They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (Paperback)

by Gray Barker (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Illuminet Press (June 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881532100
• ISBN-13: 978-1881532101
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,103,878 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic must-read for anyone interested in phenomena., August 30, 1998

By A Customer

Considering the reputation of the author as a bold-faced hoaxer, this book is still considered to be the one that started it all-Flying Saucers, Men-in-Black, Lemuria-it's all here. Although many current researchers and Roswell-philes may be quick to discredit and sweep Barker under the carpet, They Knew Too Much is still an integral part of the canon.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Campy & amusing, but outdated science, January 5, 1999

By	Jayson A. Olson (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I saw an advertisement for this book in a local newspaper and decided to purchase it.

While the book initially grabs you and pulls you in, towards the end you have read some of the most outlandish theories, over-dramatic musings, simpleton ways of thinking about the whole 'saucer' phenomenon.

It is a relatively easy read both in length and style and I'll have to admit it did hook me. But did it hook me because of the mystery of UFO's or because some of the explanations about UFO's and their relationship with humans, the earth, our world governments, conspiracies, religion are so wacky it was enticing to read what the author would say next.

It did present one or two theories that I did find very interesting and even plausible, and it did lend much more mystery to the Men In Black. Just who are these dark dressed men who answer nothing and interogate the victims of UFO incidents,then scaring them half to death.

This book is classic for the pulp science fiction readers of the late 40's and early 50's where science was mysterious to the common man. But now in 1999 it is really hard to believe (and embarrassing to know) that we as a society actually thought this way.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars men in black: the early years, August 14, 2004

By	tbrown (toronto canada) - See all my reviews

Allegedly, this is the book that launched the myth of the Men in Black, back in 1956 (the author does not capitalize or use the acronym).

It is a readable book, but not a good book. It has an easy journalistic style, very matter-of-fact, but with oddly interpolated melodramatic and exclamatory phrases! To remind you to be frightened, I presume.

The major weakness is the lack of info about UFOs. The few short case studies are nothing but a prelude to a lengthy investigation of how a few saucer magazine publishers got spooked into voluntarily shutting down (or so they claim -- several people in the book were still active in the following decades, according to the Skeptical Inquirer).

But it is interesting to read a front-line report of fringe phenomena where the protagonists TRUST the government and are not necessarily paranoi; when UFO tracking was a gee-whiz science hobby fuelled by intellectual curiosity and not a delusion about one-world governments or the occult.

Not a good book, but fun to read about a phenomenon before it became a phenomenon.