Customer Reviews

Swamp Gas Times: My Two Decades on the UFO Beat

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Patrick Huyghe's book skips along from place to place with a well-written light-hearted seriousness that has been missing in the study of this subject for years. Not a flippant investigator at all, this science journalist talks to some of the most intriguing people on earth - and takes us along for the ride. It examines its subject, ufology, so closely from the inside out, it makes your feel like you are right there with Huyghe. Highly recommended. This is the most level-headed, down-to-earth, funny, scientific look at the day-to-day investigations of ufology that I have ever read.

Mainly a collection of articles from Omni, many from the anti-matter section. Not a lot of depth to most of them, which is to be expected, since anti-matter was a collection of short articles about the paranormal. I was hoping for something along the lines of "Shockingly Close to the Truth" by Mosely, so we could get a deeper look at the investigative process, which is what I thought I was buying. I found it a bit dull, and can't recommend it.

When the occasional UFO-oriented reporter interviews me about my UFO activism, I offer this word of caution: "Be careful: UFOs are habit-forming!" As seen from "Swamp Gas Times," Patrick Huyghe (rhymes with "Weege") has chosen not only to ignore my warning but also to heighten his, my, and every other inquiring mind's addiction to the quest for UFOtruth. Let's hope that this landmark in serious UFO literature ends up in every public library, where it can entice a whole new generation of inquiring minds to start asking the right questions of the right people. -- Larry W. Bryant (Director of Governmental Affairs for the Mutual UFO Network, Inc.)

Swamp Gas Times is a chronicle of Patrick Huyghe's twenty years "on the UFO beat." It consists of a compilation of articles published under the Antimatter section of OMNI magazine and in various other publications. Introductions have been written for each article which help to establish perspective as well as cross reference other related articles in the book.

In all Swamp Gas Times presents a comprehensive examination of the UFO phenomenon and research throughout the years, including a closer look at many famous events and sightings, government conspiracies, cover-ups, alien abductions, implants, religious angles, MJ-12, and the release of government documents through the Freedom of Information Act.

While Swamp Gas Times may not solve the UFO mystery outright, it does put some thoughts to rest and provides a nice overview of the media's role in UFO history.

Swamp Gas Times really has a pretty awful front cover, if I saw it in a bookshop it definitely would not have caught my eye; if it did I would have assumed it was some sort of holiday guide for Hawaii. What it is in fact, is a classic example of "don't judge book by its cover", because not only is it nothing to do with holidays, it is actually a very good read. Of course I never saw the cover anyway, I saw it going really cheap as an e-book.

The author is a long time OMNI journalist covering UFO investigations. This is the first time I have read any work by Patrick Huyghe and what I found was the reporter I'd always wished for but never found until now.

In the UFO scene, there are only two types of investigator, a UFO buff, or a UFO debunker, and never the two shall meet. This was always very frustrating to me; whenever I read a UFO book (when I used to read a fair bit on the subject years ago), I found the book was never a balanced affair. It was either a UFO buff obviously reporting what he wanted to hear and not what perhaps actually happened, or it was a skeptic debunking the whole affair by claiming the air balloon size object was in fact Venus rising from the horizon. However, what you get with Patrick Huyghe is someone who is prepared to listen and report on both sides of the equation, leaving the reader to make up his own opinion based on arguments from both sides of the debate. And that in a nutshell was what made this book a great read for me.

It's all very well reading a rosy description of a reported event, but usually you are left wondering what a skeptic might have uncovered or suggested during their investigation. With Swamp Gas Times that's exactly what you get, an opportunity to revisit some of the most prominent UFO cases and hear both sides of the debate in each case.

For anyone who has read a little on UFO's the book provides a nice compact summary of landmark cases, and long the way mentions many familiar names from past research. There are over 50 Chapters and because each one is compact and doesn't really go into a massive amount of detail - they really cover alot of ground. From abductions to implants, to NSA and CIA involvement, NASA and the military, it's all in here.

When I read a book I usually take notes on parts I'd like to do further reading on, or with e-books I highlight the text and add a note to remind me what to Google for. With this book by the time I had finished, there was around 40 notes that I wanted to look into for more detail. When I Googled for the first one, I lost the next hour reading some quality stuff and bookmarking some cool new websites.

Swamp Gas Times is an easy book to pick up and read a chapter at a time, although more than likely you'll find it hard to put down and read several chapters in one sitting. If you have ever followed the UFO scene it will be a nice recap of some of the events that drew you to the whole debate in the first place, plus some fascinating new events to mull over. If you have never read anything about UFO's before, this is a superb starting point - 60 years of ufology neatly summerised in easily digestible segments.

SWAMP GAS TIMES is an intelligently written and thoughtfully assembled collection of articles and observations from the author's years as a writer on matters UFO related. He covers the topic from the early days- George Adamski, Kenneth Arnold, J.Allen Hynek, etc. right up through the current controversies of today. The book is very nicely put together, and every piece is prefaced by a useful commentary which lends a personal and reflective tone. Mr. Huyge has followed the UFO phenomenon over decades and offers a very well-informed overview which, I believe, will especially benefit readers new to the field as well as delight old timers who remember how it all began.

This is a collection of stories written by Patrick Huyghe between 1977 and 2000. What's refreshing is that although the author has been interested in UFOs since he was a teenager, he is very unbiased in his stories.

Of course this is in contrast with our military that dismisses UFO cases as temperature inversion of swamp gas, even after they have been confirmed by pilots and radar.

I have read a lot on UFOs but the author presented some new stories, like his interview with Hynek, which provided nice insight, and his Q & A session with Ida Kannenberg's channeled alien. What I also was not aware of was how much time the government spent investigating UFO groups like NICAP, for the psychological impact of UFOs, rather than actual UFO incidents.

The book is a nice change of pace from the normal UFO books.

This complilation of Patrick Huyghe's writings on the subject of UFOs was both fascinating and fun to read. He has a knack for addressing serious and mysterious subject areas with a touch of humor. As it happens, Omni ran some of the best UFO reporting anywhere for nearly a decade, and Huyghe was responsible for a lot of it. In "Swamp Gas Times" he has updated his articles for Omni and other publications, and put these pieces in both a jouralistic and ufological perspective. The book also contains material that has not appeared elsewhere before. Well researched and objective, this book is a treasure in the field of UFO research.