The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups [Hardcover]

Kendrick Frazier (Editor), Barry Karr (Editor), Joe Nickell (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1997

UFOs and space aliens are visiting Earth! Now it's time to get the facts! Did a 'flying saucer' really crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and have we been victims of a sinister government conspiracy to hide its alien occupants in a secret facility? Is there truth behind the swirled crops phenomenon? Have humans been abducted by aliens? In an effort to counter media misinformation "The UFO Invasion" offers definitive, behind-the-scenes accounts of each case of extraterrestrial visitations and paranormal claims. This fully documented look at sightings, encounters, the Roswell incident, 'MJ-12' documents, crop circles, the 'alien autopsy', and more will challenge, illuminate, anger and amuse. Included are revealing articles by Robert A Baker, Robert E Bartholomew, Joseph A Bauer, William B Blake, Robyn M Dawes, C Eugene Emery, Zen Faulkes, John F Fischer, Kingston A George Jr, Philip J Klass, Joe Nickell, James E Oberg, Peter J Reeven, Ian Ridpath, Robert Sheaffer, Armando Simon, Lloyd Stires, Trey Stokes, Dave Thomas, Richard L Weaver (Colonel USAF), Jeff Wells, and Robert P Young. Also, SETI co-ordinator Thomas P McDonough ponders searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This collection of articles from the Skeptical Inquirer examines the UFO phenomenon in a critical and conventional light. As one might expect, the Roswell UFO crash is found to be a weather balloon; the Fox-TV "alien autopsy" is a crude hoax (no surprise here to anyone who has seen it); famous UFO sightings are really space debris, meteors, reflections, hoaxes, and media exaggerations; alien abductions are all constructs of space-obsessed fantasies; and crop circles are prankster-produced graffiti in the grain. Much of what the authors say here is both valid and true. However, there is also a strong tendency to pick easy targets and to make dubious generalizations that will infuriate UFO proponents. An adequate but fallible counterbalance to pro-UFO literature. George Eberhart

Product Details

• Hardcover: 314 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573921319
• ISBN-13: 978-1573921312
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,174,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Debunking of Nonsensical UFOlogist Claims, January 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups (Hardcover)

UFOlogists have flooded the public and the media (which have sucked it down, hook, line, and sinker) with outright lies and fabrications for the past 52 years (ever since the 1947 sighting by Kenneth Arnold of "nine flying discs"). On the other side of the story, Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell (but, most specifically in regards to UFOs, Philip J. Klass) have dedicated their lives to uncovering the truth about wacky pseudoscientific and paranormal claims. In contrast to the previous reader, I believe that this book was very well written (and concur on the point that it contains "good science," which is redundant). Anyhow, read it! See the light, all you UFO wackos!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great scholarly text about UFO phenomena and beliefs., July 3, 2003

By 

Hobart G. Baker (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups (Hardcover)

This book is a series of articles written by various scholars who are experts in various scientific and social fields or who specialize in UFO investigations. Topics discussed include the impact of hypnotic questioning on the creation of false memories of alien abductions; misperceptions by eyewitnesses; IFO (identified flying object) cases; impact of the media and culture on creation of UFO beliefs and UFO stories; role of psychology in UFO story creation; the development of legends like the Roswell UFO crash legend; and so on. The authors are conservative in their approach and base their conclusions on modern logic theory. This is a great book for scholars or students of logic, psychology, and so on. Would be a good book for a college course on these topics.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A refutation of UFOs, January 31, 2004

By 

Jeffrey Leeper "kem2070" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups (Hardcover)

For any debate, an informed audience must listen to both sides and make a decision based on the information given or acknowledge that we will never know. For each side of the debate, we have to examine the evidence and support to decide if what we are reading is true. This is especially true for the argument for or against the existence of UFOs. This is an emotional argument for some, and this book purports to be the rational approach.

That being said, I thought this book would be an argument for belief in UFOs, alien abductions, and government cover-ups. Admittedly, I based this on the cover of the book. As I read, I realized that the cover was probably not chosen by the authors as the authors were against the belief. So was I reading the rationalists' argument?

This is where I had trouble with the book. I found the argument to be based on an "ad hominem" fallacy. Rather than attack the argument, the book tends to attack the organizations, scholars, and believers of exterrestrial phenomena.

This is not filled with bad information. I found the insight into the organizations and believers to be interesting, but this book, by no means, establishes a solid stance against other-worldly happenings.