105 lines
6.0 KiB
Plaintext
105 lines
6.0 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: BOOK REVIEW: OUT THERE BY HOWARD BLUM FILE: UFO1591
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Mutual UFO Network - MUFONET-BBS Network
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Book Review: "OUT THERE"
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New York Times Book Review, New York, NY - September 9, 1990
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Earthlings can be strange creatures. In Elmwood, Wisconsin (population
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991), they serve UFO Burgers and Flying Saucer Pizza and plan a multimillion-
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dollar spaceport to welcome aliens. While in the Pentagon, secretly
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sequestered, other humans contemplate how extraterrestrials might be enlisted
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to boost American might.
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These reports, in "OUT THERE - THE GOVERNMENT'S SECRET QUEST FOR EXTRA-
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TERRESTRIALS," are not by some UFO kook or zealous debunker, but by Howard
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Blum, a former reporter for the New York Times. He began his UFO sleuthing on
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a tip from an American spy-master while researching his 1987 book, "I Pledge
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Allegiance...The True Story Of The Walkers: An American Spy Family." The hint
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set him off on a two-year journey on which he encountered scientists and
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spies, soybean farmers and archivists (but, alas, no aliens).
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His story, often narrated in the first person, teases our emotions like a
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novel while raising some serious questions. Mr. Blum traces the actions of
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the Defense Intelligence Agency's UFO Working Group, a 17-person panel of
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United States military and intelligence officials. Its lofty mission, as
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declared in it's first meeting in February 1987, is to determine "whether or
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not the human race is alone in the universe," according to Mr. Blum.
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Consequently, the group,---followed by the author---culls Government files on
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aliens since World War II and examines projects like NASA's efforts to find
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extraterrestrial intelligence in outer space.
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Mr. Blum reports several anomalies. In December 1986, the Space
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Surveillance Center inside snow-capped Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado detected
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an object whose random flight did not resemble any known operational pattern.
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Detected and recorded over Texas by several radar stations, the object soon
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vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared. It's sighting prompted an alert
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and was mentioned in President Ronald Reagan's daily briefing.
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Perhaps the object was a new Soviet satellite or weapons system, as Mr.
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Blum tells it, but at least one key person, Col. Harold E. Phillips of the
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Defense Intelligence Agency, thought it could be an alien spaceship. He put
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three psychics on the case. Employed with some success in the Government's
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Project Aquarius to scour the seas for Soviet submarines, the psychics
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independently scanned the area over Texas. Each of the sketched a rounded,
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wingless aircraft. That prompted Colonel Phillips to convene the UFO Working
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Group.
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As part of its investigation (which apparently is continuing), the UFO
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group sent two CIA agents posing as NASA engineers to Elmwood, where the
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notions of aliens had captivated a whole town. No secret military projects
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were located in the area, but reliable townspeople say they have witnessed
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several strange occurrences---such as a flying saucer whose "blue ray" killed
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a police officer in 1976. The two CIA agents after checking local soil
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samples, medical records and the like, returned to the Pentagon with a
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souvenir UFO T-shirt but no hard evidence.
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After millions of years, the human race has finally developed the
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technology capable of scanning the heavens for alien signals. The UFO group,
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tailed by Mr. Blum, visited sites where NASA has radio telescopes; these are
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expected to be expanded in 1992 to commemorate Columbus's voyage to the New
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World.
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Along the way, the author treats readers to a nice cosmology lesson and
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explains the reason behind the scientist Frank Drake's research, which, if
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certain assumptions are followed, Mr. Blum says, postulates the plausibility
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of there being some 40 civilizations in the Milky Way able to communicate with
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other solar systems. Because it is impossible to disprove that aliens exist,
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the Government could be considered negligent if it showed no interest in
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communication from far-off civilizations, at least in the form of radio
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contact.
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What Mr. Blum authoritatively uncovers is decades of Government
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duplicity: making public assurances of a lack of interest in reported visits
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from extraterrestrials while having some spy types vigorously investigating
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UFO phenomena. Perhaps most shocking is the UFO Working Group's desire to
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overturn the State Department's advice that any contact with aliens be open
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and supervised by an international group of civilian scientists.
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Unfortunately, Mr. Blum does not report on the outcome of that debate. He
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also neglects to pursue his initial tip from a National Security Agency senior
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official, who said, "we're catching a lot of crazy signals on our microphones
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and they're not from this planet. That's a fact."
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With melodramatic flourishes, Mr. Blum no doubt has satisfied the
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producers of a projected television mini-series based on his book. But if he
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had included references to his 212 interviews and some 200 published sources,
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he would also have satisfied scholars and might have avoided the need for the
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unsettling refrain "This is a true story."
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Nevertheless, "OUT THERE" is a pleasure. As it progresses, the earnest
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reporter becomes more engrossed in the quest for intelligent life in other
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worlds and moves from skeptic to true believer. No doubt, many readers will
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too.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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