The FBI Files The FBI's UFO Top Secrets Exposed

From Booklist Despite repeated denials (including one by J. Edgar Hoover himself), the Federal Bureau of Investigation took an active interest in certain aspects of the UFO phenomenon from 1947 to at least 1988. Though many of the documents described and illustrated here came to light soon after the passing of the Freedom of Information Act of 1974, Redfern has done an excellent job of bringing them all together and placing them in historical context. Charged with guarding U.S. internal security, the FBI in 1947 naturally had to take reports of unidentifiable, high-performance aircraft in American skies seriously; in those cold war days, the FBI saw Communists around every corner, and if silvery discs were violating our airspace with impunity, Hoover wanted to be sure they weren't Russian. It was also not unusual that the FBI later maintained files on certain UFO investigators and even individuals who claimed personal contact with Venusians--the FBI relentlessly kept track of anyone who expressed radical ideas. Yet some of the documents hint at a more X Fileslike interest on the part of the Bureau, particularly with regard to incidents of cattle mutilation in the 1970s. Redfern, whose 1997 book, A Covert Agenda, examined the British government's UFO interests, sometimes comes off as overly speculative. Nonetheless, the book presents a clear FBI-UFO paper trail that can't readily be denied. George Eberhart Product Description Explores the controversial theory that the FBI has in their posession information regarding unidentified flying objects that they have kept hidden from the American public From Kirkus Reviews Captivating, if utterly inconclusive, material from FBI investigations into unidentified flying objects and aliens, culled from declassified files and assembled here by veteran UFO researcher Redfern. Lest there be any doubt about where he is coming from, Redfern asserts, I am convinced that many UFOs are indeed piloted space vehicles which originate with an intelligence from beyond earth. In an effort to convince his readership of the same, he puts before them documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the FBI that detail their inquiries into reported sightings. It is perhaps the most gratifying disclosure of the book that the FBI was called in when the Air Force suspected the first reported sightings might have been by individuals of Communist sympathies with the view of causing hysteria, for the rest of the stories are old hat, strewn with caveats and tied off with the likes of still unclear and tantalizingly unresolved, by Redfern. We are treated to a variety of old favorites, including the glowing green balls of light in the New Mexican skies, the strange case of the cattle mutations of the 1970s (truly creepy), the Roswell and Aztec crashes and purported recovering of alien bodies (no evidence), and patrolman Lonnie Zamora's close encounter south of Socorro, New Mexico in 1964 (his word, your call). Not new but always fascinating are the many testimonies from credible witnesses, such as experienced pilots who weren't looking to sell their story; if nothing else the sheer volume of these episodes is unnerving. The official reports reprinted here are noncommittal and essentially void of analysis, and that they come from FBI archives no longer carries the aura of sanctity it once did, the FBI being exposed as only humanand not always very niceover the last two decades. It is little wonder that the FBI considered these documents suitable for declassification, considering their acute lack of anything original, though it is something to witness the FBI's collective befuddlement in face of the events: Join the crowd. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.