Dedicated to the Scientific Study and Investigation of Unidentified Flying Objects

While the Internet has become the reference of choice for many people interested in ufology, not so long ago every serious investigator and researcher in this field would have agreed it was all about books, and he or she could tell you what books and references on his shelf were the best and strongest. What the field has lacked for many years though, perhaps decades, is a single book that you could hand to your skeptical or just-don’t-know-about-it friends, and have them “get it.” One book that would make them say, “OK, *NOW* I see why you spend time on this.”

In 2010 that book was published. In our estimation, this is the best single book on “Why UFOs Matter” to come out in decades. From having read the hundreds (literally) of books on our bookshelves, we can say it is totally different from virtually all UFO books because of its author’s cautious perspective; the quality of the witnesses and their accounts; and finally, its survey of other nations’ UFO programs (two European and three other nations). In combination, these qualities make for an outstanding book.

Investigative journalist Leslie Kean spent ten years researching this book, never expecting, she says, to find all of the astonishing first-hand accounts she presents. As she tells it, it took her a long time to decide that UFOs do, in fact, present a significant and very real mystery. Many of the US and foreign “officials and pilots,” themselves witnesses, contributed their own chapters to the book. The astonishing UFO maneuvers displayed, and the high standing and highly-trained nature of these excellent witnesses, obliterate simplistic ideas of “hoaxes” or “misidentifications.”

Leaving no stone unturned, Kean also reviews the information released to date under the FOIA, and what that information points to. In addition to plenty of government interest, it indicates over and over that UFOs are guided by some form of intelligence; for example, by choosing the precise exact moment to disable aircraft weaponry before it could be engaged against them. Forget about “secret” information: the publicly-released FOIA information alone proves clearly that UFOs’ maneuverability, ability to remain stationary at great height, and vanish from both sight and radar, have always greatly interested US and other military establishments.

Finally, this book (and only this book) details what other nations’ governments have done in response to the UFO problem. What they have done is to establish official UFO analysis, coordination and reporting programs within their governments, in some cases in the military, in others, the space program. France in particular has been a leader in completing thorough investigations and sharing the outcome with the public, as well as with the UK, Peru, and Chile. These countries and others seek a world-wide organization which cooperatively works to determine what UFOs are, where they come from, and what they are doing in our air space. The US remains silent as a stone.

In detailing all this, the book calls out the US Government position on UFOs for what it is: Blind denial of what other advanced nations already acknowledge. What the other nations’ programs acknowledge, what they have in common, is the operating position that some small percentage of UFO sightings are both physical-evidence-heavy, and unexplained, and therefore significant and worthy of study. Yet our government continues to say it hasn’t investigated UFOs since the University of Colorado Study (“The Condon Report”) concluded there was no justification for it, some 43 years ago. It’s all swamp gas, delusions, hoaxes, mistakes, misidentifications, and my personal favorite conclusion, ‘Science will not be advanced by further study.’ Anyone who still believes those absurd conclusions were correct and defensible needs to read this book. This one book alone should do it.

Ms. Kean has been brave enough to step forward and tell it like it is. We can only hope that she and the book continue to gain widespread publicity and impact, as they have since late 2010. Buy this book, recommend it, lend and share it with others, whatever their take on UFOs. If enough people demand it, perhaps the US will lead the world again, on this as it has in so many other areas of human progress. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.

For more on the book, see http://ufosontherecord.com/.

©2012 MUFON of Georgia.