Timothy Good. Earth, An Alien Enterprise: The Shocking
Truth Behind the Greatest Cover-up in Human History. Pegasus Books, 2013.
John Hanson and Dawn Holloway. Haunted Skies Volume Nine,
1981 - 1986. Haunted Skies Publishing, 2013.
Give him his due, Timothy Good is able to assemble a vast
mound of UFO related folklore, urban legends, “things I learned in the
services” stories, rumour, fringe beliefs and the like, much of it stuff that
'sensible' ufologists wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. His books are among the
last refuges of the old fashioned contactee stories that were the staple diet
of British gutter-roots ufology 50 years ago.
There would be no problem with any of this if all this
material was actually presented as folklore, and as such it would give an
interesting insight into the range of fringe beliefs that circulate around the
field.
The problem is that Good actually seems to believe much
of this lore. He really does believe the stories told by George Adamksi, Dan
Fry, Gabriel Green and their imitators as well as by the likes of Philip Corso.
In fact there isn’t any piece of UFO lore that he doesn’t swallow, or at the
very least give it a damn good chewing.
As you read this book, you come to a rather sad conclusion,
that Tim Good simply cannot grasp a sizable proportion of his 'informants' are
just having a laugh at his expense, and that the rest consist of the usual
motley collection of frauds, liars, bullshitters, con-artists, cult leaders,
fantasists and the plain delusional. The only population excluded are plain
ordinary folk who happen to have, to them, puzzling experiences.
