UFO books!

Just for a different perspective, I'd highly recommend any of William Lyne's books starting with Occult Ether Physics: Tesla's Hidden Space Propulsion System and the Conspiracy to Conceal It.

A pretty good independent review/synopsis of Lyne's works can be found here.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Budd Hopkins books!!

I highly recommend "Sight Unseen", "Witnessed", and "Intuders" by Budd,
ALSO "Secret Life" by David Jacobs

I also just finished one called "Abducted" by Ann Andrews & Jean Ritchie, a real page turner - very interesting!

These books I couldn't put down, there have been some others that i very easily put down - and haven't picked them up again yet

I have a fairly large library. For those looking for objective reading material this is a good start. There are some books here I don't fully endorse, but I include them simply because they provide valuable perspective.

Knowing what I know now this is the order I would have read them:

NOTE: The UFO Encyclopedia (vol 1 & 2) by Jerome Clark is an excellent companion to have on hand while researching this subject.

1. Science and the Failure to Investigate Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - Leslie Kean, executive summary of the UFO problem.
   
2. Disclosure - Steven M. Greer, M.D., govt. witness testimony (mixed bag of very credible and some not so credible individuals)
   
3. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects - Edward J. Ruppelt (also freely available online here), Ruppelt was one of the first project directors with Blue Book and predating Blue Book worked on Projects Grudge & Sign.
   
4. The Hynek UFO Report - J. Allen Hynek, Scientific consultant to Project Blue Book, debunker turned believer, eventually founding the Center for UFO Studies. Provides insights in to the operations at Blue Book and brings forward several of the better cases.
   
5. Firestorm, by Ann Druffel, biography of Dr. James E. McDonald's (senior atmospheric physicist at the University of Arizona) and his research in to the UFO phenomenon
   
6. The Flying Saucers are Real - (freely available online) Donald Keyhoe, USMC officer, ex-NICAP director, one of the first civilians to push for government disclosure, of what he viewed, as a cover-up.
   
7. UFOs: A scientific debate - Carl Sagan and Thornton Page. Great thoughts and insights. Exposes some fairly obvious biases of the leading minds of the time.
   
8. Flying Saucers from Outer Space - Donald Keyhoe, exposé on Keyhoe's findings after a cooperative effort with the USAF.
   
9. Project Beta : The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth - Greg Bishop, a seminal piece showing to what extent the US (specifically the AFOSI) used (or perhaps uses) counter-intelligence techniques against UFO proponents.
   
10. Shoot Them Down! - The Flying Saucer Air Wars Of 1952 - Frank Jr. Feschino, could use some editing, issue aside, the book conclusively demonstrates the unlikeliness US citizens were simply observing TS military aircraft.
    
11. A world history of UFO's - Hilary Evans & Dennis Stacy, provides a broad view of UFO history, giving interesting testimony from Quintanilla, Adamski, Pflock and nicely covers the Allagash abductions, England UFO Flap of the '60s, and some other rather profound cases that otherwise go unnoticed ('54 Australian UFO "invasion," African UFOs, Soviet Ufology, etc)
    
12. Dimensions - Jacques Vallee, computer scientist & astronomer, delves in to the mythical & psychological aspects of the phenomenon.
    
13. The UFO Evidence - Volume 2 - Richard H. Hall, tough reading for some, going over many many quality cases in great detail.
    
14. UFO-FBI Connection - Bruce Maccabee, Ph.D, Naval optical physicists, don't let the cover fool you, Bruce is one of the few legitimate ufologists. Provides evidence of government agencies' involvement in UFO matters over several decades, evidence gathered straight out of government files, mostly from FBI and Air Force Intelligence files, but also includes other agencies.
    
15. Above Top Secret - Timothy Good, respected British broadcast journalist, shows many national governments continue to suppress information about UFOs, focusing on post-World War II era (focus on CIA and USAF files)
    
16. UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist, Richard F. Haines, discusses eyewitnesses of the UFO phenomenon and many of the complex sociocultural factors that surround them.
    
17. Project Identification: The First Scientific Field Study of UFO Phenomena - Harley D. Rutledge, Ph.D, 620 volunteers over a seven year period of time, Dr. Rutledge's study demonstrates through time lapse photography the physical nature of this phenomenon. Even touching on what some felt was an "awareness" of the objects to the observers.
    
18. Unconventional Flying Objects - Paul R. Hill, Ph.D, physicist and distinguished NASA scientist, discusses the basic science and technology behind the UFO characteristics.
    
19. Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion: Tesla, UFOs, and Classified Aerospace Technology - Paul A. LaViolette, Ph.D, perhaps overly sensational, but still good content. LaViolette reviews numerous field-propulsion devices and technologies that have thrust-to-power ratios thousands of times greater than that of a jet engine and whose effects are not explained by conventional physics and relativity theory.
    
20. UFOs National Security - Richard M. Dolan, considered by many the best current history of UFOs ever written. Detailing activities of more than fifty military bases relating to UFOs, innumerable violations of sensitive airspace by unknown craft, analyses of the Roswell controversy, the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel, and the Condon Committee Report.
    
21. Passport to Magonia - Jacques Vallee, specializing in Celtic lore, Dr. Vallee strings folklore of old with the modern day UFO phenomenon, demonstrating UFOs did not originate in modern times.
    

(continued below)

[edit on 30-3-2009 by Xtraeme]

"Operation Trojan Horse" John Keel

"Passport to Magonia" Jacques Vallee

Both quite old books but pretty essential reading as they delve into the psyche of UFOs and their place within folklore.

Many of the books published in the 50s/60s/70s tend to be less agenda driven and merely seek to catalogue various sightings thus leaving the reader to make up their own mind as to their veracity and the credibility of the witnesses.

(continued)

1. The UFO Enigma - Peter A. Sturrock, Ph.D, Stanford physics professor, hard scientific analysis of radar cases, even handed, and debunks government bureaucratic obfuscation smugly dismissing UFO events.
   
2. Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe - Karl T. Pflock, a good pedantic, if not harsh, take on Roswell. However not all of Pflock's conclusions are fully backed in fact, some are easily steeped in position.
   
3. The Roswell Incident - Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore, the first Roswell book, starting the phenomenon.
   
4. Crash at Corona: The U.S. Military Retrieval and Cover-Up of a UFO - Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear physicist, original civilian investigator of the Roswell incident.
   
5. Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic-12 and the United States Government's UFO Cover-up - Stanton T. Friedman, research from 20 archives and libraries, and with the assistance of handwriting and document verification experts, makes a case for the authenticity of the MJ-12 documents.
   
6. The UFO Experience, A Scientific Inquiry - J. Allen Hynek, takes on the Condon Report.
   
7. Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact - Jacques Vallee, 100 cases are reported on in this volume, in which some observers were harmed or died as a result of viewing a UFO.
   
8. UFO Danger Zone: Terror & Death in Brazil - Bob Pratt, has investigated the Brazilian UFO phenomenon for some 18 years, this book discusses the Colares UFO attacks amongst other cases showing aggressive, if not hostile, behavior.
   
9. Faded Giant - Robert Salas, USAF Captain LCC DMCCC, and James Klotz. Perhaps one of the most substantial cases in recorded UFO history. Details a UFO flight over Oscar-Flight Missile Launch Control Center resulting in the deactivation of 18 nuclear minutemen missiles. Boeing engineers revealed tests confirmed no cause for missile shutdowns was ever found.
   
10. UFOs and Nukes - Robert Hastings, has investigated nuclear weapons-related UFO incidents for 3 decades, compiling the most detailed work to date linking UFOs and nuclear facilities.
    
11. The Edge of Reality: A progress report on Unidentified flying objects - J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, several case studies, and a dialogue between scientists to attempt to establish a framework for the further study of the UFO phenomenon.
    
12. Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings - J. Allen Hynek, Philip J. Imbrogno, Bob Pratt. Details the 13-year UFO wave that took place over the Hudson River Valley from 1982 through 1995, seen by an estimated 7,000 people, often described as a "boomerang-shaped" brightly-lit UFO "bigger than a football field." On 1990/07/24, in the evening, this object was seen hovering 30 ft over the Indian Point Nuclear Reactor.
    
13. Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception - Jacques Vallee, analyzes the full gamut of UFO incidents from alleged saucer crashes, retrieval of aliens, to subterranean communities of hostile humanoids. Suggesting that many are complex hoaxes that have been carefully engineered. Who and what are their goals? The result is too many false reports are accepted as real while many actual cases go overlooked.
    
14. Interrupted Journey - John G. Fuller, the first reported abduction story. Detailing Barney and Betty Hill's encounter.
    
15. Above Black: Project Preserve Destiny Insider Account of Alien Contact & Government Cover-Up - Dan Sherman, USAF ELINT officer, an intriguing history of Dan's time in PPD (Project Preserve Destiny) an organization inside the USAF tasked with communicating with EBEs.
    

If you read all of this from beginning to end you'll have a good enough grounding to assess for yourself whether or not there's anything to the UFO phenomenon. I'll admit I have an extremely hard time buying abduction cases. I blame Whitley Streiber's Communion for making me want to gag whenever I pick up an abduction book. I tend to require some sort of outside corroboration, like radar, physical evidence, etc. The Betty and Barney Hill abduction (Interrupted Journey) is the only case I know of to date with a potential radar confirmation of an unidentified craft in the vicinity of the abduction.

Honorable mention that I would have liked to add to the list, but couldn't justify after looking at the already overstuffed curriculum :

1. Battle of Los Angeles - 1942: The Silent Invasion Begins - Many news clippings and officials records detailing the 02/24/1942 Battle of Los Angeles. Also some historical perspective to better acclimate the reader to the mindset and events of the time.

I have probably another 20 to 30 books on top of this. If anyone's desperate enough to want more than what's already provided I'll happily supply.

[edit on 30-3-2009 by Xtraeme]

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Author & International
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ANN ANDREWS

Ann Andrews has spoken many
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USA, Australia, Italy and the UK.
Ann is the mother of JASON
ANDREWS, the subject of her best-
selling book, “ABDUCTED: the true
story of Alien Abduction in Rural
England”, which was serialised in
two national U.K. newspapers.

I would have to agree with an earlier post and say that Alien Agenda by Jim Marrs is a good read. One of the better ones I have come across.

Jacques Valle just released a new book with Chris Aubeck called "Wonders in the Sky", which is available everywhere now. It's effectively the sequel to Magonia. Get it.