UFOs: A History / The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse

Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2020

With more than 1500 pages, this is a massive undertaking by SSE Dinsdale Award winner, Jerry Clark. This two-volume third edition is buttressed by his decades of research in the field of UFOs. For this encyclopedic effort he is supported by several competent researchers with international reputations. Typically, my reviews of written works by SSE members tend to be quite favorable as I recognize the difficulty of getting our research into print. This work definitely left me conflicted in an attempt to be both fair to the authors and to the potential readers. In general, the material that is included does provide considerable depth to the cases selected for presentation. As this is the third edition, much of that material has been previously published. Clark and his colleagues have in-depth knowledge of many of the earlier cases and these are well represented. What I found most troubling were some glaring omissions that are hard to reconcile with an encyclopedia that suggests it is c...

October 10, 2023 update. After an effort of many years, I have prepared a comprehensive timeline of UFO history that will be useful to UFO researchers and historians. “UFOs and Intelligence” is an up-to-date retrospective of UFO history (from Agobard of Lyons to the newly appointed US investigation agency UAPTF), intertwined with events in US and world history concerning military and civilian intelligence agencies and the cult of secrecy. It is now 679 pages and more than 555,000 words (including a substantial “Sources and Further Reading” appendix). Readers will discover or rediscover many events, people, and UFO cases they may not be familiar with. Some will find it useful for current or planned research projects. Military cases, those involving commercial aircraft, close encounters involving physical traces and other evidence, reports involving occupants or entities, and events surrounding military and sensitive nuclear sites are emphasized, but this timeline covers the full spectrum of UFO history, from contactee experiences to misidentifications of mundane phenomena and notorious hoaxes. Links to online sources are given, and links to biographical information are provided when available. A timeline like this allows us to view events from a different perspective, letting us make connections we might not otherwise see. It forces us to view the big picture, amid the grand flow of UFO cases, military security decisions, a vast swathe of personalities, and world history.

Proceedings of the Sign Historical Group UFO History Workshop , 1999

Foreword: History is often concerned with heritage and origins. The question applies as much to UFOs as any other subject. For example, where in time do genuine UFOs begin? Was 1947 the beginning or a turning point in UFO history, as opposed to human perceptions of the phenomenon? We all know that anomalous aerial phenomena have always been with us, as the portents and prodigies of primeval and medieval times, the Fortean anomalies of the scientific age, the phantom airships, ghost fliers, foo fighters and ghost rockets that predate Kenneth Arnold. But is there a genuine continuity in the phenomenon? Folklorist, Thomas Bullard affirms, “UFOs as the experiential phenomenon and UFOs as the popular cultural myth entangle in a knot of confusion. I suspect that this entanglement stands as one of the greatest impediments to understanding the nature of UFOs, and scientific acceptance of UFOs as a subject worthy of serious attention. A historical perspective offers a grip on the end of the string, a chance to untangle the mess to some degree.” Behind this perplexing UFO history is a whole history, or mythology of modern science, less well known, stretching back to the sixteenth century. What Karl Guthke terms “a heritage of Copernicanism; the modern myth, or the myth, of the modern era, [without which] the image of man since the Copernican revolution would be decidedly poorer.” The fact is, the question of extraterrestrial life, rather than having arisen in the twentieth century, has been accepted by the majority of educated persons since, at least, the Scientific Revolution, and in many instances was employed to formulate philosophical and religious positions in relation to it. As William Whewell observed, in his 1853 treatise, Of A Plurality of Worlds: An Essay, popular ideas about a multiplicity of inhabited worlds “are generally diffused in our time and country, are common to all classes of readers, and as we may venture to express it, are popular views of persons of any degree of intellectual culture, who have, directly or derivatively, accepted the doctrines of modern science.” So as Professor Michael Crowe put it, “even if no UFOs hover in the heavens, belief in extraterrestrial beings has hovered in human consciousness for dozens of decades.” UFOs, and, the experiential aspects of UFO history are, seemingly, inextricably entangled in the myth of the modern era. This then, is simply an attempt to grab hold of the end of the string.

1986

Over 5,500 English-language monographs on UFOs (unidentified flying objects), from the most substantial to the most ephemeral, are included in this bibliography. Nearly 6,000 UFO or related articles in English-language periodicals not specializing in UFOs have been listed. About 2,200 foreign-language books, 1,350 UFO and related periodicals, and a large number of domestic and foreign government documents, non-print materials, conference proceedings, and unpublished papers are represented. Books and articles have been grouped by topic wherever possible. General UFO overviews and unspecific editorials will be found in all-inclusive sections. Other types of material are arranged by format. Volume One includes topics related to traditional UFO studies, while Volume Two encompasses the Extraterrestrial Contact Movement--groups and individuals who claim to be in contact with aliens from somewhere else.

Theology and Science, 2019

After 70 years of ignorance and frustration in the study of UFO phenomena, the author reviews a recent strategy presented by Dr. Jacques Vallée. As a consequence, an alternative approach and planning, thought to be viable, is proposed. The Selective Strategy, as it is termed, is aimed to achieve final findings confined to a limited span of time, as opposite to an infinite period. Its implementation necessitates the concourse of the community of serious UFO researchers to support and coordinate this major worlwide project.

SUNlite, 3(3), 17-18., 2011

Folklore, 2011

International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 2021

American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, by D.W. Pasulka. 2019, Oxford University Press. Hb. $24.95. ISBN-13: 9780190692889.