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So who's the best contemporary writer on the subject?

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FilthyleDog

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Perhaps a bit of a broad statement, but who in your opinion is at the forefront of contemporary UFO writing/research?

Tim Good?
Jenny Randles?
Kevin Randle?
Whitley Streiber?
Nick Pope?
etc...
 
Hmm... I think the folks over at Magonia do a good job, altho' they're not in the book business. IMHO, it's been a fair few years since there's been a good book on the subject.
 
Jenny Randles is always a decent,quality read. Never read her last book Timestorms, but wish I could now. Got all of her UFO related stuff. Where has she gone, I know she got sued by a nuclear physicist, then she seemed to disappear (timestorm?)
It's fairly hard to find any of those authors in the High St bookstores these days, after the flood of the late 90's, it's a little shocking. Altough I guess Tim Good will do one of his Alien Colonisation novellas.What is one to make of him?
Amazon.com etc always have a good holiday read, found a few UFO gems, that should be High Street book Stores; Jim Mosleys(sic) historical golden era tome, Jaque' Vallee diaries and the odd US title which may surprise, i.e is may be rather tedious but has the odd tantilising moment.
Jez, I remember when WH Smith and everyother newsagent had a least 2 UFO titles on the shelfs!
 
Jenny Randles, got "MIB" in Virgin for two quid, one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. And she doesn't come across as a nutter - a lot of scepticism in her writing iirc.
 
Redneck said:
Jez, I remember when WH Smith and everyother newsagent had a least 2 UFO titles on the shelfs!
Click to expand...

Bloody hell! I remember the 70's when they would have two entire UFO related shelves! You didn't have to grub around the 'miscellaneous' shelves and endless titles about the SAS in those days!
 
Jenny Randles being sued

Sued

'Stanton Friedman, well-known UFO researcher and nuclear physicist, and Harry Harris, a solicitor and UFO enthusiast, filed a defamation lawsuit against Jenny Randles, then Director of Information for the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA).

The lawsuit also named BUFORA and the Manchester Evening News as co-defendants in the legal action. This stemmed
from an article that appeared in the Manchester Evening News on Saturday, October 28, 1989.

Those who still debate whether or not legal action was justified in this case often cite the issue as one of freedom of expression vs. censorship and intimidation. Friedman holds that the case was about defamation and libel.

I have online the actual newspaper articles, the letter from Randles to the MEN, the published apology, etc.'

The link to the articles doesn't work though.

I love Randles' spontaneous combustion book and was both spooked and strangely satisfied to find it also in the BF's collection when we met!:eek:
 
I must admit, I very much enjoy Jenny Randles' books, owning pretty much most of them about UFOs, from The Pennine UFO Mystery onwards. She's got an easy to digest style of writing which verges on the chatty (although some critics would bemoan that fact) and maintains a healthy scepticism around the subject. Can anyone remember what it was she's supposed to have written that got Friedman's back up?

Also, much as I take a lot of his beliefs regarding the ETH and ET's supposed interference in our affairs, I like Tim Good's stuff. "Above/Beyond Top Secret", despite it's flaws (most of them omitted from "Beyond..."), I still think is a riveting read, exposing to my mind anyway, the myth that the world's powers are ignorant of the whole subject. I think some of his later stuff ("Alien Base" et al) tends towards the misguided, but still worth a look to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
 
I've noticed that people seem to highly regard
Jenny Randles as an author -- so while book
browsing one day, I flipped through one of her books
(IIRC it was: "Ufos and How to See Them.")
I was shocked.
The photos in that book looked to be shot by one
person or group of people standing outside and
interpreting any mist, raindrop near the lens or
reflection of breath in the camera flash
(it could have been cigarette smoke) as a "UFO".
It was the most amateurish bunch of photos I have ever seen.
The only reason for being written was for a quick buck.

I guess I was so shocked, because I knew Ms. Randles had
been "in the business" for so long, and was so highly regarded.
Did she have a period of "going off the deep-end?" (Much like
author Brad Steiger when he started his series of books about
the "Space Brothers.")

I'm still willing to give her a chance, but did anyone else notice
this "detour" in her credibility?

TVgeek
 
Every now and then a turkey does crop up, as it does, I suppose, in any writer's repertoire. And as she is famed for being open-minded about the subject (some call it "sitting on the fence") yet quite critical, it does surprise me that dubious photos made it into a book with her name on it.

On the other hand, I guess there's not a lot of money to be made writing books about the paranormal, so when a bill needs paying, out comes the typewriter and some dodgy photos and hey presto! Another book with a limited audience.

Generally though, I find her work easy to read and if she's sceptical about something, she'll say it, which the likes of Tim Good won't.
 
Ultimate UFO authors

It probaly is fair to say Jenny Randles went thru a more esoteric phase, check out Mind Monsters. However Its also fair to say that she always re address's any area's where she is either wrong, identified a ifo on a piece of UFO footage, or just simply changed her mind.
I rank her, Jaque Vallee, and John Keel as the ultimate UFO authors
....with maybe Tim Good as booby prize-why does he advocate all that Adamski/Mothership stuff, not forgetting the Plasticine ET in the Italien Woods.......
 
Darest I mention Reg Presley? :D

Erich Von Daniken and Jenny Randles- for introducing me to this subject as a kid
 
Boy, I really have to check out this Jacques Vallee. So many people have recomended him. Chant's summation of some of his ideas I find intriguing. Is Passport to Magonia a good place to start?
 
It's a good start, but it doesn't follow the 'nuts and bolts' view WRT UFOs, if that's what you're after.
 
Passport to Magonia is a good start but make sure you have all his recent other books on hand, Revelations, Dimensions and Confrontations. This, his last trilogy, really take ufology to the next level. Although naturally have a load of critics. Quite rightly so. John Keel and Jenny Randles are good follow ups.
A good counter balance is Jim Moseleys book which I forget the title of.
All are easily availible on amazon etc
:eek!!!!:
 
People are keen to dump on Timothy Good, but he did a lot of good work in publishing declassified documents which showed definite interest by Governments and Militaries in studying UFOs despite public claims to the contrary. This helped me to form the opinion that world governments are just as in the dark about UFOs as anyone else.
Unfortunately he then goes on to advocate saucer crashes and so on without a shred of concrete evidence.
 
I agree wholeheartedly.

Above Top Secret was an excellent book, despite the errors of judgement in it (Mel Noel, Majestic 12 etc.), but these were ironed out in Beyond Top Secret, so we could forgive him for that. Indeed, at the time it certainly got me interested in the subject again. It's just a shame that a lot of the other material he's published is pure sensationalism rather than stuff based on hard facts.
Another good read, talking of "other level" ufology, is John Spencer's "Perspectives".
 
I think Jaques Vallee and Timothy Good are the best as they cover both ends of the market, as it were.

The thing about Timothy Good is that he tells you as he heard it. Instead of taking the cautious route, like Jenny Randle, he believes in UFO's has seen a UFO (from a great distance) and is recounting the words of people who are convinced about what has happened to them. He makes us realise that you can't say 'I can believe THIS far-fetched idea but not THAT far-fetched idea'. Once you get into UFO's you get into a fantasy world (Keel, the best case in point) and it soon becomes impossible to tease the tangles apart.

Adamski - even his critics admit that there were three reliable witnesses to the first encounter - therefore if it happened for real even ONCE then there had to be something in it even if they were playing with him Ultraterrestrial-style as his later rantings suggest. A later encounter suggested to another contactee that his publicity stunts forced them to discredit him but that the contact was real.

Plastic ET - The guy had so many witnesses and he didn't want publicity. The whole town was spooked by something. That was a strange one, admittedly, but all but one of the photos looked real enough to spook me.
 
Operation Trojan Horse

I'm currently reading John Keel's Operation Trojan Horse, which is has so far been brilliant, too many people do knock Tim Good though, Above Top Secret is a major book in Ufology, and yes he still ascribes to the contactee stuff, but his non dismissive, open minded attitude has overall got to be seen as a positive thing, even though his beliefs are firmly entrenched in the ETH. The only author on the list that I've heard bad things said about is Nick Pope, I admit I've never read anything he's done, but novelisations of alleged UFO events doesn't really fry my ufological bacon, so to speak.
 
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