Atlantis in the Amazon

If you're one of those people who - like me - have a nagging, deep suspicion that, as a species, we have tragically lost to the fog of time an incredible and sensational body of data on cultures, civilizations and cities long, long-gone, then Atlantis in the Amazon is most certainly a book for you.

Published by Bear and Co. - who put out countless excellent titles, and whose catalog I heartily recommend - the book is part-road-trip, part-real-life adventure, part-detective story, and all-things enlightening.

Written by Richard Wingate - check out his movie Atlantis in the Bahamas - this new title presents the reader with data, facts and theories on a scenario that is as thought-provoking as it is disturbing.

The story essentially begins when we are introduced to Wingate's personal, on-site studies of the much-talked-about controversies surrounding Father Carlo Crespi - an Italian priest who moved to Ecuador in the early years of the 1920s - and his curious and captivating collection of priceless artifacts of gold and bronze.

But, there's much more to the story - at least some of those same artifacts appeared to portray evidence of ancient, fantastic technologies of a type that science and mainstream history tell us simply cannot have existed in the distant past.

But, utterly against all the odds, what if they did? And, if so, who were the makers of such astounding machines - including possibly even early, ancient aircraft (yes, you did read that right!)? How and why did they flourish only to vanish beneath the waves in the millennia-old cataclysms and catastrophes that numerous, priceless old texts tell us pummelled the Earth - and those that called it home - all those thousands of years ago?

These (and many more) are the questions that Wingate seeks to answer in Atlantis in the Amazon. Of course, numerous locales have been suggested as the origins for the tales of Atlantis and its mighty people. But, Wingate's theory is a particularly fascinating one, and he ties it in with the Father Crespi saga in a fashion that held my attention throughout.

For me, certainly, the most notable part of the book was that dealing with the Mahabharata - one of the two prime Sanskrit depictions of ancient India, the other one being the Ramayana.

Atlantis in the Amazon discusses the Mahabharata from the perspective and possibility that, in very distant times, the ancients possessed the secrets of the atom and may have tragically unleashed its terrifying power on the battlefield, thus laying to waste entire, largely-forgotten cultures and their fantastic technologies in the process.

Controversial? Certainly! But, I urge you to read Wingate's words on what sounds eerily like an incredibly old atomic skirmish - and one that may have radically altered the course of history and civilization.

Indeed, Wingate suggests that perhaps an early branch of humankind - who may have flourished in ways beyond our wildest dreams - was ultimately reduced to a struggling rabble in the wake of ancient nuclear exchanges. The result: they chose to destroy, or hide, any and all remaining evidence of the fantastic technologies that led to their disastrous downfall, and of which we - today - occasionally stumble upon enigmatic evidence and legends.

Could such a scenario be true? Are we merely the latest in possibly even a long line of civilizations that have surfaced, flourished, and ultimately reached the point of near-complete exterminaton? Are we now teetering on the brink of destruction? And if the unthinkable happens, will our world one day be viewed - tens of thousands of years from now, by the people of that era - as nothing more than the stuff of legend and folklore?

These are just some of the issues and questions that Richard Wingate's book brings to mind.

Atlantis in the Amazon is an excellent study of a forgotten, buried past that may have been as fantastically advanced as it was ultimately tragic. Let's hope we don't go the same way as those that came before us, and become merely the stuff of fairy-tales and mythology.

Monsters of Wisconsin

This past weekend, I reviewed Linda Godfrey's latest book - Monsters of Wisconsin - for my weekly Lair of the Beasts column at Mania.com. Here's the link to the review, which, if you want to find all the latest news on Bigfoot, werewolves, lake-monsters, flying nightmares, and even out-of-place wallabies and kangaroos, you'll definitely want to read!

Investigating the Impossible

The guys at Anomalist Books - Patrick Huyghe and Dennis Stacy - have been busy lately, as is evidenced by the fact that they have unleashed upon us an excellent selection of new titles that I'll be reviewing right here, including Grassroots UFOs by Michael D. Swords and Robert Cracknell's The Lonely Sense.

But, there's yet another new title from Anomalist Books, and it's one that I finished reading over the weekend: Ulrich Magin's Investigating the Impossible: Sea-Serpents in the Air, Volcanoes that Aren't, and Other Out-of-Place Mysteries.

This is a wonderfully weird collection of articles and papers from Magin that are presented to the reader via an intriguing format. The book is basically split into four-sections, titled Air, Earth, Fire and Water.

So, in the Water section we get to read about sea-serpents and Nessie. In Fire it's the aforementioned volcanoes that aren't. In Earth it's sacred landscapes, crop circles and...well, you get the picture by now, right?

Let's start with Air, a section that devotees of all-things of a Mothman nature will definitely want to read. Did the glowing-eyed, winged beast put in an appearance at Italy's Lake Garda just a couple of years ago? Was something strange and diabolical really roaming the skies? Or was the entire affair provoked by far more down-to-earth phenomena? The answers can be found in a fine and intriguing piece of detective work!

In the same section, for fans of secret-aircraft, UFOs pre-dating the Kenneth Arnold era, rumors of advanced German technologies, and perhaps even a bit of skillful psychological-warfare, there's an excellent article titled The German Border Patrol In Their Flying Machines. And who can resist a feature on one of the more bizarre aspects of cryptozoology: winged serpents? Not me!

When it comes to Water, whatever your views on tales and traditions of sea-serpents and lake-monsters, this is a section of the book that most assuredly will not disappoint. And, indeed, it was the section that I found most engaging and thought-provoking.

Magin's approach to the controversy surrounding the Loch Ness Monster is as refreshing as it is insightful, and focuses on what we really know (which may actually not be what many think they know!) about the very earliest years of Nessie-themed research and reports.

Also of particular interest is the odd saga of the weird-looking critter of Spain's Rio Genil. This is a case - from the 1950s - with which I was not overly familiar, but that most certainly strikes a significant chord in the high-strangeness stakes. What was it that was dwelling in the waters of the Rio Genil more than half a century ago? Good question!

In Earth, Magin tackles the controversial 1678 story of the so-called "Mowing Devil" - an affair that some Crop Circle researchers conclude may offer evidence that the now-legendary formations in the fields are far older than many assume.

The Mowing Devil controversy has been addressed in a number of books; however, I'm pleased to note that Magin looks at the matter from a somewhat different - although certainly related - perspective, demonstrating that the story is far from dead and buried, and one still worthy of commentary and study.

Tales of allegedly out-of-place ships and boats (very out-of-place!) also dominate this particular section of the book, and demonstrate Magin's ability to dissect and entertain us with quirky tales from the fringes of Forteana. Legend, rumor, reality? Well, half the fun comes from reading Magin's words and conclusions, so I won't spoil things for you, except to say that this is an undeniably captivating aspect of Forteana that will not disappoint.

Finally, there's Fire and those mysterious volcanoes that aren't...or weren't...or maybe, for a while, really were! If that sounds somewhat cryptic, well it's meant to be!

You might think that volcanoes and Forteana make for strange and highly unlikely bed-fellows. Well, after reading this section of the book you will likely be forced to change your opinion.

It's clear that this is an area of research for which Magin has a great deal of time, interest and affection, and he regales us with tales of near-phantom-like volcanoes surfacing, provoking havoc, and then mysteriously vanishing into the murky depths from which they first surfaced. Or did they really surface at all? Might all the tales be simply that - tales? If so, were they just fanciful stories and hoaxes? Or did they have some basis in reality - albeit of a more down-to-earth nature?

I've never really been that interested in volcanoes, but Magin crafts a superb story (across several papers) of how they have come to play a significant and long role in folklore, mystery and Forteana.

And, with that all said, I will leave you with the following words: Ulrich Magin's Investigating the Impossible is a first-class, highly-enjoyable, and deeply informative study of a wide variety of infinitely odd phenomena that Forteans everywhere should have on their book-shelves. Charles Fort would be proud and pleased!

Tabloid Man

When people ask me about my favorite books, I'm often met with surprise when I tell them that most of them have very little - and, more often than not, absolutely nothing - to do with the realms of Ufology, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the many and varied similar topics that occupy much of my time.

Amongst my most cherished of all titles are Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles; and Jack Kerouac's Big Sur.

But, if I was put on the spot and asked to name my all-time favorite, it would have to be Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary, which tells - in a definitively-masterful, and definitively-Gonzo style - the entertaining story of Thompson's early years and journalistic adventures on Puerto Rico, a place for which I have a great affinity, having worked there on a number of occasions.

And, it's perhaps because - having spent more than 20-years in the field of freelance-journalism myself - I can deeply relate to Thompson's literary romps in and around San Juan, that I immensely enjoyed Tabloid Man & the Baffling Chair of Death by Paul Bannister, which is a new book written very much in the spirit of the Gonzo-master's own work. And a fine piece of work Tabloid Man is, too, being equal-parts illuminating, hilarious, insightful and adventure-driven.

Bannister, like me, is a transplanted Brit, now living in the United States, and someone who - also like me - spends his days and nights earning a crust in the realm of freelance journalism. And, as Tabloid Man demonstrates - and as I can attest, too - it's a realm that can be as rewarding as it can be harsh, and as bizarre as it can be unpredictable (but in a very good way, if you keep your wits about you, and have a love of getting into the thick of things in search of a rollocking good story).

Basically, Tabloid Man tells the story of Bannister's life as a near-constantly-on-the road journo for numerous tabloids, but chiefly for the National Enquirer and its legendary boss, Generoso Paul "Gene" Pope, Jr., a fascinating character with a somewhat ruthless flair for business, a brilliant mind, and near-Machiavellian links to none other than the CIA.

Given that Bannister spent many a year paying the bills courtesy of the Enquirer, we get to learn a great deal about his excursions to foreign and far-away lands in search of all manner of story - but very often relative to Hollywood scandal, sensational murder cases, and much more of an entertainingly controversial nature.

Particularly jaw-dropping are the stories Death by Python and Cougar Attack, which are as graphically horrific as they are fantastically captivating. Much the same can be said for Mafia Hit Man - a Sopranos-style affair from Bannister that provides a unique insight into the world of the hired assassin. In other words, Bannister is someone who has literally been there, done that, and lived to tell the tale.

But, one of the reasons I am so keen to review Tabloid Man is because our fearless author was someone who was at the absolute forefront of covering stories of a definitively paranormal nature for the Enquirer.

Indeed, the book's sub-title (...& the Baffling Chair of Death) is a direct reference to an engagingly-weird story of an old, seemingly innocuous-looking, chair that, for many years, stood in a Yorkshire, England pub, eagerly inviting one and all to sit in it. The problem is that those who chose to do so often met with very quick and fatal ends. Or, at least, so the legend goes. Of course, for the Enquirer, as Bannister notes, this story was practically Manna from Heaven. Yep, the tale of the chair was a controversial one; but, by God, for getting one's foot in the door, it was a good one too!

It was also a story that - having helped secure for himself a good position and a "can-do" reputation with the Enquirer - led Bannister to be dispatched just about here, there, and everywhere in hot pursuit of further supernatural-themed stories, including tales of spectral Roman soldiers, encounters with the psychic-spies of the CIA, the spoon-bending exploits of Uri Geller, and a multiplicity of all-things ghostly and ghastly.

Coupled with highly amusing stories of (A) carefully-modified expense-claims (surely not!), (B) copious amounts of free-flowing booze, (C) adventures in exotic climes, (D) the undeniable camaraderie that comes with working with fellow-freelancers on breaking, historic stories, (E) last-minute flights to the other side of the planet, courtesy of the Enquirer, and (F) doing whatever needs to be done to get the story and earn the dollars, Tabloid Man is a first-class account of what goes behind the scenes in the the world of freelance journalism and its links to Hollywood, deep scandal, and all-things supernatural.

But, Tabloid Man is far more than just that. It's also a celebration of what it means to live rather than just to exist, of doing things on one's own terms, of grabbing the proverbial bull by the horns, and of the always-unpredictable adrenalin rush that accompanies the words of your forever-demanding editor: "Get on a plane to Thailand; someone has just seen Elvis!" Or, something like that anyway!

To purchase your own copy of Paul Bannister's Tabloid Man, go to: www.bannisterbooks.com. Disappointed, you won't be!

Para-News

Some of you may know of Richard Thomas, who has written for Binnall of America and Stuart Miller's now-closed down Alien Worlds magazine. Well, Richard has his first book out right now, titled Para-News (for all the details, click on this link).

Richard asked me if I would write the Foreword for his book, which I was pleased to do. And although this blog essentially focuses on my reviews of new books, the Foreword (copy-pasted below) will give you a good idea of its contents, style and scope.

Here it is:

When Richard Thomas asked me if I would be willing to write the foreword for his very first book, saying "Yes!" was not a problem at all. Over the last few years, I have followed Richard's work at Binnall of America, and in the pages of Stuart Miller's unfortunately short-lived Alien Worlds magazine. And not only have I followed his writing: I have also seen it grow and develop in scope, depth, subject-matter, and style.

Plus, as is very clear from his written output, Richard has a great passion and enthusiasm for those puzzles, people, and places of the outer-edge variety that he pursues. All of these are (or certainly should be!) essential character traits when it comes to investigating weird phenomena, and/or interviewing Fortean experts in their respective fields.

There's nothing worse than tired, old has-beens, utterly jaded and worn by their time spent chasing the ufological, the cryptozoological, the paranormal, and the supernatural. Thankfully, Richard is none of these! What he is, is someone who is constantly striving to learn more, share his data with others, and to do the latter in an informative, entertaining and thought-provoking fashion.

So, if your interests include (A) strange and ominous beasts of a type that science says cannot, and do not exist, but that cryptozoologists say otherwise; (B) weird and enigmatic outer-space conspiracies; (C) the intricacies of time-travel; (D) spooks and spectres from the other side; (E) the way in which science-fiction and science-fact often cross paths to truly astonishing degrees; and (F) and the ominous Orwellian road that our society seems to be evermore traveling down, then this is most certainly the book for you!

Monstrum! Buy Now! By Gad!

Originally published more than twenty-years ago, Monstrum! A Wizard's Tale is a book that, if you didn't read it first time around, you most definitely should now. Why? We'll, here's why: the good folk at CFZ Press (Jon & Corinna Downes and Co.) have just made available a brand new edition of this mighty, monster-driven classic.

Penned by the legendary Tony "Doc" Shiels - truly a phenomenon as much as a man - it's one of those books that should not just be carefully devoured by cryptozoologists everywhere, but also by ufologists, ghost-hunters, and just about anyone and everyone with more than a passing interest in what has come to be known as Forteana.

I read the original edition of the book around 1992, re-read it a few years later, and still continue to do so now and again - most recently, of course, when Jon Downes generously forwarded me a copy of the new edition for review.

It has to be said from the outset that Monstrum! is the type of book that will most certainly polarize its readers into two camps: (A) those who (like me and Squire Downes) believe that Shiels has perhaps come closer than most to truly understanding the real nature(s) of the many and varied anomalies of our world (and particularly so that curious band of enigmatic critters that includes the Loch Ness Monster, Owlman, Sea-Serpents, and Mothman); and (B) those souls who outright reject the words of its author, largely because they don't understand (or fail to fully comprehend the significance of) Shiels' character, his outer-edge talents, and precisely what it is that he is telling them, revealing to them, and even inviting them to partake in - if they dare, that is.

That Shiels is part-"Wizard of the Western World," part-Trickster, part-stage magician, a conjurer of "things," and someone whose approach to monster-hunting hardly endears him to regular cryptozoology ("regular cryptozoology," of course, perhaps being the ultimate oxymoron!), has led more than a few observers to view Shiels' words, findings, conclusions and photographs (of Nessie, no less) to be less than sound.

Too bad for them.

Those who hold such views have utterly failed to understand and appreciate what it means to be Doc Shiels. His is a world filled with a deep understanding of the real nature of magic (chaos and ritualistic), the secrets of invocation and manifestation, of the game of the name, of twilight realms just beyond - and that occasionally interact with - our own, and that aforementioned Trickster-like phenomenon.

Doc's is also a domain where, when we dare to imagine the fantastic, when we decide to seek it out, and when we finally accept its reality (but not forgetting that it can be as manipulative and malignant as it can be illuminating and playful), we perhaps provide it with some form of quasi-existence.

If you're someone for whom the Nessies just have to be plesiosaurs, the Bigfoot are giant, presently-unclassified apes, and sea-serpents are simply hangers-on from an era long gone, and who stubbornly refuse to go the way of the Dodo, then take careful heed: for you, I can say with absolute certainty, the journey is most definitely going to be a distinctly bumpy one.

If, however, you recognize there are deep - very deep - problems borne out of the fact that the Bigfoot never get hit by cars, and they never finish up shot dead in the forests; that lake-monsters are often seen poking their long-necks and multi-humped-backs out of ridiculously small bodies of water that just could not adequately sustain them; and that a literal, giant bird-man simply cannot be lurking in the darkened woods of Cornwall, England - even though you're fully aware that people have clearly seen the nightmarish entity on many occasions - then the winding, rollercoaster trip will be as welcome as it will be informative and enlightening.

That Shiels is a skilled, excellent and atmospheric story-weaver is a major-plus, too, when it comes to digesting and comprehending the message that Monstrum! projects. He carefully captures our attention from Page 1, takes us back to an era-long gone - the mid-to-late 1970s, when strange, dark and disturbing things were afoot in ancient Cornwall, England - and sets the scene for what sounds like a sadly-never-made 1960s Hammer horror-film, starring such stalwarts of the scene as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, and Michael Ripper.

The main-act takes us into the hidden realms of the wee-folk of centuries-past, of occult high-jinks, of witches and ritual, of the raising of monsters, of dark goings-on in ancient woodland (often, appropriately, at the witching-hour), and of torturous and terrible things - some called upon, others manifested, and some, perhaps, resurrected in new guises to suit the mindset of the latter part of the 20th Century.

And out of all this intriguing high-strangeness, spill forth the undeniable stars of the saga: the Owlman, Morgawr, and the creatures of Loch Ness. And not forgetting the Shiels clan itself, in all its surreal (in the truest sense of the word) glory.

When most of the action took place, I was barely 10 or 11 years old. But, I still have vivid memories of that blisteringly-hot summer of 1976 when the British Isles were hit, blighted, blessed (take your pick) by a wealth of definitive monstrous madness and a pummelling sun. And Shiels was deep in the heart of it. Hell, an extremely convincing argument can be made that had Shiels not been on the scene, there would not even have been a scene - at all.

It's important to note this is not a veiled allusion on my part to Shiels-inspired hoaxing or fakery. Rather, it's a reference to the (in my humble opinion) undeniable fact that the monsters of our world need us just about as much as we need them. And when mood, mindset, and setting are at their most harmonious, then reality, fiction, surreality, fantasy, hoaxing, magic, and trickery blend in ways that many dismiss, that others ignore, but that some - hopefully you! - come to appreciate as the means by which, in simple terms, weird shit really does happen, and the creatures of the deep, of the shadowy woods, and of monolithic, snow-capped peaks, come calling.

The worst thing you can do is to ignore Monstrum! Carefully reading it, and understanding it, may be one of the defining moments of your life.

If you're in the United States, you can buy Monstrum! by clicking on this link. And if you're in Britain, here's where to go get hold of a copy.

Real Aliens: A New Steiger-And-Steiger Title

The very latest in an excellent series of titles from the husband-and-wife team of Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger, Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from other Worlds, is yet another winner, I'm pleased to say.

Running at almost 400-pages, and packed with superb artwork (paintings, photographs and drawings), this is one of those books that is not only highly informative, but (just like all the books from our Iowa-based Dynamic Duo) it's written in an entertaining and atmospheric style that captures the imagination of the reader from page-one, and holds their attention throughout.

With that said, what about the content? Well, now we get to the really good stuff. Whether you're a Ufological veteran or a relative newcomer to the scene, Real Aliens will serve as a perfect resource tool - one from which you'll (a) learn a great deal about the nature of the UFO puzzle, (b) gain new insights and appreciations of cases old and recent, and (c) come to realize the sheer enormity and multifaceted nature of the phenomenon.

The book is split into specific sections, which I particular enjoyed, as it allows the reader to dip into whichever area they choose to first, and doing so doesn't affect one's ability to understand and appreciate the data under scrutiny either.

So, we get sections on the many and varied types of entity that have been reported over the decades, including, of course, those pesky, black-eyed dwarfs: the Grays. Detailing intriguing and, sometimes, harrowing data, as well as the possibility that the Grays may well be time-surfers, this is an excellent section that gets to the heart of the agenda of the pasty, skinny abductors from beyond.

Those long-haired hippie-like E.T.'s that came tumbling out of the deserts of California, Arizona and Nevada in the early-1950s - the Nordic Space Brothers - are also the subject of an excellent chapter that provides a very good, solid account of this particularly engaging (to me anyway) aspect of the UFO issue. Who are the Nordics? Are they friends? Messengers? Deceptive entities with devious agendas? You know what to do to get those answers: buy the book!

Our fearless authors also take another very welcome blast into the past: in search of hairy humanoids, such as those diminutive types that popped up in the early '50s, and, of course, the world's most famous hair-covered man-beast: Bigfoot. I've said it before, but that won't stop me saying it again: Bigfoot is not just weird and elusive. Rather, Bigfoot is just too damn weird and elusive! And Brad and Sherry make this amply clear in Real Aliens, by chronicling a number of significant cases that push Bigfoot into distinctly Fortean territories.

I was very pleased to see a whole chapter devoted to one of those ufological beasts that doesn't usually get the attention it deserves, and as a result, often languishes in somewhat of a degree of enigmatic obscurity: the Praying Mantis. Insect-like, slightly ominous (and almost echoing imagery of the classic 1950s movie, Them!), one gets the feeling from reading this particular chapter that these entities (whatever their origins) play a substantial, and under-appreciated role in the non-human agenda.

And there are further chapters on the other-world critters too, including the more-than-ominous Reptilians, and robotic types reminiscent of Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (I mean the 1951 original; not the recent remake).

Moving on from specifically the alien entities themselves: if you're into stories of underground bases, underwater installations, and cavernous abodes of a type that would have had Richard Shaver and Ray Palmer foaming at the mouth, you're in for a treat. Have beings from other realms of existence secretly established outposts on (and under) our world? Do they secretly move among us, at night, after surfacing from their darkened abodes? Might some of these creatures represent the last vestiges of a very ancient race of terrestrial - rather than extraterrestrial - origins? You'll find a great deal of food for thought on these very issues in this particular chapter.

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to have sex with a blistering hot, Barbarella-style space-babe? Go on, admit it: of course you have! After all, who could say no to Truman Bethurum's flirty and curvy Aura Rhanes?

Certainly, the most famous of all such cases - described in detail in Real Aliens - is that of a certain Antonio Villas Boas of Brazil, whose October 1957 encounter with an attractive chick of the cosmic kind, is now near-legendary. But, as the Steiger's correctly note, some such cases seem downright malevolent, and appear to demonstrate characteristics suggestive of encounters with incubus and succubi, rather than with flesh-and-blood E.T.'s. So, after reading this chapter, you might want to be very careful with respect to what you wish for...

Kind of on a similar path, the highly controversial issue of alien-human hybrids is also given the Steiger treatment. To many, this issue is all indicative of a clandestine, genetic program - and maybe one that has a disturbing agenda. Namely: to infiltrate our society with human-looking aliens. Sleepers, in other words. I was, however, pleased to see that Brad and Sherry note the deep and undeniable parallels between alien abduction, hybrids and kidnapped babies, and the centuries old stories of people who claimed to have met the fairy-folk. Are we dealing with real E.T.'s? Or is this a presently unfathomable puzzle that, depending on the culture, the people and the time-frame, manifests in a multiplicity of forms: extraterrestrials, fairies, goblins, Djinns, etc, etc? All in all, this is a very good section of Real Aliens that demonstrates one of the weirder aspects of the entire phenomenon.

Certainly, in my opinion, the most fascinating chapter is that titled Aliens: Deceivers or Deliverers? This one gets to the very crux of the saucer enigma, and demonstrates (a) the undeniable fact that just because some entity, or disembodied voice, claims to have alien origins, it may be pure folly to take it at its word, and (b) the notable crossovers and parallels between messages from alleged aliens and those communications secured via psychic means. Friendly entities from far away, or our ultimate nightmare manifesting in kindly, camouflaged form? I hope the former; however, I often suspect it's really the latter...

And, in summary, you'll also find a wealth of data in the packed pages of this book on the E.T. connection to religion (both in times-past and times-present); astronaut encounters with UFOs; an absolutely classic early Man in Black experience; connections between the Nazis, UFOs, and the occult realm; presidential knowledge of UFOs; and a great deal more.

Real Aliens is a highly enjoyable, deeply absorbing, and immensely informative title that - by covering so much wide and varied territory - makes it abundantly clear that there is a very real UFO presence in our world. And it's one that has been interacting with us for a very, very long time - and often at a deeply personal level, too. But, it's also a phenomenon that clearly has the upper-hand. Sometimes it exhibits friendliness, at other times it displays Trickster-style characteristics, and on more than a few occasions it's downright malevolent and malignant.

So, in summary with respect to Real Aliens, what can I say but: A definitive encyclopedia of the extraterrestrial variety!