A Guide to UFO Research - Society for Scientific Exploration

Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 65-87, 1993 0892-33 10193 

O 1993 Society for Scientific Exploration 

A Guide to UFO Research 

MICHAEL D. SWORDS 

Department of Science Studies, Western Michigun University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008 

Abstract-The very natural query of the interested intellectual: what should 

1 read to understand the status of the UFO Phenomenon?, has no simple answer. 

This review article briefly examines the characteristics of the "UFO 

Problem" and relates those characteristics to the problem of ignorance in the 

academic community. An "inside look" at the appropriate library for the 

"working UFOlogist" is then explored. 

The UFO Research Problem 

When a serious person decides foolishly to throw all of his or her extra time 

into finding out about UFOs, there begins an intellectual avalanche of connections 

and demands which is, essentially, endless. This field is forever rich, but 

that richness betrays a multidisciplinarity which defies any amount of training. 

This subject is, in fact, the most multidisciplinary one that this author has ever 

experienced (and that includes degrees and teaching in areas like History of 

Science and Technology, Science-Technology - and - Society, and Environmental 

Studies). 

The naive academic shuffles onto the queer streets of UFOlogy with the confidence 

that the world makes sense, order will be quickly restored, and logic 

will suffice. What our intrepid ivory-tower dweller finds are chaotic beeswarms 

of reports which sting the intuition into felt perceptions of partial 

order, but which resist simplification under any useful scheme. Who are these 

people? What are they like? What motivates them? Are they normal? Abnormal? 

Supranormal? What stimulated these "stories"? Have they been going on 

for a long time? Are there patterns in this stuff? Easy to explain patterns? Repeatable 

patterns? What caused the photos? The traces? The field effects? The 

radiation effects? Is any of this related to government activities? Military technologies? 

Extraterrestrials? The Paranormal? Could it even be? 

, There are many more questions than these. These are just the first "general" 

I 

waves of the avalanche which attack you (if you have any intellectual honesty). 

I have made an incomplete matrix of the disciplinary demands upon the 

serious UFOlogist in Figure 1. Its purpose is not completeness or absolute interconnected 

accuracy. It is just to illustrate a point: there can be no properly 

trained UFOlogist. Anyone external to the field should take pronouncement 

about UFOs from individuals with a grain of salt. The more absolutist 

those pronouncements are the more they should be buried in sodium chloride. 

And as for a "quick reading list" to suddenly become deeply knowledgeable in

M. D. Swords 

( History 1 

Government 

& Military 

History 

History of 

Technology & 

Future Studies 

I of the UFO 1 

\ Phenomena 

Fig. 1 

the "problem": (as Alexander the Great may have been told) there is no royal 

road to UFOlogy. 

A few further words about the multidisciplinary matrix before going on with 

another serious problem vis-a-vis "reading about UFOs". We highly trained intellects, 

all proud of our mental abilities and acquired knowledge, have tended 

not to behave very well in the face of this daunting array of demands. Some individuals, 

having barely paddled their toes in these strange waters, have actually 

had colossal enough egos to write "authoritatively" on the subject (Irving 

Langmuir and certain astronomers come immediately to mind). Such individuals 

have immediately (though no one knows on what grounds) shrunken the 

matrix into one or two narrow disciplinary areas, and then applied wholesale 

ignorance of detail to cram the phenomena into some pseudoscientific simplistic 

hypothesis. These forms of "Universal Theories" are almost always

A guide to UFO research 67 

ridiculous (as far as explaining anything profound about the phenomena) to 

anyone who has spend serious time in the field. They are also almost always 

consciously described as debunking the "extraterrestrial hypothesis", and they 

almost always sound reasonable to the UFOlogically ignorant inhabiting the 

corridors of academia. 

A similar form of inadequate reductionism comes from the other end of the 

enthusiasm scale. Some UFO proponents (whether in the field extensively or 

not) react to the complexity by creating a theoretical tar-pit of such osmotic 

omnipotence that it can absorb anything that falls into it. (Certain "New Age" 

and Parallel Realities speculators come to mind.) Also, however, there are extraterrestrial 

theorists who make the ETs so powerful and inscrutable that 

there are no restrictions on their behavior or technology. This doesn't mean 

that such concepts are necessarily false, just that they are intellectually dangerous 

and untestable, and should be voiced with reservation and humility. 

Long-term involvement in the field is no protection against this latter form of 

reductionism: in fact it often seems to encourage it. This is only human. We 

want to see the "Truth". If we have expended so much lifetime in its pursuit, 

perhaps we even need to see it. In my twenty years of fairly intense interest in 

this subject, I have rarely found individuals who have continually managed to 

keep their balance. I have found no "debunkers" who have even attempted to 

do so. This sadly bodes ill for one looking for good books to read. 

The Universal Theory is almost surely doomed before it is even birthed, As 

you immerse yourself in the richness of the history and the reports, it becomes 

almost obvious that you are dealing with many sorts of causal agents. The demands 

of the matrix are probably (in part) a reflection of the multiplicity of 

causes. Is there some important new social psychology buried in there? Probably. 

Is there some important new personal psychology buried in there? Probably. 

Military-government activity? Geophysics? Meteorology? Probably, 

probably, and probably. And is there some extra-terrestriality (or other equally 

astonishing reality) buried in there? I say: probably ... maybe "both". People 

anxious for a simplistic world (whether romantic or mundane) seem driven to 

devise a reductionist concept. It has never worked. Such views persist at embarrassing 

costs to the details of the case histories. 

"UFOs" (or their reports) seem likely to have many causes, even though 

nearly all of us seem drawn to only one. We seem unable to think in several 

other ways which cause us endless troubles as well. I will mention two. Surprisingly, 

the typical academic seems as incapable of thinking in historical perspectives 

as our oft-accused students. Our minds seem to become continually 

locked into what we're experiencing right at this moment, and neither the 

weight of the history of the phenomenon nor the "arrows" or lessons of our 

larger history (of arrogances and successes) seem to play their proper roles in 

producing measured and wise thinking on any of these matters. A good historian 

is necessary to make a good futurist. And a good historical matrix is the cool 

solid foundation from which creativity and wisdom may spring. Have we instead 

become the impatient children that we decry in our educational writ-

68 M. D. Swords 

Fig. 2 

ings? Are we the Intellectual Hot-and-Now generation? The greater the heat, 

the greater the increase in entropy, I believe. 

A second, more understandable, blind-spot involves "intelligence", This intelligence 

is the type of thinking in the shadow-world of agents and people 

concerned with military and national security. This was a major blind-spot for 

me with my naive country boy's ways of thinking that people and events were 

generally what they seemed. Scientific training accentuated that "what you 

see is what you get" simple mindedness. History training fooled me into believing 

that there is always a clear "paper trail", and the clever scholar can 

rather quickly uncover it. This was true despite my cynical understanding that 

the histories are written by the victors, and that the messy intuitions and 

serendipities of "science" are always polished and straightened before they 

reach the journals. The depths of the misdirections and distortions of the shadow-world 

of national security intelligence have only incompletely penetrated 

my sheltered brain. But I believe that I know this much at least: the first priority 

in the interaction between two potentially hostile organizations is not science 

nor any "normal" form of overtness, it is security. Research is entirely 

subverted to security concerns. And no one "lands on anyone's White House 

Lawn". The foolishness of some of our academic statements about "proper 

UFO behavior" have been the cause of much derisive giggling by former intelligence 

officers that I have chanced to be around while one or the other of us 

(the UFOlogists) has voiced naive opinions. And, when it comes to the upper 

echelons, don't kid yourself: there is nothing oxymoronic about military intelligence. 

This UFO business, as you see, is incredibly complex. It is an intellectual 

vortex which can easily addict you, draw you in, and still tell you very little 

about the fundamentals which lie below. It may be a Black Hole which has no 

bottom, and which defies all academic "laws of nature" inside its event horizon. 

Part of its impenetrability is its dependence upon people, and that is the 

last point that I want to make before moving on to the library. 

Anyone interested in "Anomalous Reports" of any kind realizes that the initial 

research problem is the accuracy of the relationship between the descrip-


Reporter Primary Researcher Author Reader 

Fig. 3 

tors in the report and the actual stimulus for the report. None of us, either in 

UFOlogy or elsewhere, are so naive as to assume that reports transmit to us the 

precise characteristics of the external reality experienced by the reporter (if in 

fact there was any external reality at all). Every reporter has an "interpretive 

lens" through which experiences pass on their way to those associational areas 

of consciousness which attempt to integrate them with that already known. 

This "lens" includes the physical and social environments in which we find 

ourselves, plus our own perceptual and mental idiosyncrasies (temporary or 

chronic). Our lens may profoundly or insignificantly distort the experience, 

but it is almost a certainty that some change occurs between the event and its 

report. 

There are ways in which we attempt to deal with these problems of "subjectivity", 

as we all know. But a simple point for the reader-of-books may be worth 

making. "Events" don't only occur to the reporters of anomalies. When those 

reporters report, this is an "event" for the primary researcher listening to the report. 

That researcher must deal with his or her own "lens" and write that report 

up accordingly with some added distortion. UFO catalogers and synthesizers 

gather these reports using their own distorting lenses, and perhaps, write the 

books which you will read. Note that you, too, have your own lens. (Figure 3). 

The "great UFO books" that you will read contain materials probably 

thrice-distorted. But doesn't that happen in all fields of academic study, and 

we seem to survive? Perhaps. But in academia there is some form of truly interacting, 

critiquing, and challenging community. It doesn't work very efficiently, 

but in some fields at least it seems to ultimately sift wheat from chaff. 

There has been no such stable UFO intellectual community. There are few 

proper fora, and until recently there were none at all. There are arguments a 

plenty,but they occur independently of any proper mode of lasting evaluation. 

There are signs that this is changing as we speak with the emergence of the 

SSE, the Journal of UFO Studies, and groupings of "Invisible Collegians" 

coming out of the closet stimulated by the so-called "Abduction" phenomenon. 

The point of the lenses is that their existence, critically unchecked by a 

larger community, makes the UFO reader's job harder yet. 

The UFO Research Library 

A typical history of a serious UFO researcher begins with the reading of 

some stimulating book (for an astonishing number of us old timers it was the


same book: Captain Edward J. Ruppelt's The Report on Unidentified Flying 

Objects. For youngsters it might be something by Hynek or the early Vallee, or 

(horrendously) Whitley Streiber's Communion). These were read naively but 

with the intuition that there was something important here. As one submerges 

more deeply, the clearest thought which arises is that one must cease reading 

these sorts of books (at least exclusively) and get closer to the raw data. Even 

heroes have their lenses and their limitations. 

The serious UFOlogist's research library, thereby, maximizes closeness to 

the data. Since UFOs, UFOnauts, and UFO pieces are not readily available, 

"closeness to the data" means primary case investigation reports (both written 

and aural). Secondly, it means direct extractions from the primary reports to be 

used in catalog and pattern-finding forms of compilations. Thirdly, it consists 

of declassified and FOIA'd documents (largely from the U. S. military and 

"civilian" intelligence agencies). Fourthly, it is the direct test-data available 

from so-called "second-level" case research (ex. physical and chemical lab 

analyses, psychometric examination of CEIII witnesses, medical records et 

al.). The processing of this information takes a serious commitment on the part 

of the reader, and so is unlikely to interest an individual looking for "a few 

good books". 

My personal files contain the primary case documents for only about 200 

cases. There are also probably fifty or so audio tapes interviews with primary 

witnesses. This is a puny primary data base compared with the real long-term 

case researchers in the field. Some of them own or have ready access to the 

USAF Project Bluebook microfilms containing all available project investigative 

documents from 1947 - 1969 (1 3,000 sightings). Casual readers would be 

unlikely to run into the opportunity to read such document files even if they 

wished to. The closest that such a reader can get to such information is to read 

either an in-depth study of a specific case (compiled by a primary case researcher) 

or a "data-collection". Some examples of the "classic case study" 

are : 

1. Jennie Zeidman's A Helicopter- UFO Encounter Over Ohio; 

2. Norman Cruttwell's Flying Saucers Over Papua; 

3. Isabel Davis and Ted Bloecher's Close Encounter at Kelly; 

4. Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt's UFO Crash at Roswell; 

5. Raymond Fowler's The Allagash AfSair. 

Occasionally there are books aimed at the popular market which are still 

reasonably accurate and close to the data (John Fuller's The Interrupted Journey 

and The Exeter Incident are two). Other superb studies like Walter Webb's 

The BufSLedge Incident languish in unpublished manuscript form. If one could 

read French, and had the opportunity available, the acquiring of the Gepan 

case series (especially vis-a-vis Trans-en-Provence) would afford a further 

data closeness from reputable researchers. The Center for UFO Studies is currently 

beginning to mine its tremendous store of primary documents to pro-


duce packets on historical classic cases for interested researchers. Those available 

will include Betty and Barney Hill, Kenneth Arnold, Captain E. J. Smith, 

Levelland, and the Portage County Police Chase. Certain historical audio tapes 

will also be made available, and, or course, any interested party could always 

research the complete files in Chicago. 

The second more-or-less readily available data-sources are the primary 

"collections". Some of these are: 

1. Mark Rodeghier's UFO Reports Involving Vehicle Inte~erence; 

2. Ted Phillips' Physical Traces Associated with UFO Sightings; 

3. Dick Hall's The UFO Evidence; 

4. Ted Bloecher's Report on the UFO Wave of 1947; 

5. A splendid set of compilations by the Australian researchers Keith 

Basterfield and William Chalker. 

Other data bases exist in various forms, of course. The extensive CUFOS 

case catalog "UFOCAT" is currently on computer disk and available to researchers. 

The Ted Bloecher-David Webb catalog of humanoid cases, HUM- 

CAT, is close to being so. Other data bases involving EM effects, physical 

traces, airplane encounters, paranormal involvements, even Big Foot have 

been gathered and published in paper or small monograph form. 

Declassified and FOIA'd documents now abound and provide a real eyeopener 

for the naive academic assuming that only non-serious individuals 

spend any time on this topic. The Blue Book microfilm of twenty-two years 

and 13,000 cases has been mentioned. FOIA'd materials occur in the hundreds 

of pages from the USAF, FBI and the CIA. For those genuinely interested, 

many of these have been made available by the FUND for UFO Research, and 

by other organizations (ex. CUFOS) and individuals. A particularly rich 

source of mystery are the materials concerning the Green Fireballs phenomenon 

of 1949-5 1 or so. These documents were collected and made available by 

William Moore. If one wished to read "a real book" on the materials, one 

which does a fairly objective job of presenting some of them is Barry Greenwood 

and Larry Fawcett's Clear Intent. Keeping up to date on these government 

releases requires reading the periodical, Just Cause. 

The last category of "primary data" mentioned involved the second-level or 

depth research on cases or with witnesses. This is almost never available in any 

way other than serious research articles. These articles require the researcher 

to own or have ready access to a variety of periodicals or similar sources. Such 

articles appear in Symposia proceedings (esp. the two run by CUFOS, but also 

scattered in MUFON proceedings among a mixed-bag of serious and embarrassing 

presentations), the Journal of UFO Studies, some issues of the British 

Flying Saucer Review, GEPAN materials, the European journals UPIAR and 

Cuadernos, and a wide scatter or appearances elsewhere. New developments, 

such as TREAT and the MIT conference on Abductions, produce collections


of resources, mentioned above, form the working core of the serious researcher's 

library. There are other elements of nearly equal importance, and 

slowly we will approach the materials the non-UFOlogist actually wants to 

read (whether they will do them any real good or not). 

Every field of any maturity has at least a few standard works which support 

the learning and locating process. UFOlogy has a few. Far and away the most 

important single supporting resource in UFOlogy is George Eberhart's colossal 

two-volume bibliographic effort: UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Contact 

Movement. Covering all areas of UFO-related material and all types of media, 

it is endlessly useful to the scholar. There are two well-done standard encyclopedias 

for the field: Margaret Sachs' The UFO Encyclopedia and Ronald 

Story's The Encyclopedia of UFOs. Both of these works are structured mainly 

in the short informative newsclipping style of encyclopedic list-and-learn-alittle 

philosophy. Sachs' book is entirely in this mode. Story's employs many 

different writers and tends to have longer commentaries. Both are well-researched 

and worth owning. A third encyclopedia in multi-volumes is being 

produced piecemeal at this moment: Jerry Clark's UFO Encyclopedia slated 

for three volumes. Two have appeared as of 1992: UFOs in the 1980s and The 

Emergence of a Phenomenon. The third volume will fall in the intervening 

time period. Clark's writing takes advantage of his grcat literary skills and 

long-time involvement in the field. The entries tend to be idiosyncratic to his 

interests, but his interests have been so wide as to allow good coverage anyway. 

The pieces tend to be in the manner of historical research essays stacked together 

with biographical notes in an encyclopedic alphabetical array. Clark is 

an excellent historical researcher and the encyclopedia will become a UFO 

classic. 

The standard history of the field is David Jacobs' The UFO Controversy in 

America, one of the few books on our subject published by a scholarly press.. 

It is the fruit of Dr. Jacobs' Ph.D. thesis and the research depth and excellence 

shows it. It is now being, and will someday be even more so, supplemented by 

a rather different sort of "history": a many-volumed year-by-year collation of 

UFO events by Loren Gross. Digging heroically into the minutiae of press coverages, 

government documents, and whatever else is findable, Gross is slowly 

producing a documentary retelling of the phenomenon. UFOs: A History has 

laboriously worked its way into the mid-50's with over a dozen volumes passing 

the assembly line. A last "support work" type of volume which deserves 

mentioning is the "How to Do UFO Research" book. There are many investigator 

manuals which have been offered, but the classic remains Allan Hendry's 

The UFO Handbook. A second very useful aid is Richard Haines' Observing 

UFOs. 

These constitute the major working elements of the UFOlogical research library: 

primary data documents, primary government documents, data-collections, 

depth research publications, and important support resources. Almost 

none of this rates high in readability by the layman. These materials are but-


tressed in the library by several other forms of literature of more or less value: 

UFO journals of the magazine or newsletter variety, writings by intelligent 

persons (whether overly knowledgeable about what they're writing about or 

not), general UFO books, miscellaneous "strange stuff', and materials from 

non-UFO fields which are applicable to elements of the subject. Let's pick 

around at these topics and see if we can find anything worth our time. 

History is very important in this field, and because of that it is important for 

the researcher to maintain a healthy storage of older journals and newsletters 

to refer to. These journals are prophylactic against the errors of reading the 

polished final versions of the later books. They remind us that many classic situations 

were not anywhere near so clear when one gets closer to their time. 

Distance is important. So is proximity. The intellectually honest researcher oscillates 

between them to find the points of focus. To allow the proximity certain 

journal-newsletters of the "classical era" seem more important than others: 

Flying Saucer Review is obvious; so are the APRO Bulletin, NICAP's the 

UFO Investigator, and many smaller newsletters by the researchers CSI (Los 

Angeles), CSI (New York), Leonard Stringfield, Lee Munsick, and several 

non-US publications such as UFO Critical Bulletin (Brazil), Australian Flying 

Saucer Magazine, Flying Saucers (New Zealand). Of course if you read languages 

other than English there are more. As one moves out of the 1950's and 

60's, these journals offer less "historical perspective" obviously. They become 

more numerous and available and one needs to decide on where to spend one's 

money. There have been excellent journals in Britain and Australia over the 

years, but most American researchers subscribe to one or both of the prominent 

U. S. productions. They are, as Dennis Stacy (editor of the MUFON Journal) 

has observed, the "magazine" of the field (The International UFO Reporter 

of CUFOS) and the "newspaper" (The MUFON Journal of the Mutual 

UFO Network). IUR tends to be more selective, scholarly, and critical. MJ 

tends to be more adventurous, populist, and entertaining. The journals accurately 

reflect the roles of their organizations as pursued by their leaderships. 

Now there is finally a true academic journal, the Journal of UFO Studies, dedicated 

solely to scholarly writing. It is an annual in its fourth volume. 

Writings by intelligent persons: well there has been a surprising lot of that. 

By far not all of it makes any sense, despite the intelligence behind it. This is 

because as we have seen, intelligence is no proof of knowledge nor openmindedness. 

These "intelligent writings" come in the forms of books, article 

collections, and loose articles. In the latter category are many useful things but 

impossible to list usefully here. The key authors to locate would be persons 

such as Allen Hynek, Frank Salisbury, and James McDonald. McDonald is especially 

significant in this form since his writings are not available in books. 

Abductions research has spawned several isolated articles worth noting: Leo 

Sprinkle's "Hypnotic Time Regression Procedures in the Investigation of UFO 

Experiences", Terence Dickinson 7 s "The Zeta Reticuli Incident" (vis-a-vis the 

Hill Star-Map controversy), Bloecher, Clamar, and Hopkins' "Summary Re-


port on the Psychological Testing of Nine Individuals Reporting UFO Abduction 

Experiences", Alvin Lawson's "Perinatal Imagery in UFO Abduction Reports", 

and John Mack's "The Abduction Syndrome: A Preliminary Report". 

An unending chain of other such materials could be listed. I'll stop with one 

further: Ron Westrum's "Social Intelligence about Anomalies: the Case of 

UFOs". These writings, when useful, tend to be by seriously committed people 

trying to push forward the research process. When not useful (as with Irving 

Langmuir's "Pathological Science"), they tend to be by arrogant egos attempting 

to stop it. 

Intelligent "article" writing in collected forms has also happened and is 

worth keeping on the UFO library shelf. Symposia Proceedings are the common 

venue for this, and five examples are particularly worth listing: 

1. The Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects (1968) held before the 

U. S. House of Representatives (one of the more readily available ways 

of reading the thoughts of James McDonald; Hynek, Sagan, Robert Hall, 

Harder, and Baker were the main speakers); 

2. UFOs- A Scientific Debate (1972), the Sagan-Page edited papers of the 

1969 AAAS convention symposium. Prominent participants included 

Hynek, Menzel, McDonald, Hartman, Baker, Roach and others; 

3. Proceedings of the 1976 CUFOS Conference with 35 speakers (including 

several non-U. S.); 

4. Proceedings of the First International UFO Congress; twenty-one entries 

from the meeting sponsored in 1977 by FATE magazine (despite 

the attitude toward anomalies typified by the sponsor, the great majority 

of the presentations were properly academic); 

5. The Spectrum of UFO Research, the 1988 compilation of the papers 

from the second CUFOS conference of 198 1 containing several classic 

papers in the field. 

Two further symposia proceedings are appearing as this is written, and will 

be worth reading: the TREAT I1 proceedings from the abductions research 

meeting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and the Abductions Study Conference 

held at MIT. The former has just appeared (late 1992) and includes nineteen 

offerings (including John Wilson, Kenneth Ring, and Eddie Bullard). The 

latter will appear (probably) in 1993 and (again probably) contain works by 

Mack, Jacobs, David Gotlib, Budd Hopkins, Michael Papagiannis, Mark 

Rodeghier, Paul Horowitz, David Pritchard et al. 

Collections exist for other reasons as well as memorializing conferences, 

and editors have collected works by their colleagues for our benefit in UFOlogy 

several times. Here are five of those "times" which remain worthwhile: 

1. The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Daniel Gillmor, editor. 

This is the practically unreadable but historically vital report of the 

notorious Condon Project. For the cognoscente it is highly intriguing, 

but it should be read by no one is isolation. David Saunders' and R.


Roger Harkins' UFOs? Yes! is an appropriate antidote to the misrepresentations 

(even more so are the internal project files, a few of which are 

deposited at CUFOS); 

2. UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist, Richard Haines, editor. 

A very intelligent group of articles by people like Westrum, Sprinkle, 

Phillis Fox, and Michael Persinger. 

3. The Humanoids, Charles Bowen (editor). This and the following two entries 

are more mixed as regards to scholarship, but contain useful essays. 

4. UFOs 1947-1987, Hilary Evans and John Spencer, editors. A modern 

tour-de-force of the field from an international perspective. This international 

perspective is vitally important for U. S. researchers in danger of 

becoming too mired in peculiarities of American pop culture; 

5. Phenomenon, John Spencer and Hilary Evans, editors. Similar sort of 

book as #4. It is almost as if Spencer and Evans had a bunch of essays 

and topics left over, flipped their names, and edited a second book. 

A new collection due to emerge soon, will be a collection of exceptional 

multiple abduction cases, edited by Dick Haines. 

On to "general UFO books" ... here, finally, is the category wherein interested 

outsiders expect to find their salvation to the problem of UFO ignorance. 

As we have seen, the common problem of dependency on the individual author 

is especially acute in the field of UFOlogy, so that anything I recommend 

here must be viewed in that light. There are, however, a limited set of such 

books which might suffice enlighten the reader if read as a group with full crap 

detectors up and working. 

The Top Ten: (in alphabetical order) 

1. Bullard, T. E. Abductions: The Measure of a Mystery (the deepest collection 

and analysis of CEIV's available): 

2. Hopkins, Budd Missing Time (wherein the pattern of the modern abduction 

scenario was first [partially] revealed. If one has time which is not 

missing, one should also read the follow-up, Intruders); 

3. Hynek, J. Allen The UFO Experience: a Scientific Inquiry (the defining 

volume of scientific UFO research); 

4. Jacobs, David Secret Life (the attempt to micro-describe the pattern of 

CEIV activities as originally sketched out by Budd Hopkins); 

5. Keyhoe, Donald The Flying Saucers are Real, and Flying Saucers from 

Outer Space (the best book sources to recapture the atmosphere of the 

1950's UFO community); 

6. Menzel, Donald Flying Saucers, and (Menzel and Boyd) The World of 

Flying Saucers (the most scholarly of the skeptical books, yet the easiest 

to see through); 

7. Michel, Aime The Truth About Flying Saucers and Flying Saucers and 

the Straight Line Mystery (the best for internationalizing your con-


8. Persinger, Michael and G. LaFreniere Space Time Transients and Unusual 

Events (from which comes all the hullaballoo about the Tectonic 

Stress Theory and electromagnetic field effects on the observer). To 

maintain full awareness of Dr. Persinger's evolving thought and research, 

one should monitor his ongoing series of papers in Perceptual 

and Motor Skills. 

9. Ruppelt, Edward The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (the eternally 

fascinating inside view of the USAF secret project); 

10. Vallee, Jacques The Anatomy of a Phenomenon and Challenge to Science, 

the UFO Enigma (the lasting contribution of the early Vallee, 

which with Hynek's volume brought many academics into the field). 

Note that several other highly suggested works have been previously mentioned 

in this review (perhaps most importantly for the "book reader", Jacobs' 

History). After one has assimilated the above, here are another dozen: 

la.Adamski, George (and Desmond Leslie) Flying Saucers have Landed 

(although obviously a hoax, no one claiming to understand UFOlogy 

should be ignorant of Adamski's tale and message, and how he ruled 

Flying Saucerdom in the '50's and '60's); 

2a.Barker, Gray They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (the real beginnings 

of the conspiratorial-paranoia element in UFO work written 

around a real but still-unexplained early incident); 

3a.Hal1, Richard Uninvited Guests (a good modern review of the field); 

4a.Jung, C. G. Flying Saucers (the origins of the UFOs as Archetypes of 

human hopes and fears theory); 

Sa.Klass, Philip UFOs Identified and UFOs Explained (the first two of 

Klass' books are probably sufficient to get the flavor of his mental approach 

to cases, and to judge the validity of the debunker view point. 

Some would say that UFO Abductions, A Dangerous Game should be 

included as well, but I disagree. To comment upon abductions research 

one should be knowledgeable either in case research or in some relevant 

established field - probably both. This author is neither. CEIV research 

has been best critiqued by responsible members within the UFO community 

itself); 

Ga.Lorenzon, Coral The Great Flying Saucer Hoax (the best book to appreciate 

the work and views of APRO and its worldwide civilian network); 

7a McCampbell, James UFOlogy (a professional engineer takes a technical 

look at the phenomena); 

8a.Maney, Charles and Richard Hall The Challenge of Unidentijied Flying 

Objects (intelligent early work by a physicist and a NICAP insider); 

9a.Randles, Jenny UFO Reality and (with Peter Warrington) Science and 

UFOs (the best two works by the prolific British expert); 

lOa.Ring, Kenneth The Omega Project (wherein Sociologist Ring tests the 

hypothesis that experiencers of certain spectacularly anomalous phenomena 

may have measurable mental traits in common);


1 la.Steiger, Brad Project Blue Book (although it pains me to even write the 

name down of such a "who cares about truth?" writer, this is the exception 

to the rule of no confidence. Here is a reasonable, descriptive review 

of the USAF Project); 

12a.Vallee, Jacques Messengers of Deception and Passport to Magonia (the 

two "middle years" works which encouraged much of the speculation 

vis-a-vis conspiratorial paranoia and New Age Parallel Reality opinions, 

respectively ... two emotional elements of UFOlogy still very much 

with us today). 

Such is a short list idiosyncratically but not arbitrarily picked, which, if 

read, would make one much more knowledgeable but not necessarily wiser 

about what has gone on in UFOlogy. Some of these writers, through their lenses, 

try to bring you closer to the data. At this, in my opinion, Hynek and the 

early Vallee are the best. Some of these writers do not at all look closely at the 

primary data. They are off hoaxing, gossiping, speculating or debunking. 

However, to obtain a rich enough understanding of the data, one needs to be 

wise to the "Sociology" and lens discolorations which have surrounded it. 

"Strange Stuff ': UFOlogy is like flypaper for the bizarre. Weirdness accretes 

almost instantly to mainline UFO research and causes endless problems in 

public relations with the academic community. The typical serious UFOlogist 

attempts to strip the field of all other extraordinary claims in the hopes of leading 

a more peaceful intellectual life. "Multiplying one's anomalies" multiplies 

one's troubles with one's peers. Because the removal of "other" strangeness 

proceeds on emotional grounds, it may or may not be proper; i.e. it may not be 

"other" at all. Nevertheless more UFOlogists than not relegate several forms 

of strangeness to the unadvertised "grey-basket", at least in public. 

The contents of the excised "grey basket" include among other things: cattle 

mutilations, crop circles, Bigfoot, the Face on Mars, Ancient Astronauts, 

Mot hman, Blessed Virgin Mary apparitions, the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, 

Tunguska, Leylines, Hollow Earth, AngelsIDemons, Messianic messages, 

Channeling, Reincarnations on other planets, Perpetual Motion machines, 

Psychotronics and Tesla machines, Dowsing, and the tenets of the Nevada 

School of Total Paranoia (this latter label will suffice to designate a loosely associated 

"school" of "thinkers" (?) who believe in a long-consummated dirty 

deal between the government and the UFOnauts, which has gone horribly 

wrong and has involved Kennedy assassinations, world-wide drug control, 

AIDS invention, and the using of homo sapiens as the main ingredient in the 

Extraterrestrial cook book). Some of these excisions are obviously proper; 

some may not be. All are defensive in nature. 

The point of this as regards the UFO research library is that all these things 

have been written about and often in connection with UFOs. If only to protect 

oneself, the UFOlogist needs to be aware of the best thinking on the subjects. 

Life is short; time is in demand, and it is a rare person who has the freedom or 

inclination to become smart on all these issues. When we decide to not make


the effort, we should probably just shut up about them - even the seemingly 

I 

craziest. However it is in many of these areas that the popular journals (IUR 

and MUFON J.) do their best services. Occasionally a rational individual will 

decide to review and critique one of these alleged UFO connections, and the 

rest of us can become a little smarter. Occasionally an article even appears in 

CSICOP's Skeptical Inquirer, which I monitor continually in hopes of locating 

the odd sensible thing which appears there. 

The other point that should be made is that few serious UFOlogists believe 

that there is anv good data for UFO connections to any of the above-named 

~ concepts (if, indeed, there is any good data for them simply on their own.) It 

may surprise you that major UFO researchers know that cattle mutes and crop 

circles exist, but are 90+% convinced that UFOs have nothing to do with them. 

"We" have no belief in the mysteriousness of the Bermuda Triangle, and are 

aware that the Tunguska Event was a carbonaceous comet. The Face on Mars 

is, as of now, just an interesting figure on a NASA picture, which should be explored 

without prejudice in the future. Ancient astronauts made none of the 

great buildings of our high cultures of the past; whether they inspired any of 

our legends is interesting but unsupported speculation. Atlantis didn't exist as 

an ancient hi-tech golden world, and we weren't there in past lives. Dowsing 

may or may not find water and broken electrical connections, but its relationship 

to UFOs seems to be zero. And Jesus and the Buddha surely do not live on 

Venus. 

UFOlogists continually have to protect themselves from bizarreness right 

across the "seriousness" spectrum. On the one end the Weekly World News 

may locate Elvis living with Allen Hynek on Pluto, but on the other Louis Farrakhan 

of the Nation of Islam tells his followers that he receives insight and the 

backing of UFO weapon power from UFO Motherships in near-Earth orbit. 

For your sanity I am not recommending that you read any of this stuff unless 

you are a professional folklorist, a student of cults, or a CIA-employee. Many 

of us in UFOlogy find our shelves cluttered with this material, because it is 

there, it is not just fun and games, and it often interferes with our work. 

An exception arises when something becomes so big and so real that it is 

worth spending some time with it. This has been the case with the English 

Crop Circles. Although there is very poor documentation of circles being related 

to "flying objects", the resemblance of the simpler ones to alleged UFO 

landing traces dating back to the Australia "Tully nests" of the '60's, made the 

connection inevitable. To date (ex. the summer of 1992) crop circle "research" 

has either been disorganized and undisciplined, or it has been unpublished. 

Many claims are made, but little documentation or detective-work ever appears. 

The status of the phenomenon is simply: it exists and no one yet honestly 

knows who or what is doing it. All options from weird meteorology to weird 

Britishers and on to weird aliens are still open. Dr. Terence Meaden's The Circles 

Effect and Its Mysteries is amazingly already out-dated, but it at least 

seems intelligently researched. The best overview seems to be Ralph Noyes'


edited collection The Crop Circle Enigma, which allows various views to try 

to make their cases. A cottage industry of Crop Circle journals has appeared, 

but whether any of them are particularly trustworthy it is too soon to say. 

Where is the proper presentation of data? Where are the proper publications of 

alleged lab tests? The situation almost appears to be mired in the sort of rollicking 

amateurism that is afraid to really probe into something which would 

spoil the fun. Until someone gets serious, the UFOlogist merely looks at the 

pretty pictures and, after smiling at the artistry, sets the whole business aside in 

the grey basket. 

Materials from non-UFO fields: UFOlogy is always bumping into other 

areas of knowledge and forcing its intelligentsia to learn something about 

them. My major personal task in the community has been to serve as a sort of 

"general science educator" for busy researchers who haven't the time to absorb 

all that stuff themselves. These subjects often turn out to be of lasting influence 

on UFO thinking, whether by skeptics or proponents. Certain basic 

points of information regarding Cosmology, Astronomy, Planetology, and the 

whole of Biological Evolution come up regularly, usually with enough ignorance 

added in by the speaker to create embarrassment or disgust in the mind 

of any listener in-the-know. The whole literature of SETI and the "Drake 

Equation Debate" has thereby insinuated itself into the business of UFOlogy 

whether anyone wanted it there or not. The research UFOlogist could use some 

depth familiarity with the material and have it ready on the shelves. Ongoing 

journals are not much use here, unless you are a fanatic and wealthy enough to 

subscribe to ICARUS. Short of that the Journal of the British Interplanetary 

Society would be nice. Most scholars would settle for a few of the best references 

in the field. A selection would be: 

1. Ashpole, Edward The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence; 

2. Billingham, John (ed.) Life in the Universe; 

3. Goldsmith, Donald and Tobias Owen The Search For Life in the Universe; 

4. McDonough, Thomas Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; 

5. MacGowan, Roger and Frederick Ordway Intelligence in the Universe; 

6. Ridpath, Ian Worlds Beyond; 

7. Shklovskii, I. S. and Carl Sagan Intelligent Life in the Universe; 

8. Shneour, E. A. and Eric Ottesen (eds) Extraterrestrial Life. 

It would be impossible to list readings for all the fields relevant to UFOlogy, 

but such a list appears here for the SETI material since it has grown together so 

intimately with the UFO subject. My research requires much deeper references 

both for SETI and the individual areas of science verging on the parameters in 

the Drake Equation, and the argument over the Fermi Paradox. Other UFOlogists 

require supplementary library materials in other areas: hypnosis, parapsychology, 

psychiatry, human reproduction, genetics, geophysics, meteorology, 

plant biology ... etc. etc. etc. Our inability to create a true academic-style


community with regular and ample fora for information exchange places great 

pressures on the individual to be a "Renaissance Man". The SSE and JUFOS 

and the emerging professional communities gathering about the abductions 

phenomenon may finally change all that. 

The field of UFO research has continued to defy being brought into any reasonably-sized 

intellectual boundaries. As its mysteries resist solution, its 

boundaries move dynamically with every new claimed characteristic and every 

new external concept applied. Thus this library tour can never end. But it will 

end in the same way we finite humans put an end to any path of complex questioning 

... we arbitrarily draw a line and quit. Now. 

Novice or veteran researchers wishing to accrue to themselves outstanding 

library and research materials should be aware of UFOlogy's finest book and 

documents source: Arcturus Book Service, 1443 S. E. Port St. Lucie Blvd. 

Port St. Lucie, FL 34952. 

References for the UFO Research Library 

Selected Case Documents and In-Depth Case Studies 

Basterfield, Keith. The Mundrabilla Incident. UFORA Catalogue A-6, Cairns: UFORA, 1990. 

Bloecher, Ted. Report on UFO landing and repair by crew. New Berlin, N. Y. case, Nov. 25, 1965. 

Bloecher Case File, CUFOS, December 15, 1973. 

Chalker, William. UFO activity in the Macleay area. Kempsey, NSW case. UFOZC Case Report. 

n. d. 

Collins, Andrew et al. The Aveley abduction. UFOIN Case Report, January 1978. 

Cruttwell, Norman. Flying saucers over Papua. (esp. the Fr. Wm. Gill case at Boianai), Papua, 

Cruttwell, March 1960. 

CUFOS Historical Documents Series. M. D. Swords, editor, Chicago, CUFOS 1992. 

1. The Portage County Police Chase 

2. The Betty and Barney Hill Case 

3. The Levelland, Texas e. m. vehicle interference case, and other of the coincident time period. 

4. The Kenneth Arnold Incident 

5. The Capt. E. J. Smith and Portland incidents. 

(Other cases in preparation.) 

Davis, Isabel and Ted Bloecher. Close encounter at Kelly and others of 1955. Evanston, IL., 

CUFOS, 1978. 

DeBack, J. F. et al. The Kaikoura (New Zealand) UFO controversy. New Zealand UFO Studies 

Centre Special Issue Number Four, September 1979. 

Fontes, Olavo. The UAO sightings at the Island of Trinidade. APRO Case Report File, 1958. 

Fontes, Olavo and Joan Martins. Report on the Villas-Boas incident, APRO Case Report Files, 

1958. 

Fowler, Raymond (editor). A close encounter of the third kind report (Andreasson case). 

CUFOS/MUFON Joint Case Report, January 1978. 

Fowler, Raymond. The Allagash affair. Mt. Rainier, MD.: Fund for UFO Research, 1990. 

Fuller, John. Incident at Eketer. New York, G. P. Putnam, 1966. 

Fuller, John. The interrupted journey. New York, Dial. 1966. 

Hynek, J. Allen and Philip Imbrogno. Night siege. New York, Ballantine, 1987. 

Long, Greg. Examining the earthlight theory: the Yakima UFO microcosm. Chicago, IL, CUFOS, 

1990. 

Maccabee, Bruce. The McMinnvillephotos. Prescott, AZ, Wm. Moore, 1981. 

Michel, Aime. The strange case of Dr. X. FSR 9, 3-16, 1969 (special issue number 3); and (part 

two) FSR 17,6,3-9, 1971.


Randle, Kevin and Don Schmitt. UFO crash at Roswell. New York, Avon, 1991. 

Ruppelt, E. J. Report of a trip to West Palm Beach, Florida, to investigate sighting of unidentified 

aerial objects by a Mr. E. S. Desverges. Blue book microfilm excerpt, Sept. 12, 1952. 

Rutkowski, Chris. The Falcon Lake Incident (Pt. I), FSR 27 (1),14-16; (Pt. 2 FSR 27 (2),15-18; 

(Pt. 3 FSR 27 (3), 21-25. 1981; plus Michalak, Stephen. My encounter with the UFO. Winnipeg, 

OSNOVA, 1967. 

Salisbury, Frank. The Utah UFO display: a biologist's report. Old Greenwich, CT, Devin-Adair, 

1974. 

Sprinkle, Leo. Impressions of the February 13, 1968 interview with Sergeant Herbert Schirmer. 

Condon Project Investigative Report, March 1968. 

Strand, Erling. Project Hessdalen. Final Technical Report, 1984. 

Swords, Michael (editor). Research note: Delphos, Kansas, soil analysis. Journal of UFO Studies, 

n.s. 3,115-133, 1991. 

UFORC. Report on unidentified flying objects observed February 24, 1959 by American-United 

Airline pilots (Killian Case). UFORC Special Report, February 24, 1960. 

United States Air Force. Project blue book case files of individual sightings. Washington, D. C., 

National Archives microfilms, 1977. 

Vanbrabant, Paul. The triangular mystery. NUFOC Special issue, 199 1, n.d. 

Walker, Walter and Robert Johnson. Further studies on the Ubatuba UFO magnesium samples. To 

be published in Journal of UFO Studies, n.s. 4, 1992. 

Webb, Walter. UFO encounter at Lowell and North Andover, Middleton, Massachusetts, October 

29, 1976. APRO Case File Report, June 5, 1977. 

Webb, Walter. The Dover demon, April 21 - 22, 1977. APRO Case File Report, September 13, 

1977. 

Webb, Walter. The BuffLedge incident. Unpublished Manuscript. 

Wertzel, William. The Portage County sighting (Dale Spaur Case). Final NICAP Case Summary, 

April 8, 1967. 

Zeidman, Jennie. A helicopter-UFO encounter over Ohio. Evanston, IL, CUFOS, 1979. 

This list was selected on two grounds: to illustrate "interesting" cases, and, 

more importantly, to point out the variety of types of "primary" case materials 

and their difference from the "typical UFO books" occupying collection 

shelves. The only "normal-appearing" books (Fuller, Randle-Schmitt, Hynek- 

Imbrogno, and, perhaps, Salisbury) were allowed on the list because they were 

written by authors close to the primary investigations, concern themselves 

with a precisely definable incident or set of incidents, and stay close to the 

less-polished primary investigative documents. 

Selected Data- Collections 

(Australian Catalogues) ... the Australian researchers have done, perhaps, the best job of data-collection 

and publication of any country's group. 

1. Basterfield, Keith. A source catalogue of Australlasian UFO and related reports. Prospect, 

SA, UFORA, 1980. 

2. Basterfield, Keith. A report on observations of UFOs from aircraft crew members in Australia. 

Lane Cove, NSW, UFORA, 1980. 

3. Basterfield, Keith. An In depth review of Australasian UFO related entity reports. ACU- 

FOS Report D-3, 1980. 

4. Basterfield, Keith and Paul Jackson. A preliminary catalogue of Australian vehicle interference 

UFO events. ACUFOS Report 0-12, n.d. 

5. Chalker, William and Keith Basterfield. An Australian catalogue of close encounter type 

three reports. UFORInc (SA), 1976 (and supplements). 

6. Moravec, Mark. PSIUFO Phenomena. ACUFOS Report D-14, Gosford, NSW, ACUFOS, 

1981. 

7. Moravec, Mark. the UFO anthropoid catalogue. ACUFOS Report D-5, Gosford, NSW, 

ACUFOS, 1982.


Ballester-Olmos, V. J. A catalogue of 200 type-I UFO events in Spain and Portugal. Evanston, IL, 

CUFOS, 1976. 

Bloecher, Ted. Report on the UFO wave of 1947. Washington, D. C., Bloecher, 1967. 

Falla, Geoffrey. Vehicle interference project. BUFORA, 1979. 

Greenwood, Barry. 1909 airship file. Original news clipping file, unpublished. 

Hall, Richard (editor). Electro-magnetic effects associated with unidentified flying objects. Washington 

D. C., NZCAe 1960. 

Hall, Richard (editor). The UFO evidence. Washington D. C., NICAP, 1964. 

Merritt, Fred. UFO landing leg marks. Unpublished Manuscript 1974. 

Olsen, Thomas (editor). The reference for outstanding UFO sighting reports. Riderwood, MD, 

UFO Information Retrieval Center, 1966. 

Pasterick, Gregg M. File of third kind encounters, 1947 - 1954. Columbus, OH, Pasterick, 1986. 

Phillips, Ted. Physical traces associated with UFO sightings. Evanston, IL, CUFOS, 1975. 

Rodeghier, Mark. UFO reports involving vehicle interference. Evanston, IL, CUFOS, 198 1. 

Saunders, David and Donald Johnson. UFOCAT (Center for UFO studies computerized case catalogue 

listing). Chicago, IL, CUFOS, 1992. 

Schneider, Adolf. Catalogue of 1080 UFO cases where electromagnetic and gravity effects were 

recorded. MUFON-CES, 1980, (supplemental 1983 to 13 19 cases). 

Schopick, Andrew. (Untitled manuscript of E-m cases). CUFOS archives, c. 1965. 

Webb, David and Ted Bloecher. HUMCAT (Humanoid-case catalogue). CUFOS archives, currently 

unpublished (being updated by D. Webb). 

. . . again, list selected so as to indicate desirability of data-closeness as a 

check against idiosyncratic interpretations of reported phenomena. 

Selected U. S. Government Documents 

Davidson, Leon. Flying saucers: an analysis of the Air Force blue book special report No. 15. 

White Plains, New York, Davidson, 1956. 

Fund for UFO Research. The government UFO collection (3 volumes). Mt. Rainier, MD, FUFOR, 

1981-1 985 (600+ pages of FOIA-released FBI, CIA, and Canadian government documents). 

Greenwood, Barry and Lawrence Fawcett. Clear Intent. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice 

Hall, 1984. 

Moore, William (editor). The mystery of the green fireballs. Prescott, Arizona, Moore, 1983. 

Moore, William (editor). U. S. Department of State documents on the Scandinavian ghost rocket 

phenomenon of 1946, Burbank, CA, Moore, 1985. 

NASA. Chronological catalog of reported lunar events. NASA technical report 12-277, Washington, 

D. C., NASA, 1968. 

U. S. Air Force Air Material Command. Project Twinkle final report. Dayton, Ohio, Wright-Patterson 

AFB, 195 1. 

U. S. Air Force Air Material Command. Project SIGN. Dayton, Ohio, Wright-Patterson AFB, 

1949. 

U. S. Air Force Air Material Command. Project GRUDGE. Dayton, Ohio, Wright-Patterson AFB, 

1949 (with appendices by Hynek, Valley, Rand, and the Aero Med Lab). 

U. S. Air Force Air Material Command. (ATIC). Special report no. 14: analysis of reports of 

unidentifiedjying objects. Dayton, Ohio, Wright-Patterson AFB, 1955. 

U. S. Air Force Air Material Command. U. S. Air Force projects GRUDGE and blue book reports 

1 - 12, 1951 - 3. Washington, D.C., NICAP, 1968. 

U. S. Air Force Air Material Command. (Scientific Advisory Board). Special report (O'Brien 

committee). Washington, D. C., USAF, 1966. 

U. S. Central Intelligence Agency. Report of meetings of scientific advisoly panel on unidentified 

jying objects convened by oflice of scientific intelligence CIA (Robertson panel). offprint and 

commentary available, Chicago, IL, CUFOS ). 

U. S. Congress (House committee on armed services). Unidentifiedjying objects. Hearings, 89th 

congress, 2nd session, April 15, 1966, Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, 1966. 

U. S. Congress (House committee on science and astronautics). Proposed studies on the implications 

of peaceful space activities for human affairs (NASA Brookings institution report). 

House report no. 242,87th congress, 1st session, vol. 2 serial 12338,1961.


U. S. Congress (House committee on science and astronautics). Symposium on unidentified$ying 

objects. Hearings, 90th congress, 2nd session. Washington D. C., Government Printing Office, 

1968. 

U. S. Department of Defense. Minutes qf press conference held by Major General John A. Samford, 

Director of Intelligence, U. S. Air Force, July 29, 1952 (following Washington, D. C. 

sightings). Washington, D. C., DOD, 1952. 

U. S. National Military Establishment. Project Saucer. Memorandum to Press April 27, 1949. 

(offprint Chicago, IL, CUFOS ). 

. . . other governments' documents can be interesting as well, most prominently 

the released Australian Air Documents, courtesy of researchers Edgar 

Jarrold and William Chalker; and the French government project GEPAN documents-studies, 

which are (unfortunately for linguistic ignoramuses like myself) 

not in English. 

Brief Listing of Important Journals. (English language, as usual). 

APRO Bulletin. 1952 - 85. 

Flying Saucer Review. 1955 - present. 

International UFO Reporter. 1976 - present. 

Journal of UFO Studies. 198 1 - 3. n.s. 1989 - present. 

UFO Investigator (NICAP). 1957 - 80. 

And, if you have the means: 

Austra1ian:ACOS Bulletin. 1975 - 79. 

Australian Flying Causer Bulletin. 1953 - 55. 

Journal Australian Center UFO Studies. 1980 - present. 

TUFOZC Newsletter. 1969 - 78. 

UFORA Newsletter. 1980 - present. 

Brazi1ian:The Flying Saucer. 1956 - 58. 

UFO Critical Bulletin. 1957 - 8. 

Canadian: Canadian UFO Report (Journal UFO). 1969 - 8 1. 

Swamp Gas Journal. 1978 - present. 

Great Britain:Journal of Transient Aerial Phenomena. 1979 - present. 

Magonia. 1979 - present. 

Northern UFO News. 1974 - present. 

New Zea1and:Flying Saucers. 1953 - 59. 

General European:(Italian published): UPIAR. 1976 - ? 

Other U.S.A.:CSI Quarterly Bulletin. 1952 - 54. 

CSI (NY) Newsletter. 1954 - 59. 

CRIFO Orbit. 1954 - 57. 

Just Cause. 1978 - 80; 1984 - present. 

MUFON Journal. 1967 - present. 

Saucer news. 1955 - earlier years. 

The Saucerian. 1953 - 62. 

Saucers. 1953 - 59. 

Space Review. 195 1 - 53. 

I 

UFO Newsletter (Munsick). 1956 - 60. 

. . . other journals offer occasional items of interest, or course (ex. Second 

Look, Pursuit, Fortean Times, Zetetic Scholar, INFO Journal, William 

Corliss' Science Frontiers, and many professional journals. One journal which 

1 should be quite valuable but, surprisingly, almost never has any well-re- 

I searched or otherwise useful material, is the Skeptical Inquirer. I recommend 

1 its subscription for certain other topics, but the quality of the UFO pieces is


Proceedings and Essay Collections 

Bowen, Charles (editor). The Humanoids. London, Neville Speerman, 1969. 

Center for UFO Studies. Proceedings of the 1975 CUFOS Conference. Evanston, IL, CUFOS, 

1976. 

Emerson, A. Douglas (editor). Thesis, Synthesis, Antithesis (AIAA meeting 1975). Los Angeles, 

AIAA, 1975. 

Emerson, A. Douglas and J. W. Robinson (editors). Our extraterrestrial heritage (AIAA meeting 

1978). Los Angeles, AIAA, 1978. 

Evans, Hilary and John Spencer. UFOs: 1947 - 1987. London, Fortean Tomes, 1987. 

Fuller, Curtis et al. (editors). Proceedings of the first international UFO congress. New York, 

Warner, 1980. 

Gillmor, Daniel (editor). Scientific study of unidentifiedjying objects. New York, E. P. Dutton, 

1969, (The Condon project report: chapters by its various experts). 

Haines, Richard (editor). UFO phenomena and the behavioral scientist. Metuchen, New Jersey, 

Scarecrow, 1979. 

Hynek, Mimi (editor). The spectrum of UFO research. Chicago, IL: CUFOS, 1988. (Proceedings 

of the 2nd CUFOS conference, 198 1). 

Farabone, Roberto (editor). International UPIAR colloquium on human sciences and UFO phenomena, 

Proceedings. Bologna, UPIAR, 1983. 

Laibow, Rima et al. Anomalous experiences and trauma. Proceedings of TREAT TI, Dobbs Ferry, 

New York, TREAT, 1992. 

Mutual UFO Network. MUFON symposium proceedings, 1971 - present, Seguin, Texas, MUFON 

Annual. 

Pritchard, David (editor). Proceedings of the ASC at MIT Conference. (Symposium book being 

prepared, 1992). 

Sagan, Carl and Thornton Page (editors). UFOs: a scientific debate (papers from the AAAS symposium, 

1969). Ithaca, New York, Cornell University, 1972. 

Spencer, John and Hilary Evans (editors). Phenomenon. New York, Avon, 1988. 

UFORA. UFO research in Australia and New Zealand. Richmond, Aus: Dynamo House, 1992 (a 

computer disk "book"). 

WAA.ALPO.AANC. Proceedings of the 1975 conference. Santa Rosa, CA, Try Press, 1975. 

. . . another collection in process which should add significantly to this list 

will be by Richard Haines (editor) on multiple abduction cases. 

Major Support Materials 

Clark, Jerome. The UFO encyclopedia. (2 vols., to be 3 when complete). Detroit, MI, Omnigraphics, 

1990 - 92. 

Eberhart, George. UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Contact Movement (2 vols.) Metuchen, N. J., 

Scarecrow, 1986. 

Gross, Loren. UFOs: A history (and other similar titles). (multi-volumed). Fremont, CA, Gross, 

1980 - present. These private volumes are being reproduced now by Bob Girard of Arctums 

Book Service. 

Haines, Richard. Observing UFOs. Chicago, Nelson-Hall, 1980. 

Hendry, Allan. The UFO handbook. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1979. 

Jacobs, David. The UFO controversy in America. Bloomington, Indiana University, 1975. 

Sachs, Margaret. The UFO encyclopedia. New York, G. P. Putnam, 1980. 

Story, Ronald (editor). The encyclopedia of UFOs. New York, Doubleday, 1980. 

Valuable Books, A Selection Calculated to Give an Overview of the Significant 

Elements of the Field. 

The Top Tier: 

Bullard, Thomas E. Abductions: the measure of a mystery. Mt. Rainier, MD, FUFOR, 1987 (2 volumes). 

Hopkins, Budd. Missing time. New York, Richard Marek, 198 1. 

Hopkins, Budd. Intruders. New York, Ballantine, 1988.


sailles, MO, MUFON, 50 - 78, 1991. As mentioned, the detailed reading 

should be taken up in the journals ICARUS, Journal of the British Interplanetary 

Society, and Origins of Life. 

Important Miscellani 

General Anomalistics and Crop Circles 

Corliss, William (editor). The handbooks and publications of the Sourcebook Project, especially 

Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena (1977); Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights and 

Related Luminous Phenomena (1982); and Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows and 

Related Electromagnetic Phenomena (1 984). Glen Arm, MD. 

Fort, Charles. The books of Charles Fort. New York, Henry Holt, 1941. 

Keen, Montague. 1991 scientific evidence for the crop circle phenomenon. Norwich, Norfolk, 

Elvery Towers, 1992. 

Meaden, G. Terence. The circles effect and its mysteries. Bradford-on-Avon, Artetech, 1989. 

Noyes, Ralph (editor). The crop circle enigma. Wellow, Bath, Gateway, 1990. 

Selected Curatives to Certain Non-Anomalistic Foolishness which Invades 

UFOlogy. (Ancient Astronauts building pyramids, Stonehenge, Nazca Plains 

et al; High-technology Atlantis; Bermuda Triangle). 

Aveni, Anthony F. (editor). Native American Astronomy. Austin, University of Texas, 1977. 

Decamp, L. Sprague. The ancient engineers. New York, Ballantine, 1960. 

Krupp, Edward C. In search of ancient astronomies. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1978. 

Krupp, Edward C. Echoes of Ancient Skies. New York, Harper and Row, 1983. 

Kusche, Lawrence. The Bermuda triangle mystery solved. New York, Harper and Row, 1975. 

Morrison, Tony. Pathways to the gods. New York, Harper and Row, 1978. 

Ramage, Edwin (editor). Atlantis: fact orfiction? Bloomington, Indiana, 1978. 

Selected Works on the Paranormal 

(UFOlogists are constantly confronted by elements in their field which are 

potentially characterized as "paranormal", yet few researchers actually know 

anything about the field. Proper research would be to regularly consult journals 

like J. American Society of Psychical Research, J. of Parapsychology, Research 

in Parapsychology (the abstracts of the Parapsychological Association 

conventions), the Princeton PEAR publications, the Zetetic Scholar debates, 

and the Journal of Scientific Exploration. Rhea White's Exceptional Human 

Experience, the Journal of Near-Death Studies, and Marilyn Ferguson's 

Brain/Mind Bulletin are also potentially relevant. Since this level of time expenditure 

"outside the field" is possibly too much to expect, a few book selections 

follow). 

Alvarado, Carlos S. Research on spontaneous out-of-body experiences in Shapin, Betty and 

Lisette Coly (editors). Current Trends in Psi Research. New York, Parapsychology Foundation, 

1986. 

Blackmore, Susan. Beyond the body. London, Heinemann, 1982. 

Davidson, H. R. E. and W. M. S. Russell (editors). The folklore of ghosts. Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 

1982.


Gackenbush, Jayne and Stephen LaBerge (editors). Conscious mind, sleeping brain: perspectives 

on lucid dreaming. New York, Plenum, 1988. 

Hardy, Christine. Science and altered states of consciousness. Paris, Editions de Rocher, 1988. 

Hufford, David. The terror that comes in the night. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 

1982. 

Krippner, Stanley (editor). Advances in parapsychological research (multi volumes continuing). 

New York, Plenum, 1977 - present. 

Plank, Robert. The emotional significance of imaginary beings. Springfield, IL, Charles Thomas, 

1968. 

Rao, K. Ramakrishma (editor). Case studies in parapsychology. Jefferson, North Carolina, Mc- 

Farland, 1986. 

Ring, Kenneth. Life at Death. New York, Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1980. 

Rogo, Scott (editor). Mind beyond the body. New York, Penguin, 1980. 

Sabom, Michael. Recollections of death. New York,Harper and Row, 1982. 

Tyrrell, G. N. M. Apparitions. London, Duckworth, 1953. 

Wolman, Benjamin (editor). Handbook ofparapsychology. New York, Van Nostrand, 1977. 

Zaleski, Carol. Otherworldjourneys. New York, Oxford, 1987. 

Selected works on Frontier Science Thinking (for UFOlogists with impoverished vision vis-a-vis 

the possible). 

Bohm, David. The enfolding-unfolding universe. Re Vision, (summer) fall 1978), 24 - 51. 

Bohm, David. The implicate order: a new approach to the nature of reality. Beyond Mechanism 

(editor David L. Schindler), New York, University Press, 1986. 

Davies, Paul. God and the new physics. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1983. 

Davies, Paul. The mind of god. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1992. 

Davies, Paul and J. R. Brown. The ghost in the atom. Cambridge, Cambridge University, 1986. 

Forward, Robert. Future magic. New York, Avon, 1988. 

Hey, Tony and Patrick Walters. The quantum universe. Cambridge, Cambridge University, 1987. 

Mallove, Eugene. The quickening universe. New York, St. Martins, 1987. 

Moms, Michael and Kip Thorne. Worm-holes in space time and their use for interstellar travel. 

American Journal of Physics, 56,395 - 412, 1988. 

Penrose, Roger. The emperor's new mind. New York, Oxford, 1989. 

Waldrop, Mitchell. String as a theory of everything. Science, 229, 1251- 53, 1985. 

. . . and having experienced the above perhaps one could risk reading "dangerous" 

authors like Fritjof Capra, Nick Herbert, Fred Wolf, and Michael Talbot.

A Guide to UFO Research - Society for Scientific Exploration

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