In these twilight days of the mass-market paperback, I was delighted to see a honest-to-goodness flying-saucer paperback with appropriate hyperbole on its cover:
“Shocking accounts of UFOs observed during times of conflict.”
“Includes Incredible Photographs of UFO Sightings!”
If you have any interest in Fortean topics, that has got to warm the cockles of your heart. Having grown up in the 1970s with an eye toward the oddball and the obscure, this was what most of these books did.
Whether it was Trevor James Constable claiming to have solved the enigma of observed unidentified flying objects using Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbusters (they were really amoeba-like plasma creatures inhabiting the upper atmosphere, flickering in and out of human visual range) or T. Lobsang Rampa, the Tibetan Lama who just happened to inhabit the body of a British plumber in order to write his autobiography, THE THIRD EYE, and its increasingly peculiar sequels.
Now having actually read this current book in question, Mack Maloney’s UFOS IN WARTIME, I’m somewhat shocked at how decent a little paperback it actually is.
There is very little original research to it. It’s written by a military fiction novelist. There are no incredible photographs inside.
But at the same time, it’s affordable and easily available. It’s paced well, written in a crisp and clear manner. It collects accounts from numerous sources and draws lines between them to compile a substantial amount of fairly credible information in between its covers. As such, it already knocks out 90 percent of its competition.
That the author refuses to give any answers to the puzzle, but simply presents a parade of stories from antiquity to the first Gulf War, makes it far more believable than any of the researcher preachers who are spouting their alien-infested opinions as gospel.
Maloney’s credibility is further boosted by his willingness to dismiss popular stories like Roswell as unlikely at best. That’s not an opinion to inflate the sales among the believers.
In essence, UFOS IN WARTIME simply points out that there is a long history of recorded observations of peculiar aerial objects by mankind. It promotes the crazy concept that it might be worth looking into, and not just make automatic mockery of it simply because of the multitude of loonies attached to the field. It follows in the footsteps of serious researchers like Jacques Vallee, Keith Chester and Leslie Kean, and adds to the chorus of honest curiosity.
This is not about little green (or gray) men doing proctological exams. It’s not about the reptilian overlords of the universe. It’s not even about any government conspiracy. It’s simply about considering the massive wealth of reliable and not-so-reliable witnesses observing something they can’t explain.
So even if UFOS IN WARTIME isn’t a “great” book even in the small field of Forteana, it’s an eminently readable gateway drug, and quite possibly the last mass-market paperback of its kind. —JT Lindroos
Related posts:
- Final Events and the Secret Government Group of Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife
- The Black-Out Book: 500 Family Games and Puzzles for Wartime Entertainment
- Monstrum!: A Wizard’s Tale
- Ripley’s Believe It or Not!: Seeing Is Believing
- Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times
