Product Description

Attitude towards ufology need not only be black and white, believer or skeptic; there is another way, as this groundbreaking book makes clear. Three noted ufological investigators present a range of international case studies where a strong argument for positive UFO identification was once logged but, after the evidence was exhaustively analyzed…found wanting. The reader is led through the detective work as it was undertaken by the authors and others and is shown how reported sightings – in some case faithfully recorded and genuinely believed – have proved to be honest mistakes, fakes, or false identifications.

It is a book with laudable aims. It provides both a salutary lesson for the unquestioning believer, hopefully persuading this element of the readership to adopt a more studied approach, and shows the doubter that many ufologists are prepared to pursue the most stringent evaluations of sightings to further their knowledge, and the understanding of others. All those intrigued by the topic will learn from this volume and, at the very least, will be shown that thorough investigation is never wasted.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1954506 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 237 pages

About the Author
Jenny Randles is one of Britain’s leading commentators on ufology and the paranormal. She has written over 20 books and has contributed to many TV and radio programs. Dr. David Clarke is a journalist and writer who has established a unique working relationship with the Ministry of Defense on various ufological investigations. Andy Roberts has worked on several TV programs devoted to this subject and written extensively for magazines in the field.

Customer Reviews

SAME AS IT NEVER WAS
following is the text of a review I wrote that appeared in the Fortean Times:

SAME AS IT NEVER WAS Some famous UFO cases yield less than meets the eye

The UFOs That Never Were Jenny Randles, Andy Roberts and David Clarke London House, London, 2000, hb £16.99, pp244, index, notes, illus. ISBN 1 902809 35 1

I once had the opportunity to ask a brusquely competent literary agent what he knew about the UFO book market. Not much, he replied, but "I know books that say they don't exist don't sell." Let us hope that bleak Fate bypasses this excellent volume, which gives its game away in bold block letters on the cover.

*The UFOs That Never Were* is a collaboration between Jenny Randles, one of the field's most consistently interesting authors, and Andy Roberts and Dr. David Clarke, both veterans of numerous inquiries into mysteries of British earth and sky. Their book deconstructs in detail a number of well-known UFO cases, primarily British, which on closer examination appear attributable to mundane causes. These include events such as the mysterious sky phenomena off the Butt of Lewis in 1996, the Howden Moor "crash retrieval" rumors, and the legendary Rendlesham Forest incident, here subjected to a lengthy and masterful deflation. Randles draws on the admirable work of James Easton to argue compellingly that this "best-attested case of a UFO crash outside the US," as it has been described, was in fact caused by, well, a lighthouse. It's a depressing finish for a tale that once promised to achieve something of the mythopoeic status of Roswell.

In a broader sense, *The UFOs That Never Were* is a welcome antidote to the sloppy research that fills a good deal of the saucer bookshelf. "Famous cases" easily achieve a life of their own, the garbled details repeated faithfully by one hack after another. Yet such cases sometimes evaporate under close scrutiny, and it's a pleasure to watch these authors take us step by step through the detective work involved in a genuine investigation.

Reality being a messy business, the answers they find often are incomplete and complex. Andy Robert's solution to the Berwyn Mountain "UFO crash" of 1974, for instance, involves an earthquake, bolide meteors and poachers hunting at night with powerful lamps, a coincidence that leaves one longing for the parsimony of a simple spaceship. Roberts is well-known for his barbed wit concerning Britain's hapless alphabet soup of saucer organizations; here he seems restrained, but the comedy still seeps through in his description of the angry conniptions that ensued in some corners of ufology following his discovery that the perfectly good flying saucer of Yorkshire's Cracoe Fell was in fact a shelf of reflective rock on a hillside.

If ufology seems clueless, the "authorities" remain gutless, as Randles found while investigating film footage of a ball of light seen by numerous witnesses near Long Crendon in 1973. A half-dozen of the UK's leading atmospheric physicists viewed the film, decided it was not ball lightning and agreed they had no other explanation for it, yet declined to investigate further. After all, there are research grants to be pursued, and no one condemned to toil in academic mills wants a whiff of heresy clinging to his name. (Somewhere, Charles Fort gave a low chuckle.) Randles ultimately found evidence that the phenomenon was caused by a malfunctioning F-111 dumping and igniting fuel at a dangerously low altitude-and near a school! Understandably, the military establishment did not turn handsprings with eagerness to further her investigation.

For the most part, the authors restrict themselves to the facts of each case at hand, although they offer little comfort to anyone still hoping for extraterrestrial visitors. Dr. Clarke in particular is fond of criticizing one pseudoscience (ufology) in the language of another (sociology). Thus the UFO phenomenon is a byproduct of "an age preoccupied with space travel"-fair comment for a brief slice of the fifties and sixties, perhaps, but today? As a would-be Martian colonist, I would like nothing better than to see more evidence of this preoccupation, but as JG Ballard has suggested, it seems increasingly clear that the "Space Age" is not only over but a fading memory. Yes, yes, Star Wars and Treks, that silly Grey's mug plastered on every item China can craft from plastic; all a part of the pop culture, no question, as are boy bands and vapid Japanese cartoons. Why one part of this spectrum should unhinge so many has not yet been explained to my satisfaction.

That mandatory quibble aside, this seems to me to be most intelligent book on the UFO phenomenon published in several years. It would be a shame, though perhaps not a surprising one, if *The UFOs That Never Were* fails to make some impact on the enthusiasts who line the deeply eroded divides of ufology, for this excellent work could and should serve as a model for serious UFO inquiry. Alas, the true believers seem largely incapable of such efforts, while the American-style "skeptics" will no doubt prefer to continue debunking cases from afar, with that eerie clairvoyance vouchsafed only to the CSICOP faithful.

SAME AS IT NEVER WAS
I once had the opportunity to ask a brusquely competent literary agent what he knew about the UFO book market. Not much, he replied, but "I know books that say they don't exist don't sell." Let us hope that bleak Fate bypasses this excellent volume, which gives its game away in bold block letters on the cover.

*The UFOs That Never Were* is a collaboration between Jenny Randles, one of the field's most consistently interesting authors, and Andy Roberts and Dr. David Clarke, both veterans of numerous inquiries into mysteries of British earth and sky. Their book deconstructs in detail a number of well-known UFO cases, primarily British, which on closer examination appear attributable to mundane causes. These include events such as the mysterious sky phenomena off the Butt of Lewis in 1996, the Howden Moor "crash retrieval" rumors, and the legendary Rendlesham Forest incident, here subjected to a lengthy and masterful deflation. Randles draws on the admirable work of James Easton to argue compellingly that this "best-attested case of a UFO crash outside the US," as it has been described, was in fact caused by, well, a lighthouse. It's a depressing finish for a tale that once promised to achieve something of the mythopoeic status of Roswell.

In a broader sense, *The UFOs That Never Were* is a welcome antidote to the sloppy research that fills a good deal of the saucer bookshelf. "Famous cases" easily achieve a life of their own, the garbled details repeated faithfully by one hack after another. Yet such cases sometimes evaporate under close scrutiny, and it's a pleasure to watch these authors take us step by step through the detective work involved in a genuine investigation.

Reality being a messy business, the answers they find often are incomplete and complex. Andy Robert's solution to the Berwyn Mountain "UFO crash" of 1974, for instance, involves an earthquake, bolide meteors and poachers hunting at night with powerful lamps, a coincidence that leaves one longing for the parsimony of a simple spaceship. Roberts is well-known for his barbed wit concerning Britain's hapless alphabet soup of saucer organizations; here he seems restrained, but the comedy still seeps through in his description of the angry conniptions that ensued in some corners of ufology following his discovery that the perfectly good flying saucer of Yorkshire's Cracoe Fell was in fact a shelf of reflective rock on a hillside.

If ufology seems clueless, the "authorities" remain gutless, as Randles found while investigating film footage of a ball of light seen by numerous witnesses near Long Crendon in 1973. A half-dozen of the UK's leading atmospheric physicists viewed the film, decided it was not ball lightning and agreed they had no other explanation for it, yet declined to investigate further. After all, there are research grants to be pursued, and no one condemned to toil in academic mills wants a whiff of heresy clinging to his name. (Somewhere, Charles Fort gave a low chuckle.)

Randles ultimately found evidence that the phenomenon was caused by a malfunctioning F-111 dumping and igniting fuel at a dangerously low altitude-and near a school! Understandably, the military establishment did not turn handsprings with eagerness to further her investigation.

For the most part, the authors restrict themselves to the facts of each case at hand, although they offer little comfort to anyone still hoping for extraterrestrial visitors. Dr. Clarke in particular is fond of criticizing one pseudoscience (ufology) in the language of another (sociology). Thus the UFO phenomenon is a byproduct of "an age preoccupied with space travel"-fair comment for a brief slice of the fifties and sixties, perhaps, but today? As a would-be Martian colonist, I would like nothing better than to see more evidence of this preoccupation, but as JG Ballard has suggested, it seems increasingly clear that the "Space Age" is not only over but a fading memory. Yes, yes, Star Wars and Treks, that silly Grey's mug plastered on every item China can craft from plastic; all a part of the pop culture, no question, as are boy bands and vapid Japanese cartoons. Why one part of this spectrum should unhinge so many has not yet been explained to my satisfaction.

That mandatory quibble aside, this seems to me to be most intelligent book on the UFO phenomenon published in several years. It would be a shame, though perhaps not a surprising one, if *The UFOs That Never Were* fails to make some impact on the enthusiasts who line the deeply eroded divides of ufology, for this excellent work could and should serve as a model for serious UFO inquiry. Alas, the true believers seem largely incapable of such efforts, while the American-style "skeptics" will no doubt prefer to continue debunking cases from afar, with that eerie clairvoyance vouchsafed only to the CSICOP faithful.

ugh
Let's get two things straight:

1) There is no such word as "ufology" nor could there ever be. Only someone with the most execrable taste and no understanding of language or logic whatsoever could proffer such a monstrosity.

2) "U.F.O" stands for "Unidentified Flying Object". ALL the flying objects mentioned in this book were ONCE unidentified, and thus its title is perfectly idiotic.