Shockingly Close to the Truth : Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist [Hardcover]

James W. Moseley (Author), Karl T. Pflock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2002

This amusing, revealing, and entertaining romp through the confused and controversial history of the UFO craze is a must for believers and skeptics alike. "Shockingly Close to the Truth!" is the first and only comprehensive tell-all history of UFOlogy from two men who have been at the centre of this cult like movement for close to half a century. James W. Moseley conveys the fun he has had over the years pursuing tall tales and purported evidence of visitors from outer space. As the creator of the newsletter "Saucer Smear" - the source on the follies, foibles, fads, and feuds of ufology - Moseley has the inside scoop on the amazing world of serious UFO sleuths and wigged-out 'saucer fiends'. His co-author, Karl T. Pflock, has been tracking reports of unidentified flying objects for close to half a century and has written the most thorough investigation of the Roswell incident ever done. A feast for UFO buffs, this book will also interest students of popular culture, social trends, and the psychology of belief.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-With coauthor Pflock, Moseley draws on his extensive archives to chronicle-in a style that Mad magazine fans will appreciate-decades of infighting and controversy among "saucer fiends." In 1950, he came into an inheritance that freed him to do whatever he wanted with his life. Flying-saucer reports had caught the 19-year-old's fancy and soon he was researching a book, traveling the country to interview eyewitnesses, and later editing a major UFO fanzine (now called Saucer Smear). He expresses a sincere commitment to pursue "the truth" (or at least the facts) about UFOs. However, his main focus (apart from an occasional detour to Peru in search of pre-Columbian treasure) is that unlikely mix of scientists and hoaxers who collectively created modern ufology. As Moseley warns, "this is not a scholarly book." Indeed, some major players, including Valle and Strieber, are dismissed with very few words; the index only lists proper names; and "Sources of Further Enlightenment," in true Moseley style, includes the very sources he has just debunked. The book's real contribution is to challenge readers "to think in new ways and to question their unproven assumptions." Now that aliens have entered mainstream Western culture (according to one poll, one-third of all adult Americans believe the basic Roswell thesis), this tell-all history, idiosyncratic though it may be, is an essential addition to any UFO bookshelf.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Moseley, a keen observer of the UFO scene for nearly 50 years, has also been its problem child, stirring up controversy with his newsletter and engaging in deliberate pranks. This autobiography chronicles his adventures with serious researchers as well as the many "saucer fiends," as he calls them, that inhabit the wackier regions of "ufology." Finding UFO people much more fascinating than UFOs, Moseley and coauthor Pflock take the reader on an entertaining romp through the history of saucerdom, from dubious contactees like Andy "The Mystic Barber" Sinatra to such leading lights as Donald Keyhoe and Budd Hopkins, much of it unflattering. To their credit, they pull no punches with Moseley's own behavior, freely admitting to hoaxing a UFO landing site in 1954, cooking up a fake UFO film to accompany his lectures, using phony credentials to crash a press conference with former president Harry Truman, and helping partner-in-saucer-pranks Gray Barker forge some UFO letters on pilfered State Department stationery. Is it all true? Perhaps it's shockingly close to the truth. George Eberhart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 371 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; First Edition edition (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573929913
• ISBN-13: 978-1573929912
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #615,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ufology's "Court Jester" writes his memoirs..., August 7, 2002

By A Customer

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This review is from: Shockingly Close to the Truth : Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist (Hardcover)

James Moseley (1931-), the self-proclaimed "Court Jester" of the UFO phenomenon, is a "semi-legendary" - and highly controversial - figure in the history of Ufology (or "Ufoology", as he prefers to call it). Born in New York City, Moseley was abandoned early in life by his father, a right-wing US Army General, and was raised by his wealthy mother. When he was 19 his mother died and left him her fortune. Moseley, now a millionaire, quickly dropped out of Princeton University and decided to use his wealth to pursue his rather eccentric hobbies, most notably UFOs and, later, robbing ancient Incan burial sites in South America of valuable artifacts.

Over the last half-century Moseley has managed to interview, befriend, annoy, or infuriate just about every major or minor person associated with UFOs. Moseley has attended all sorts of UFO Conventions, from the serious to the silly (he prefers the silly); in the 1950's and 60's he interviewed con artists who pretended to be "contactees" with aliens; he talked with people who had experienced some of the most famous UFO sightings and encounters (such as Kenneth Arnold and Lonnie Zamora); and he also crossed swords with those whom he sarcastically calls "Serious Ufologists" (such as Jerome Clark and Richard Hall). At first Moseley was a strong believer in the theory that UFOs were alien spacecraft and he was a "Serious Ufologist" for a few years. He even did the main expose of George Adamski, a con artist and the most famous (or infamous) of the 1950's "contactees" who claimed to be in contact with friendly, humanoid "Space Brothers" who wanted to save the Earth from nuclear war. Moseley clearly has a soft spot for the contactees, and recalls them nostagically in this book, although he's the first to admit that they were either mentally disturbed or simply scam artists out to make a quick buck from the gullible.

However, Moseley quickly tired of his "Serious Ufologist" role, and after befriending notorious UFO "researcher" and hoaxer Gray Barker, he decided that reporting on the personal lives and infighting of his fellow ufologists was much more fun than doing the grunt work of investigating UFO cases. In 1954 he started a UFO magazine called "Saucer News", today it is known as "Saucer Smear" and is the longest-running UFO magazine in the field (it now has its own website). From the 1950's to the present Moseley has used his 'zine to poke fun at the UFO mystery, stir up controversy, and gossip about the private lives of "Serious Ufologists" and what he calls "assorted saucer fiends". Together he and his friend Barker (who pretended publicly to feud with one another) successfully perpetrated several hoaxes on other Ufologists. He also exaggerated or simply made up UFO stories to increase his magazine's circulation. Moseley very quickly became an annoyance to those who took UFO's seriously - such as Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps officer and the leader of the first serious UFO civilian research group, NICAP. Moseley considered Keyhoe to be too pompous and humorless for his taste - as he does most "Serious Ufologists" (he is definitely not one).

Although Moseley claims to take the UFO mystery seriously, it is difficult to read this book and get that impression. Instead, one gets the feeling that Moseley long ago decided that UFOs were nonsense (but fun nonsense), and therefore anyone who takes UFOs seriously must be either incredibly gullible, mentally deluded or a con artist. Moseley himself has held just about every belief imaginable concerning UFOs, from outright skepticism to believing they were supernatural to his current "4-D" theory, which he never bothers to explain in any detail. I must confess that I was somewhat dubious about this book. As someone who had read a good deal about UFOs and who therefore knew of Moseley's history of hoaxes, his large ego, eccentricity, and controversy - as well as his delight in digging up the gossip and "dirt" on UFO researchers and printing it in his 'zine, I wondered just how reliable his personal memoir would be. Well, I was wrong (to a point) - this book is well-written, well-focused (it follows his misadventures from the fifties to the present), and it is a delight to read. Moseley (with some help from coauthor Karl Pflock) writes with a breezy, almost jaunty style, and there's no doubt that he pokes some real holes in the reputations of some respected Ufologists.

However, Moseley also comes across in this book as less of a "court jester" than a "class clown" - a rather spoiled and obnoxious rich kid who genuinely enjoys stirring up controversy for its own sake, who loves being the center of attention and will say or do (or write) just about anything to get it , and who gets a real delight out of annoying or irritating other people - and not always for good reasons. It all makes for an entertaining book, but it's also easy to see why he has so many enemies in the field of Ufology - and to see why this book should be taken with a large grain of salt, despite Moseley's delightfully skewed take on the UFO phenomenon. Recommended, but please don't make this the only UFO book you ever read!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Truth is Stranger than Aliens, October 17, 2005

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doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shockingly Close to the Truth : Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist (Hardcover)

This book doesn't demand to be taken seriously, so it can be read with a sense of fun and there's no need to over-analyze. These are the slightly sarcastic and fun-loving memoirs of James Moseley, who has spent the past fifty years in the community of UFO enthusiasts, and has served in several organizations that behave more like competing fan clubs. Moseley claims he's a "skeptical believer" which is pretty levelheaded in that arena (such as it is), though at times you get the feeling that he's trying to cover up his own episodes of credulity in the past. Moseley's memoirs give us an entertaining history of the cult of UFO believers, from ultra-gullible fanatics who believe anything, to serious ufologists who tackle the issue with scientific reasoning. Most interestingly, we see how UFOs themselves have changed over the decades, with quaint metallic saucers giving way to conspiracy theories and chilling tales of alien abduction. Have the aliens really changed that much, or have we? Moseley's coverage of the infighting and ideological disputes amongst believers of various stripes shouldn't mean much to the rest of us, but I'll admit that the book is quite entertaining as it covers the evolution of weird beliefs and the people who have them. However, the book is docked one star due to Moseley's bragging about robbing ancient archeological sites in Peru, and his shifty descriptions of his own ongoing attitudes toward his field. [~doomsdayer520~]

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saucerdom From The Inside, June 30, 2002

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Scott P. Bond (Columbus, Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shockingly Close to the Truth : Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist (Hardcover)

With Shockingly Close to the Truth, James W. Moseley, publisher of the long-running 'zine, Saucer Smear, has finally given us his long-awaited insider's look at America's flying saucer/UFO subculture. From the nineteen- fifties until the present day, Moseley and his co-author, researcher Karl T. Pflock, have met a virtual Who's Who of saucerdom. From famed contactee George Adamski to obscurities like Andy "The Mystic Barber" Sinatra, they're all here in colorful black and white, no punches pulled, no hostages taken.
In spite of his "tell it like it is" approach, Moseley, an informed skeptic, is surprisingly forthright and even-handed in this comprehensive assessment of what he calls "The Field." Even the most outrageous rascals are given a modicum of respect, and Moseley is astute enough to recognize that the most outlandish tales are also usually the most fun.
The book is fast-pace and easy to read. It covers the relatively light-hearted contactee period of the early fifties through the increasingly grim alien abduction era of the eighties and nineties. There is also a marvelous photo section that includes such early luminaries as George Adamski, Major Donald Keyhoe, Howard and Connie Menger, and Moseley's friend, the "late, great" Gray Barker (of Men In Black fame).
Moseley and Pflock share a certain bemused affection for the bizarre folk they've met. For the last fifty years they've traveled a long, strange road that's been by turns mysterious, frustrating and absurd. Make no mistake about it- Jim Moseley and Karl Pflock were Out There. This book is the real thing, not just another armchair rehash. Whether you agree with their conclusions or not, it's must reading if you're a saucer fan.