Mark Pilkington

If you shared my delight in the first three Strange Attractors and my glad surprise in finding that the fourth was finally in print, be warned. I don't for an instant regret getting the book but as a whole it doesn't measure up to the others.

Whereas I gobbled up the other SA's, in this one were a few essays I found I could only skim. Perhaps the problem lies in very lenient editing which--especially given that, as always, most contributors seem to be enthusiastic if often learned amateurs--might be taken as an open invitation to self-indulgence.

None of the essays is entirely without interest and some are as good as any others in the series. But one is far too long, one occasionally veers into a school essay on My Summer Holidays (stayed in a tent, had some weird goat-sightings), one rabbits on about a weed which, when smoked, not only dispels reason and grammar ('My sense is that Mugwort enjoys to be smoked . . .'), but drives one to bore others with a liberal use of defunct northern European languages. Overall, the book is too loose, too undisciplined, and hence too unlikely to hold the reader's attention, in too many places.

If you'd enjoy an anthology of sometimes unusual treatments of often little-known subjects, you'd do better to read one of the other--quite wonderful--books in the series before getting this one.… (meer)

A fascinating journey into the realms of UFOs and those who believe in them, and who make us believe. The author explores key elements of modern UFO lore and discusses the hand American intelligence agencies have had in perpetuating these myths. Often the story is complex, with many characters and an alphabet soup of agencies, but Pilkington is able to expertly weave all of this together in an informal writing style that takes you along with him on a journey into the heart of the mythic UFO heartland and its true believers.… (meer)

Finally, an objective, mature, and well-written attempt to get to the bottom of the UFO phenomenon. Pilkington provides a refreshing context to the lore which has enveloped the ET/UFO-believing community for decades: Roswell, Area 51, Dulce, and alien autopsies, among others. He doesn't dismiss these out of hand. What Pilkington does do is explain the way the government (Air Force, CIA, NSA, etc.) has used and still uses the phenomenon as a cover for its own Black Projects. This is a new take on a subject that's become, well, boring in some respects, and is well worth the read if only for its originality.… (meer)