they're engaging ideas, other ways of looking at the world. But as the book progress and he starts talking more and more about psychic healing and his personal experiences... he's lost any sense of keeping objective about the material in his book.

It's still an interesting read... the objectiveness gets lost.