Description

Introduction – By John A. Keel
For twenty years a pathetic assortment of crackpots and cultists have ruled the "flying saucer field," screaming to an amused world that we are being invaded by tiny green men from some other planet, and passing on absurd messages of faith and good will which they claimed they received telepathically from the all-seeing, all-knowing "Brothers" in Outer Space. And for most of those twenty years the general press and the public have laughed at the "UFOnuts" and ridiculed anyone who reported seeing anything unusual in the sky. The real mystery in this multi-faceted enigma, however, has been how our governments and our scientific establishment could overlook the astounding amount of sincere reports from honest, and often well-trained, citizens. Equally baffling, there has been an almost complete lack of reasonable, rational investigation into this subject. Hardcore "Ufologists," as they call themselves, have frantically collected random newspaper clippings and indulged in fanciful speculations based upon a narrow range of pseudo-scientific knowledge tainted with the mystical and the occult. Very few of the many books published on "flying saucers" have attempted to collate the available "hard facts" and review statistically the vast amount of data now available. Now, at long last, a highly qualified science writer, Otto Binder, has reviewed this overwhelming mass of material - twenty years of sightings and information - and organized it into a meaningful and lucid book. He has done a remarkable job of sifting fact from fantasy and truth from nonsense. If there is a "secret" to the UFO mystery, it can be found somewhere in these pages. While the fanatics and "contactees" of dubious character have been ranting about tall, blond Venusians who are coming to save us from the evils of our ways, thousands of more ordinary citizens have been living in the midst of a little publicized terror. They have been burned, paralyzed and, in a few cases, even killed by the presence of these mysterious objects in our skies. Brave Air Force pilots have died pursuing them. Our power systems, radios, and vehicles have been mysteriously blacked out or stalled when the UFO's were overhead. Thousands of witnesses have been harassed or ridiculed into silence, and official explanations for the phenomenon have steadily grown more absurd, hinting at some kind of governmental desperation. Mr. Binder skillfully gives us the whole story, with names, dates, and documentation. A story whose telling is long overdue. The sacred cow of Science is reduced to hamburger in these pages, and our own pitiful inadequacies come sharply into focus when you consider the vastness of the Universe and the limitations of our knowledge. While we are spending billions to hurl slender firecrackers into space, our governments - and a large part of the public - still refuse to recognize the possibility that some life form somewhere else in space might be sending more sophisticated instruments to our own pathetic little mudball. Those of us who have followed the UFO situation closely are beginning to realize that this is more than a "scientific problem." Much more. It encompasses the whole history of mankind and embraces all of the world's religions. A number of serious researchers now believe that the unidentified flying objects and their elusive occupants were here long before Man, himself, appeared, and that they will be here long after we have faded away. They may, in fact, be a natural part of our environment and may never enter into open contact with us. Perhaps you, yourself, have seen something inexplicable in the sky. And you may have bought this book to find out something about what that "thing" was. It may comfort you to know that millions of others have also seen "flying saucers" and we do know much more about these things than most people realize. Here are all the facts and figures, along with the educated speculations of many experts. It all