24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive Look at the UFO Phenomenon, March 22, 2009
This review is from: The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation (Paperback)
Although the other "two reviewers" (or actually, it seems to be the SAME "kid" reviewer doing two reviews!) give this book one star, they didn't really explain why they did, at least not very well, other than it being a rehash of material from an occultist instead of a real live UFO enthusiast. Fair enough. But as the blurb from Shepherd Express notes, Greer's book is not the usual book on UFOs, instead focusing on "epistemology, logic, Jungian archetypes, occultism, pop culture and the politics of deception." Most books on UFOs generally fall into one of three paradigms:
1. UFOs are all easily explained away as hoaxes, delusions, or misperceived natural phenomena... this is the skeptics' point of view, based on dogmatic scientism.
2. UFOs are part of a government (or intergalactic) (or extradimensional) conspiracy by MIBs, Grays, Reptilians etc etc. to make us into galactic TV dinners or slaves of one kind or another.
3. UFOs are here to save us from ourselves, ET has come home and so have the angels to save us from our dastardly ways and save the planet...or at least take some of us away in an extraterrestrial Rapture.
Few of the popular UFO books fall outside these three formats, although some like
Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds by Vallee and Keel's
The Mothman Prophecies do bring some interesting alternatives to bear on the interaction of culture, cultural expectations, and the anomalies and unexplainable things we see in the skies...or scratching at our bedroom windows. Although one CAN find much of what Greer discusses in various sources around the Internet (and in old fashioned books!), only Greer has taken a historical view of the phenomenon, then compared the evidence to ALL THREE paradigms, in addition to a helping of sociocultural materials on such allied historical movements as the Spiritualists, and religious apparitions and laid it all right in front of the reader to look at and decide for themselves.
Basically, there is no ONE answer to the mystery of the UFO phenomenon. It is a whole -spectrum- of various phenomena (misperception, disinformation, observer's bias, psychological archetypes, geology, etc.) all lumped together into one box we call "the UFO phenomenon." And that's probably going to be why this book won't sell as well as if it were one of the BIG THREE in UFO circles, because it won't be square-pegged that way, it won't fit into one of the three paradigms, and the people who buy UFO books usually fit into one of those paradigms of skeptic, true believer, or conspiracist.
Greer does take a broad view and approach with an application of scientific methodology in this book, to the point where he even offers several predictions in the forms of Null Hypotheses, that the UFO phenomenon will eventually morph with the changes in military technology, and dwindle with the eventual passing of the "big voices" (UFO celebrities) in the debate and changes in our culture as we begin to deindustrialize (see Greer's
The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age)...although some form of the "contactee faith" will be with us for a long time to come.
My final caveat is that, while I give Greer's book five stars, and although 95% of UFO "incidents" are explainable, that leaves 5% that remain mysterious...and I think it is human to need mystery and the unknown, so let's leave that 5% alone, shall we? ;-)
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This Book Will Challenge Skeptics and Believers, April 11, 2009
This review is from: The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation (Paperback)
The earlier reviewer that gave this book one star probably only read the first half of the book. Yes, the first half is mostly a rehash of the history of UFOs, though the middle of the book does mention John Lear and some other very recent aspects sometimes not covered in other books.
The second half of the book is certainly NOT a rehash of typical UFO stories, and it is this part of the book that will challenge readers. The other reviewer before me does a good job of clarifying this part of the argument and so I will not rehash it. This argument will challenge believers and skeptics alike, but I think the author has a good point, which is that we need to reconsider the ways we examine and try to understand the UFO materials/experience. Assuming there is one simple answer that covers this material is problematic.
Personally, I think Vallee, Keel and Greer are on to something very important.
Two notes I will add. First, if you want lots of stories about scarey encounters and all kinds of oddball detail and such, this book will not deliver for you. This is not a collection of abduction stories with lengthy descriptions that will give you the creeps some late night while you are sitting in bed and the wind is howling outside. There are not even the usual passages where a UFO author offers six or eight stories to illustrate a point and its consistency among experiencers.
Second, I wish the author had expanded on the second half of the book. I wanted more on the problems with hypnosis and regression therapy. I always wondered how reliable this stuff really was and how much real training any of the people who do this on abductees really have. The author really has some critical points to make, but he does so briefly. Maybe this is really the subject for an entire other book? Also, the Shamanic experience is mentioned briefly but it seems there are other aspects of this as it relates to UFOs that are not gone into. Again, perhaps that is another book.
So if you want a brief introduction into why hardcore skeptics and hardcore believers are equally mistaken and a quick look at the Vallee/Keel approach, this is a good book. If you already read Passport to Magonia and Operation Trojan Horse, you will find the book interesting but will not find a lot of new material.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best introduction for the openminded, March 27, 2011
This review is from: The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation (Paperback)
Greer has written the most intelligent and accessible one-volume overview of the subject. Unfailingly lucid and evenhanded, he lays before the reader all the major hypotheses which have been devised to explain UFOs, and assesses their merits and flaws. If he exposes the illogical aspects of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, he shows even less tolerance for the work of pseudo-skeptics such as Menzel and Klass. In settling upon a threefold explanation of the phenomenon, he seems to me to show good judgment and openmindedness. On the whole, admirers of Vallee and John Keel will come away with their feelings less bruised than followers of other schools of thought.
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