Ufo Sightings: The Evidence [Hardcover]

Robert Sheaffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1998

Engaging and entertaining, "UFO Sightings" is the most up-to-date overview of the UFO phenomenon, a controversy that gains strength with each new report of strange happenings in the sky. Written from the sceptical perspective, and applying the scientific method to the cases explored, this book differs greatly from the proparanormal tomes widely available today. The book is unique because it gives the reader a broad overview of the world of UFOlogy, dealing with most major cases and trends, while offering references and commentary to provide a clear perspective. Incidents and photographs are scrutinised within a framework of objective science. Included are the Jimmy Carter UFO sighting; the "abduction" of Betty and Barney Hill; the incidents at Exeter; the Men in Black; messages from space; mothmen, wolf girls, and transparent apes; films; the UFO blitz of Mexico; and the comparisons to sightings of fairies and witches in colonial times.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 327 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573922137
• ISBN-13: 978-1573922135
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,038,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Debunker's Guidebook, Not a Skeptic's..., June 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Ufo Sightings: The Evidence (Hardcover)

Robert Sheaffer's "UFO Sightings: The Evidence" has one major flaw: it tends only to look at the evidence which supports Sheaffer's anti-UFO conclusions. Sheaffer is a leading member of CSICOP, a hard-line debunking group. CSICOP was created in the 1970's to fight against "New Age" and "pseudoscientific" beliefs which, it claims, threaten the very existence of civilization. Among other things, CSICOP has complained about adults encouraging children to believe in Santa Claus, and it has publicly criticized the "X-Files" TV series for promoting disbelief in science! According to CSICOP and Sheaffer, one of the major "threats to science" are those people who believe that UFOs might represent something beyond the understanding of mainstream science. Although Sheaffer does do a credible job of proving that some of the UFO sightings in his book have a conventional explanation (such as the famous sighting that future President Jimmy Carter had in Georgia in the late sixties, which Sheaffer convincingly shows to have been Venus), some of his other "explanations" often ignore or twist the evidence to come to the conclusion Sheaffer wants. For example, Sheaffer describes in detail the famous UFO chase in Portage County, Ohio in 1966 in which a respected policeman, Dale Spaur, and his deputy chased an extremely large and bright object across the county and into Pennsylvania before the strange object "flew straight up" and vanished. Sheaffer argues that this UFO was clearly the planet Venus, and even uses a map to show that the path Spaur followed as he chased the UFO was actually the path he would have taken if he were following Venus setting on the eastern horizon. Unfortunately, he leaves out some important testimony which contradicts this claim, among them Spaur's assertion (and his deputy's) that the UFO flew directly overhead while they were standing outside their patrol car, the fact that the object was so bright that it lit up the highway in front of them "like high noon" (Venus certainly isn't that bright!) and that another policeman who observed the object watched the UFO fly directly overhead as he was sitting in his parked car (No star or planet can fly straight over a person's head while they're standing still, be as large as a "barn", or make the loud "humming" sounds that Spaur described). Sheaffer simply ignores this testimony - for the obvious reason that it contradicts his "explanation" of the sighting. And, unfortunately, this happens several times in the book. Sheaffer also has the CSICOP habit of unnecessarily insulting or ridiculing witnesses. He makes several negative comments about Spaur's life after he saw the UFO (Spaur lost his job, began having nightmares about the UFO, and his marriage ended after he violently shook his wife a few weeks after the UFO encounter). Sheaffer seems to be implying that since Spaur has so many personal problems he can't be trusted with his UFO report. What Sheaffer leaves out is that Spaur was a highly respected policeman before the UFO incident, his marriage was stable (his wife said that Spaur "just wasn't the same" after the sighting, which led to the end of the marriage) and that Spaur suffered enormous public ridicule because he had dared to report a UFO (Spaur later said that even if a UFO landed in his backyard he wouldn't report it for fear of ridicule). Even Spaur's boss, the Chief of Police, strongly defended him. And, not even the Air Force's "Project Blue Book" staff, who were notorious for debunking all UFO incidents, ever doubted Spaur's credibility or personal honesty, as Sheaffer does. The main problem I have with this book is that there is a real difference between being a "skeptic" (in which you approach UFOs with an objective open-mind and regard ALL beliefs about UFOs skeptically, including your own) and a "debunker" (in which you approach UFOs with a completely closed mind that examines every case with a prearranged agenda designed to "prove" that every UFO case is explainable, and you simply ignore or twist the actual evidence to prove your point). Bottom line: Sheaffer's "UFO Sightings: The Evidence" is worth reading for the correct explanations he gives to some UFO sightings. But the reader should always double-check Sheaffer's "explanations" for any evidence that has been ommitted or which contradicts Sheaffer's presumably airtight solutions. (I'd recommend reading Jerome Clark's "UFO Encyclopedia" for a more balanced account of the UFO cases which Sheaffer examines). A worthwhile book, but at times a misleading one too.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UFOlogists have a lot to answer for, March 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Ufo Sightings: The Evidence (Hardcover)

Reading Robert Sheaffer's barbed skepticism requires a little fortitude, for a subject as controversial as UFOlogy is bound to awaken a faint sympathy for the targets of his criticism. But, this is not a book just slamming the UFO movement out of spite or even a critique of the major players, but an examination of the EVIDENCE that we have been visited by extraterrestrials.

So this book dwells at great length on the facts, not theories, not speculation, but facts that surround some of the best known UFO contacts. And the result? Null, nada, nothing.

The extraordinary claim of extraterrestrial contact should be matched by extraordinary evidence. And the evidence is....anything but extraordinary. Judge for yourself. Covered is the UFO report of a certain Jimmy Carter, as well as the New Zealand UFO contact, Roswell (my word, has that non-story persisted for such a long time!) as well as certain other fairly well known UFO stories. Also covered: close encounters of the fairy kind, the physics of space travel and the fallibility of human perceptions and memories. Like most of us who take a good interest in astronomy, Robert is faintly disappointed that the evidence does not justify the extraordinary claim. Like most skeptics, he tends to be pendantic and to hammer a point home all too heavily.

But the question remains: Are we alone? Robert Sheaffer would say: We just don't know. And the "evidence" present by UFO fanatics today is so poor that you can only call it a religion, faith based on the unreliable and the unprovable.

Definitely worth reading.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Call for Rationalism, July 25, 2002

By 

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

This review is from: Ufo Sightings: The Evidence (Hardcover)

Robert Scheaffer is not a proponent of UFOlogy. Instead, he is a skeptic who is trying to point out some of the irrationalities in the beliefs in UFOs and other related phenomenon.

Using different scientific laws and principles, like Occam's Razor, Schaeffer debunks the "proof" of UFOs in our world today. In each chapter, he walks through many of the classic UFO sightings and shows you how all the "facts" don't fit together or are changing as the story gets older.

At first, I read this as a believer who was calling for more rigid investigation so that we can focus our attention on what we believe to be actual unidentified flying objects. As you read, you will see that he feels that the believers, of whom he is not one, should adopt a more rigid standard in their investigations just as science does. In science, open forum is welcomed to search for truth whereas many UFO studies refuse to scrutinized and result to ad hominem attacks to protect their copyrighted property.

Scheaffer does bring in a strong argument. He does have a chapter on witchcraft in the Middle Ages to help support his argument. After reflection, it does help, but it is not immediately apparent in the writing.

If you are a believer or UFOlogist, you will not want to read this book. If you want to take a more balanced view of UFO phenomenon, this should be among the books you read.