The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial [Paperback]

Jerome Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997

With 200 entries in an A-to-Z format, The UFO Book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of its kind. One hundred photographs and drawings illustrate the allegedly real and proven bogus evidence, helping readers decide for themselves whether or not extraterrestrials exist.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Jerome Clark is the former editor of the UFO magazine Fate and former vice-president and current board member of the J. Allen Hyneck Center for UFO Studies as well as the editor of their quarterly publication The International UFO Reporter. He has published several books and a three-volume UFO Encyclopedia encompassing every conceivable aspect of UFOs possible. In short, Clark has spent the past four decades researching, analyzing and bringing to light anything remotely connected to what the world identifies as UFO's and extraterrestrial life. The UFO Book is actually an abridgment of the much larger, two volume work, The UFO Encyclopedia (2nd Edition) published in the fall of 1997. Clark makes it very clear in the introduction that, "Except in those instances where good reason exists to doubt an informant's sincerity, The UFO Book operates on the assumption that intellectual agnosticism...". True to his word, The UFO Book is clear, in-depth, cross-referenced and user friendly and goes to extremes to stand above any hint of opinion regarding the wealth of information contained in this book. The UFO Book includes a historical overview of UFO phenomenon, an overview of its terminology roots, and in-depth information regarding resources in print an other forms of media. Every subject, whether a discussion of a specific topic or a specific incident is organized alphabetically with painstakingly clear cross referencing throughout. The UFO Book is engrossing reading that can fill a few minutes, an hour, or more. It has the authoritative backbone that brings this incredibly diverse and far reaching subject to light in a meticulously objective manner. Clark has put into one volume an incredible amount of research that is a must read for anyone mildly curious about UFO's and extra- terrestrials. -- From Independent Publisher

Product Details

• Paperback: 734 pages
• Publisher: Visible Ink Press (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578590299
• ISBN-13: 978-1578590292
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great reference book about the UFO phenomenon!, July 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial (Paperback)

Contrary to what a previous reviewer wrote, Jerome Clark's "UFO Book" is neither biased nor too "thin" to be a superb reference source for someone who wants to learn more about the UFO phenomenon. While Clark is a "believer" in the sense that he believes that not every UFO sighting can be be dismissed as swamp gas, stars, weather balloons, or (failing all else) hoaxes, he is fair to the skeptics and debunkers and does include the explanations they have given for each of the sightings he discusses. And, given the negative publicity that this topic constantly recieves, it is refreshing to read a thoroughly-researched, well-written account of UFOs that at least tries (and usually succeeds) to be fair and balanced. Unlike many UFO books which are written by "true believers" who do little research and who see every UFO sighting as "proof" that we are being visited by aliens, or books by so-called UFO "skeptics" who actually twist or ignore the evidence in order to debunk every UFO sighting and dismiss the topic as "nonsense", Clark openly states in the prologue that both sides need to adopt a little-used three word phrase when dealing with the UFO phenomenon: "We don't know". This book is actually an abridged version of his much longer and more in-depth "UFO Encyclopedia". The "Encyclopedia", which has 273 entries, comes in two volumes, and costs about $(...), is designed for the more serious researcher or ufologist. The "UFO Book" contains some 90 entries from the "UFO Encyclopedia", yet it still covers, alphabetically, almost every major UFO sighting in America since the UFO phenomenon started in the summer of 1947. It also looks at the major theories used to explain UFO sightings and has brief biographies of most of the leading ufologists AND skeptics in the field. If you're a reader with a casual interest in UFOs, or you simply want to purchase a UFO book for your personal library that will give you a good overview of the subject, then the "UFO Book" is simply the best work that's been published...and it will probably remain so for a very long time.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Second Rebuttal, if you please..., December 22, 2003

By 

Commander Adama (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial (Paperback)

Apparently, defending Jerome Clark's "UFO Book" and pointing out his critic's flaws has turned me into a UFO "zealot". Amusingly, I'm accused of "mudslinging", yet the previous reviewer does plenty of mudslinging himself, calling Clark a "crackpot" who only uses sources from other "crackpots", and this reviewer "lazy". He also didn't respond to many of the points in my other post, but for those that he did, here goes: at no point in his chapter on the Betty and Barney Hill UFO "kidnapping" case does Clark write that he believes that the Hills were abducted by a UFO. Instead, he simply gives their side of the story, the claims of their critics, and the claims of their defenders. That sounds like a balanced approach to me - you present one side, then the other, and then let the reader decide the truth. In fact, Clark writes in his "UFO Book" that the Hill case is "unprovable" and is indeed based on "circumstantial" evidence! Yet this is ignored by the previous reviewer, who claims that Clark's "UFO Book" omits anything negative about UFOs. This statement can easily be proven false merely by reading the chapter on the Hill case, in which Clark discusses both Klass AND Kottmeyer's criticisms of the Hill's story. Of course, the real problem here is that Clark doesn't agree with their criticisms, and thus must be a "crackpot". Klass didn't create his "excuse" for why he criticized the University of Nebraska for holding a UFO Conference until AFTER his claims had been publicized. In a memo written by the administrator who took Klass's bizarre phone call, Klass charged that he "has a personal feeling that...these {UFO} organizations, by publicly questioning the government, lend support to the Communist movement". Klass clearly didn't want to simply complain about there being no debunkers (specifically himself) at the conference. Instead, he bluntly equates "questioning the government" with "supporting the Communist movement" - an absurd charge. Klass also made this charge privately, and only AFTER it was exposed did he come up with the lame "excuse" now touted by his admirers. To use two of Klass's favorite words, how "logical" or "rational" is it to equate dissent with supporting Communism? "Cry me a river", indeed! As for CSICOP's "Skeptic Annotated Bibliography", the CSICOP website clearly states "The Skeptic Annotated Bibliography is NOT sponsored by CSICOP". So, who's being "lazy" here? CSICOP continues to refuse to print virtually anything which is critical of its goals or methods. Just ask noted skeptic Dennis Rawlins, a onetime CSICOP admirer who wrote a hilarious article entitled "Starbaby" (you can easily find it on the web) in which he describes how CSICOP's leadership (including Klass) tried desperately to cover up a "research project" into astrology which was terribly botched due to scientific incompetence on the part of CSICOP's "investigators". So CUFOS, a ufologist group of which Clark is a member, promotes Timothy Good's book in which Good praises UFO "Contactee" and con artist George Adamski? Then why does Clark in his "UFO Encyclopedia" write a devastating critique of Adamski? Could it be that - gasp! - Clark doesn't agree with Good's assessment of Adamski? Apparently the notion that you can agree with a portion of another person's writings and still disagree with other parts is lost on debunkers, who insist that if they can find a single flaw in a ufologist's writings, then he is a "crackpot" who is no longer to be taken seriously. Of course, they don't apply this same judgement to themselves, as the "Starbaby" incident noted above proves. Ken Arnold sighting: the previous reviewer complains that "because there could be multiple explanations, {why do} you have to pick the fantastic one {aliens}"? Again, precisely where in the "UFO Book" does Clark write that Arnold definitely saw an alien spaceship? Can you quote it? What Clark actually does is to tell the story as Arnold told it, and then present the differing sides (as he does in the "UFO Encyclopedia"). It's called "balance", which is something that many UFO debunkers and "zealots" don't seem to understand. Why is it so troubling to debunkers that a UFO case may not have a prosaic, "mundane" explanation? Most UFO debunkers (as opposed to genuine skeptics) fall into what Dr. J. Allen Hynek used to call the "it can't be, therefore it isn't" school of thought. And so, finally, the previous reviewer is reduced to complaining about the layout of the "UFO Book", as if that had any relevance to its contents. The previous reviewer complains that the margins are too wide, there's not enough photos to suit him, and so on, which all very neatly prevents the reviewer from having to write about the book's substance. As to the previous reviewer's claim that the "UFO Book" "has nothing in it", my only assumption is that he's never read it. So far the previous reviewer has claimed that the "UFO Book" contains only "25 or so" UFO cases, when it actually has at least 60 cases, and numerous others are mentioned in broad chapters. He claims that the "UFO Book" "omits anything negative about UFOs", yet that claim is proven false merely by reading Clark's chapter on the "Hill" UFO case. Also, I'm NOT a UFO "zealot". I actually agree with Klass and other debunkers that SOME UFO cases (such as Roswell) are "explainable" in conventional terms. However, I also think that Clark and other ufologists are correct in arguing that other UFO cases are as yet "unsolved" (not aliens, mind you, just unsolved). However, this "neutral" position is unthinkable in the world of ufology, where "close-mindedness" is the norm. As a result the UFO "debate" now revolves around militant debunkers like Klass at one end, and UFO "zealots" like Art Bell and Steven Greer at the other. Jerome Clark falls somewhere in-between these two extremes, which drives debunkers (such as the previous reviewer) nuts. Bottom line: in a field as rife with intellectual dishonesty as this one, Jerome Clark's "UFO Book" is one of a handful of books to attempt (and usually achieve) a balanced and comprehensive overview of the UFO phenomenon. Period.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I say it's 5 stars because it really answers all my Q's., April 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial (Paperback)

The book is great. It answers everything you want to know about UFO's, abductions, and Aliens. I found there were more sightings in the state I live in (Michigan) than I thought possible. I personally research the existance of UFO's, and Extraterrestials, and this is the best UFO book out there.