From about the age of 10 I was an avid follower of the UFO mystery. I read every book on the subject that I could find in the library and bought many more. After half a lifetime following the topic I can categorically state that 90% of what’s written about the subject is crap and about 99% of the authors who write such material are spouting bullshit. In recent years the rising babble of the Internet has made matters even worse.
Like many others I vacillated from one viewpoint to another, ending up in the strongly sceptical camp. I believe we’re dealing with a complex set of phenomena and there’s no single simple answer. The true-believer types (particularly Americans it seems) clinging to the peculiarly 1950’s ETH (Extraterrestrial Hypothesis – i.e. real live aliens in nuts and bolts flying saucers) have done immense damage to the field and bring automatic ridicule any attempted research.
So coming across this book was a breath of fresh air – a UFO book that wasn’t trying to push any agenda or outlandish scenario. Instead we get an old-fashioned investigation, the author and his colleague travel from the UK to the USA trying to get to the root of the many aspects of UFO mythology. What they find probably both is and isn’t a surprise – that many of the core stories of modern ‘ufology’ are probably disinformation seeded into the community by intelligence agencies and the like (the “Mirage Men” of the title). Something of a turn-around from the usual conspiracy theories but having read the book it makes sense – the modern UFO community have made themselves useful idiots sucking up and repeating this nonsense, providing cover for all sorts of government activities. Needless to say this book won’t be popular with the ETH crowd and they’ll stick to their beliefs which are becoming more like organised religion every day...the author has already been smeared as an enemy by many of them.
In the end we all love a good mystery and resent mundane reality trampling over our dreams.
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