Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

With every subject, it is beneficial to read both sides of an issue. The 3 authors who wrote this book appear to have completed a lot of research, and fill the chapters with many references AGAINST the belief of UFO's.

Included are questions of the Roswell crash, top-secret papers that some have said NSA won't release, evidence of crop circles, alien abductions and extraterrestrial intelligence.

With each subject, the authors have first explained what current literature indicates, then spends time explaining why they believe these are all false beliefs. There are many illustrations, notes and references throughout the book, giving the reader an excellent resourse of reading "the other side" of the story of UFO's.This book could be an excellent resourse if writing a paper for college, or interested in studying why some do not believe the current literature. It does give one a lot to think about.

I gave it a 4 not because I believe everything that is said; rather, I believe the authors did a fine job of research and citing hundreds of references.

I did not like this book. Most of the cases are well documented elsewhere and nothing of interest was added. The premise that you can "think" the UFO's into showing themselves is silly. If your looking for a serious book on the UFO phenomena look elsewhere.

Why aren't Donald Menzel's books still in print today? What a shame...

There are hundreds of books for believers, but very few with actual facts. "The UFO Invasion" has the facts.

The only coverup is by the believers... who twist information to fit their preconcieved ideas.

Trust me, you'll learn the truth by reading the works of Klass, Sheaffer, Korff, and Donald Menzel.

THE UFO INVASION is a terrific book for anyone seeking to get a good idea of what the real explanations behind everything from alien abductions to the Roswell Incident to crop circles could be.

The book is laid out in cleanly divided sections--"The UFO Enigma," "The Crash at Roswell," "Roswell and the Alien Autopsy," Other UFO Cases," "Alien Abductions," "Crop Circles," and Extraterrestrial Intelligence," and within every section are a number of relevant articles from the pages of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.

The book never asks its readers to take its word on anything, or to make leaps of faith in reasoning; instead, it lays out its cases clearly and with evidence, citing sources as it goes. It's a smart book, but it's also very readable, very quirky, and engaging.

I found the sections on Roswell and alien abductions to be particularly interesting, covering a wide range of the aspects of these fascinating stories. I read the alien abduction section right after reading Whitley Strieber's COMMUNION, and found it to be incredibly helpful in making psychological sense of Strieber's otherworldly tales.

For a Holy Skeptical Trinity of UFOlogy, I recommend reading this book along with Karl Pflock's ROSWELL: INCONVENIENT FACTS AND THE WILL TO BELIEVE, and Curtis Peebles' WATCH THE SKIES: A CHRONICLE OF THE FLYING SAUCER MYTH. I can scarcely imagine someone reading all three of these books and then still believing that extraterrestrial aliens have been covertly visiting us. I kind of wish that were the case, but I just don't see the evidence for it all. Some of the evidence that they haven't been, on the other hand, is right here, in THE UFO INVASION.

This book is a compilation of articles from Skeptical Inquirer, the fascinating magazine of CSICOP. Skeptical Inquirer's focus wavers between quack cures, telepathy and UFOs depending upon what has captured the fickle attention of the woo-woo crowd. In the early '90s, when this collection came out, Roswell was at the forefront.
Millions of people watched on TV a supposed autopsy of a Roswell alien. The funniest article in "The UFO Invasion" (and most of them are pretty funny) is surgeon Joseph Bauer's assessment of the autopsy, which, if it wasn't a hoax, was the most incompetent in history.
"UFO Invasion" also samples crop circles, which have dropped out of fashion, and alien abductions, which are no laughing matter.
Psychologist Robert Baker provides an excellent overview that explains why the "therapists" who help their victims recover these memories are causing serious, probably permanent, damage to their clients.
Most of the authors take the position that people who believe in UFOs or that they were abducted by aliens are not crazy. I don't buy it. Just because they are not actually raving doesn't mean they are displaying normal mental functions.
People who seriously believe they were passed through solid walls and sexually assaulted by outer space creatures must be suspected, at the very least, of being in a dissociative state. If you ever go on trial, hope none of them is on the jury.

This is the worst book I have come accross in many years. There are no original ideas, it's poorly written, badly edited and filled with half truths and crass comercialism. I should have known better when you see 3 editors. Each one, when confronted, can blame some error on one of the other 2

One reaction of people who fear the unknown is to deny or belittle it in the hopes of closing it to careful scrutiny. Filling a book with half truths doesn't really do anyone justice. It may serve as therapy for people who have already made up their mind, but it does not help the cause of truth.