Starter books

Can anyone list 5 good starter books which discuss aliens/UFOs?

'Flying Saucers--Serious Business' by Frank Herbert. classic atomic-age recount of the earliest sightings and encounters.

'Out There', Blum. more modern look at saucers and the gummint.

'Mothman Prophecies' by John Keel. fascinating account of Keel's visit to West Virginia and the phenomena experienced there (hint; mothman was just a part of it)

those are my three favorites.

reply to post by mikaakim
Search and download Xt's UFO Scrapbook. For me, it`s got all you need..

Matrix 1 (not the movie), by Val Valerian. You can find it in PDF form on the 'net.

reply to post by mikaakim


"Above Top Secret" by Timothy Good.
No kidding.

Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallee. it's not the conventional viewpoint on the phenomenon.

The Day After Roswell - Written by Col. Philip J. Corso.

Good book.

I reccomend it ,

Operation Trojan Horse - John Keel

The Book of The Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort - Charles Fort

Dimensions, Revelations, Confrontation s - Jacques Vallee

The Cryptoterrestrials - Mac Tonnies

Project Beta - Greg Bishop

Originally posted by mikaakim
Can anyone list 5 good starter books which discuss aliens/UFOs?

It is not a UFO book per se but the late astronomer Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World is an excellent prelude to acquaint ones self with the neccisairy tools to properly evaluate the merit of fantastic claims.

The book is intended to explain the scientific method to laypeople, and to encourage people to learn critical or skeptical thinking. It explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science, and ideas that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking, and should stand up to rigorous questioning.

CARL SAGAN'S BALONEY DETECTION KIT

Based on the book The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

2 Oct 11: Carl Sagan's books, including this one, are now available as ebooks from Kindle - but only for residents of the USA

The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:


Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts

Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").

Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.

Quantify, wherever possible.

If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.

"Occam's razor" - if there are two hypothesis that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.

Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?

Additional issues are
Conduct control experiments - especially "double blind" experiments where the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects.

Check for confounding factors - separate the variables.

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.

Argument from "authority".

Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavourable" decision).

Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).

Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).

Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).

Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).

Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).

Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)

Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").

Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect.

Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).

Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").

Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).

Confusion of correlation and causation.

Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack..

Suppressed evidence or half-truths.

Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public"

Investigating the UFO enigma can be a fantastic starting point to the discovery of some very fascinating history and science. While "getting duped" occasionally is part of the fun in discovery, it helps to have as much insight as possible with which to evaluate the veracity of a given claim.

I hope this helps and goodluck.

The UFO Experience - J. Allen Hynek
The Hynek UFO Report - J. Allen Hynek
UFOs and the National Security State (Volumes I and II) - richard dolan
the ufo evidence (volumes I and II) - richard hall

those are some of my favs

reply to post by mikaakim
Some of the guys have posted good recommendations already so I won't repeat them. If you're just getting interested in all this, why not cheat a little?

Listen while you learn! The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects - Ed Ruppelt. He's got a wiki here. The whole book is free as a well-produced series of mp3 files (each chapter).

Another option to beat the high prices of old books is to google them. For example, write the book title/author and add 'pdf' to the end. "UFO encylopedia .pdf" There are good bargains on Amazon, but some books are priced sky-high due to the high level of geekery in the subject.

One good book is "using the search button"

click

click2

click3

click4

click5

There are no "starter" books.Ufology is not Maths,you wont skip a class if you dont know what happent at Pascagoula or Braxton

I agree with a couple above:
Timothy Good's "Beyond Top Secret" is essential.
Richard Dolan's "UFO's & the National Security State" (1&2 (3's on it's way))
also, "Witness To Roswell" by Carey & Schmitt and "Left at East Gate" by Warren & Robbins are also very interesting.

Here are a bunch of free online books from the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena website.

I particularly recommend:

Report on the UFO Wave of 1947

The UFO Evidence

Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects

UFOs: A New Look

Report on Unidentified Flying Objects

If you're willing to spend a few bucks, I highly recommend ordering these:

UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record by Leslie Kean

The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry by J. Allen Hynek

Anatomy of a Phenomenon by Jacques Vallee

The UFO Controversy in America by David Jacobs

Clear Intent: The Government Cover-Up of the UFO Experience by Lawrence Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood

Donald Keyhoe's book "The Flying Saucers Are Real", and you can read it online free, as well as a few others:

www.abovetopsecret.com...