Customer Reviews

The Roswell Dig Diaries (Sci Fi Channel Books)

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Although there is much of interest in this book, there is almost as much that could be tossed out without in any way detracting from the real content. It was as if, having laid out the story, the editors found themselves with too many empty pages left, and went about madly gathering up the most irrelevant minutiae to occupy the space.

The first chapter could be discarded entirely, or at least summarized in a paragraph or so. (Do we really need to know the exact text of every email that passed between the principals? Is it crucial to devote several mind-numbingly dull pages to what reads like the full text of a sales brochure for the University of New Mexico's Office of Contract Archeology - pages brimming with such breath-taking facts as a description of their facility and a listing of their vehicles and office equipment, etc., etc., ad nauseam?) The text is rife with such alarming digressions.

Likewise, it was hardly necessary to reprint the SciFi Channel's entire PR announcement heralding the broadcast (which occurred in November, 2002, while the book was copyrighted in 2004) of the documentary film of this Roswell dig. If one missed the documentary - two years ago - the fact could hardly pass unnoticed, since mention of the production is made, it seems, at every possible opportunity. One could almost detect a ghostly producer wagging a scolding finger at the truant reader absent from that stellar broadcast.

The book is saved from utter disaster by the short diaries of the participants in the dig, which tell, in brief vignettes, the very human story of the hopes, heartbreaks and hardships of both the very educated and the very common people involved in this effort. Of further compelling interest is the final report on the project by OCA's William Doleman. The afterword documents also merit attention.

Unfortunately, the upshot of all this archeological activity in the New Mexico high desert was that nothing substantial was found to advance the cause of those (myself included) who contend for the occurrence of an extra-terrestrial event. I am left wondering if the SciFi Channel people really thought that a dig of less than a week's duration with a skeleton crew of untrained volunteers would actually produce anything; or was this simply a high profile headline event calculated to generate a lot of viewer interest whether the dig was productive or not?

If that is the case, then this book can only be seen as a further attempt to capitalize on the hopes of the UFO faithful and the drawing power of the name "Roswell".

SCI FI Declassified: The Roswell Dig Diaries is the literary companion, including the final scientific conclusions, to the SCI FI Channel's highest-ever rated original special, The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence. For nine days, from September 16-24, 2002, the University of New Mexico's Office of Contract Archaeology in Albuquerque, headed by principal investigator William Doleman, in partnership with the SCI FI Channel, set out to conduct a historic "dig," archeological testing and related research at the "reported location of a low-angle extraterrestrial vessel impact in 1947."

The Roswell Dig Diaries is, for the most part, a thought-provoking and enjoyable behind the scenes look at Project Starlight, this unprecedented and comprehensive search for "memory metal," the Holy Grail of Roswell, at the debris field or "skip site."

From the opening timeline of Roswell events to the personal day-by-day journals and private e-mails of many of the personalities involved, The Roswell Dig Diaries demonstrates the highs and lows of such an undertaking. In short order, you will share both the frustration and enthusiasm felt by those on the project.
Make no bones about it, the debate over what exactly crashed at the former J. B. Foster sheep Ranch (located thirty-five miles south-southeast of Corona, seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell, New Mexico) in Lincoln County one fateful July 1947 night will continue.

The Roswell Dig Diaries makes an interesting addition to any collection concerning this source of endless controversy.
(Review by Robert A. Goerman)