4. Skeptics and Debunkers
CSI
Science and the Fairy Ring
Debunking
Hoaxes
How to Report a UFO
Bibliography
To produce a Big Book, one must have friends and colleagues with Big Hearts. I certainly have many of these.
In terms of writing and encouragement, I must thank my writers’ group, Off The Wall, including Evelyn Woodward, Susan Rocan, Kevin Russell, Sam Courcelles, K.C. Oliver, Katherine Lovejoy, and Barbara Lange.
My publisher, Dundurn Press, has helped me refine and craft my manuscript into readable form, particularly their staff: Matt Baker, Margaret Bryant, Tammy Mavroudi, Karen McMullin, Michael Carroll, Jennifer Scott, and especially Beth Bruder.
For assistance with scanning and artwork, I would like to thank Pat Goss and Stacey Archer, as well as Jennifer Wang, Susan Birdwise, Vladimir Simosko, Zachary Rutkowski, Erwin Dirks, and Billy Booth.
For moral support and for sharing views, news, and ideas about UFOs, I would like to thank Alan and Cindy Anderson, Geoff Currier, Geoff Dittman, John Danakas, Grant Cameron, Sue St. Clair, Terry Groff, Linda and Don Percy, Dave Trimble, Stanton Friedman, Nicholas Roesler, Vladimir Simosko, Francois Bourbeau, Errol Bruce-Knapp, and Chris Reid.
Finally, it goes without saying, but I will anyway: a special thank you to my wife Donna, who kept the house going while I was hiding in the study. Her support and inspiration are what keep me going. Not only that, she’s pretty.
Thanks also to Vicki and Zach, who told me they helped her around the house with chores and other duties as assigned.
Throughout this book, you’ll find measurements in metric units. If you find this at all confusing, it may help to reference this handy chart:
1 centimetre = 0.3937 inches
1 metre = 3.281 feet
1 kilometre = 0.6214 miles
OR
1 inch is roughly 2.5 centimetres
1 metre is roughly 3 feet (a little more)
1 kilometre is just over half a mile
For temperatures, weights, and complicated conversions, you can find several free conversion sites online.
This is a big book about UFOs.
I’ve been writing about the UFO phenomenon for almost 35 years, having investigated hundreds of UFO sightings, interviewed thousands of witnesses, and conducted research since the mid-1970s. I’ve heard it all: from pilots’ eyewitness accounts of encounters with craft that seemed to defy physics, to the befuddlement of professionals who insist that aliens visited them in their bedrooms.
I have travelled across Canada on investigative expeditions, and driven through the Midwestern United States to interview witnesses in many counties. I have sat throughout the night in some popular UFO haunts, but never saw anything that defied explanation, much to the chagrin of my guides and companions.
As an astronomer, I spent many hours with my eye frozen to a telescope eyepiece at brutal temperatures — my record is -42 degrees Celsius at 3:30 a.m. — watching the Moon’s terminator plunge a small crater’s rim into darkness. I have shown eager kids and their parents Saturn’s rings through a small scope at public star parties, and I have presented papers at astronomical conferences.
I’m fascinated with space and astronomy. I was taught by brilliant minds such as cosmologist Dr. Martin Clutton-Brock and “pure astronomer” Dr. Richard Bochonko, for whom spherical astronomy and orbital dynamics came naturally. But not me.
I’ve always had a sense of wonder about the universe. Growing up, my most common question was, “Why?” Now I know the most appropriate answer is not, “Because,” but, “Why not?”
At a young age I wondered if there was other life out there, somewhere. It was a sensible enough question. After all, we’re here, so why shouldn’t there be other beings on other planets, wondering the same thing?
After more than 35 years of investigation and research — and wondering — I still don’t know. Why has the UFO phenomenon been so persistent? Why do people still report seeing unidentified objects in the sky, despite the best efforts of scientists to assure them there is nothing of concern? Why do we persist in wondering?
I’ve written several books, published dozens of research papers and reports, and over the past decade posted many blog entries and tweeted about the UFO phenomenon.
This Big Book of UFOs contains some of the most interesting stories and cases from my files, some of which have appeared in my other books, but many which were researched and are described here for the first time. I don’t think any nonbelievers will be convinced, nor do I expect ardent UFO fans will doubt some of the more popular UFO tales.
The idea behind this book is to inform and entertain, and make you wonder.
As I still do.
Ten percent of all North Americans have seen UFOs.
This is not a number picked frivolously out of thin air (pardon the pun), but a statistic based on polls and surveys in the United States and Canada, done by various independent polling organizations and groups.
When asked the question, “Have you ever seen a UFO?” one in every 10 people will say, “Yes.”
DID YOU KNOW?
Only one
out of every 10 UFO sightings
is actually reported.
This
