UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official Quest for Evidence [Paperback]

Roy Craig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1995

Paranormal. Roy Craig's experiences as the major field investigator for reported UFO sightings make fascinating reading, both for firm believers in extraterrestrial visitation and those who are most skeptical. He records both detailed descriptions and personal musings of individual cases he examined.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In the late 1960s, the University of Colorado conducted a tax-supported scientific investigation and evaluation of UFO reports at the request of the U.S. Air Force. The project was marred by controversy when the press obtained a memorandum written by the team coordinator implying that the study was only pretending to be objective. The final report stated in no uncertain terms that the study of UFOs would not advance scientific knowledge, even though many of the UFO sightings examined by the project remained unidentified. Craig, a chemist, served as field investigator and consultant on physical evidence. This book describes some of the UFO cases he was personally involved with and offers his views on the famous memorandum, dissension among team members, and the effect of the final report on public opinion and air force activities. Craig's reporting is honest. He finds conventional explanations for all of the cases he investigated, with the exception of a huge UFO that paced a B-47 over the southern U.S. and was confirmed by ground radar and onboard electronic countermeasures equipment. An insightful memoir on a controversial investigation. George Eberhart --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Craig was the field investigator for reported UFO sightings, recording detailed descriptions and personal observations. Here he gathers more interesting cases and includes a historical overviews of UFOs, presenting both a humorous style and an intellectual attention to facts and details. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: University of North Texas Press; 1st edition (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929398947
• ISBN-13: 978-0929398945
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,127,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a personal account of Dr. Craig's UFO study work., May 18, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Durango, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official Quest for Evidence (Paperback)

Dr. Roy Craig was the chief field investigator for the controversial University of Colorado UFO study. The study was funded by the US government. When a UFO sighting was reported to the study team, the sighting was first evaluated to see whether it might yield useful information. If it seemed a likely sighting, a team was sent out to conduct an on-sight investigation. Roy Craig led many of the investigations. This book is a highly personal account of his field work and of the many facets of the UFO study, its controversies and its final report. But the book is more than that. It is an important record of one of the most significant sociological and psychological events of the second half of the twentieth century. The UFO controversy has touched nearly every aspect of world culture since 1947! Millions of people-- those who claim to have seen UFOs, those who believe without personal experience, those who have profited from the controversy, every stripe of charlatan, and many, many more--have been fascinated with UFOs and the many and varied implications the existence of UFOs would have. This book should be read by UFO believers and non-believers alike. It is well-written. It is personal. It is--in those places where it should be--scientific. The one problem the book has--from the viewpoint of those who ardently believe in the existence of extra-terra UFOs--is that Dr. Craig's conclusions do not come down on the 'believer's side' of the issue. I have known Roy Craig for many years. He is an intelligent, thoughtful scientist. His book deserves to be read. Hal Mansfield, Durango, Colorado

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile, if dull, "Insiders View" of the Condon Report, June 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official Quest for Evidence (Paperback)

To those who are interested in the UFO phenomenon the Condon Report, published in 1969, remains one of the most important documents in UFO history. In essence, the Report stated that scientists had nothing to gain from taking UFOs seriously and that the entire subject was largely useless to science. It allowed anti-UFO debunkers to publicly dismiss the phenomenon as "nonsense" and to label UFO witnesses as either liars, fantasizers, or people who were just too ignorant to know what they were seeing in the skies. It also gave the US Air Force the excuse it needed to shut down Project Blue Book, its official investigation of the UFO "problem", which had been a huge public-relations disaster. The Condon Report was created as a response to the great wave of UFO sightings and encounters which took place in the mid-to-late 1960's. When Project Blue Book dismissed most of these sightings as hoaxes, misindentifications of stars or meteors, or "swamp gas", even some Congressmen began to suggest that the Air Force wasn't taking the sightings seriously and that a more scientific investigation was needed. The response to these concerns was a government-funded UFO research project based at the University of Colorado and chaired by Dr. Edward Condon, a prominent physicist. At first both believers and skeptics were enthusiastic about the project. The leading pro-UFO groups, such as NICAP and APRO, sent their best UFO reports to the project so they could be studied. Additionally, a field team was created to go out and investigate UFO sightings immediately after they were reported. The leader of these field teams was Dr. Roy Craig. This book is his memoir of his experiences as a field investigator for the Condon Committee. Dr. Craig personally investigated numerous UFO incidents. Among them were such famous cases as the film of two UFOs shot in 1950 on an old home-movie camera in Great Falls, Montana by the manager of the local minor-league baseball team; and a UFO landing in Canada which was supposedly witnessed by a local prospector and mechanic, who claimed that the UFO burned and injured him when he touched it. Craig, a confirmed skeptic, states that nearly all of his on-site investigations left him convinced that no "real" UFO sightings had occurred -they were simply hoaxes, or some other "normal" phenomena. Of all the cases he investigated, only the case in which the well-trained crew of a RB-47 US military plane both saw and detected a UFO on radar for several hours impressed him enough to state that the crew had seen a "genuine" UFO - an unidentifiable flying object. Craig also stoutly defends Dr. Condon from the harsh criticism he experienced after he made several statements (while the project was still working on its "unbiased" report) to the effect that UFOs were not to be taken seriously and that he thought the entire subject was a bunch of nonsense. Although Craig's conclusions about UFOs will inspire plenty of debate among those who have seriously studied the phenomenon, he does come across in this book as a more open-minded investigator of UFOs than are most skeptics, Dr. Condon included. (However, Dr. Craig does largely ignore the fact that the Condon Report couldn't find solutions to 30% of the cases it examined, and had to list them as "unexplained"). My chief problem with this book lies not in Dr. Craig's skepticism about UFOs, but rather with his writing style . His prose is somewhat pedestrian and the book can be slow going at times. Dr. Craig can turn even the most interesting UFO story into a snoozer. For a serious reader of UFO history this book does offer an invaluable insider's account of how the Condon Report came to its anti-UFO positions; as well as the nearly constant behind-the-scenes feuding between those scientists who were dismissive of UFOs as a serious topic (such as Condon and Craig), and those scientists who thought that the UFO phenomenon represented something both real and extraordinary. But if you're simply a general reader looking for a good book to read about UFOs, then you'd be well-advised to look elsewhere.