Customer Reviews

The Spaceships of the Visitors: An Illustrated Guide to Alien Spacecraft

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This absurd "field guide" to UFOs presents nothing in the way of evidence beyond laughable photos and allegedly suspicious details in various military documents, neither of which prove that Earth is being visited by super-intelligent aliens from other worlds. The photos, entertaining as they are, show nothing more than what appear to be airborne plastic submarines, out of focus rubber balls, floating vaudeville caps, streaks of light, and so on. And the numerous document passages quoted (along with a history of personnel changes in Project Blue Book and similarly exciting details) prove nothing except that the military likes to maintain a measure of security. This is part of the military's job, to best of this reader's knowledge.

Actually, "Spaceships of the Visitors" offers a third body of "evidence"--pre-UFO sightings from ancient times to the World War II "foo fighters." Problems abound with this approach. How reliable, for example, are centuries-old woodcuts or pre-Christian oral accounts? Certainly, the book's chapter on the famous 1897 airship sightings works against the probability of UFO visitation inasmuch as it quotes modern-sounding accounts of alien beings and Roswell-style alien writing--accounts long since proven to be hoaxes. If such stories were fraudulent in 1897, why should we believe similar stories today?

The book reminds us, repeatedly, that not all UFO sightings can be explained, that a significant number remain unaccounted for. This is often offered as a pro-UFO point by UFO believers, but nothing is proven by default, at least in the absence of other evidence. It is also highly implausible that the military would be the sole proprietor of any material evidence relating to alien craft. If saucer fragments, alien bodies, or discarded alien snack food bags really existed, how would one entity or organization have these under lock and key? In the absence of actual evidence for alien visitation, this reader remains a skeptic. And he sends a warning from Earth: Avoid this book!