When United Airlines workers reported a UFO at O'Hare Airport in November 2006, it was met with the typical denials and hush-up that usually accompany such sightings. But when a related story broke the record for hits at the Chicago Tribune's website, it was clear that such unexplained objects continued to occupy the minds of fascinated readers. Why, wonders Thomas Bullard, don't such persistent sightings command more urgent attention from scientists, scholars, and mainstream journalists? The answer, in part, lies in Bullard's wide-ranging magisterial survey of the mysterious, frustrating, and ever-evolving phenomenon that refuses to go away and our collective efforts to understand it. In his trailblazing book, Bullard views those efforts through the lens of mythmaking, discovering what UFO accounts tell us about ourselves, our beliefs, and the possibility of visitors from beyond. Bullard shows how ongoing grassroots interest in UFOs stems both from actual personal experiences and from a cultural mythology that defines such encounters as somehow "alien"-and how it views relentless official denial as a part of conspiracy to hide the truth. He also describes how UFOs have catalyzed the evolution of a new but highly fractured belief system that borrows heavily from the human past and mythic themes and which UFO witnesses and researchers use to make sense of such phenomena and our place in the cosmos. Bullard's book takes in the whole spectrum of speculations on alien visitations and abductions, magically advanced technologies, governmental conspiracies, varieties of religious salvation, apocalyptic fears, and other paranormal experiences. Along the way, Bullard investigates how UFOs have inspired books, movies, and television series; blurred the boundaries between science, science fiction, and religion; and crowded the Internet with websites and discussion groups. From the patches of this crazy quilt, he posits evidence that a genuine phenomenon seems to exist outside the myth. Enormously erudite and endlessly engaging, Bullard's study is a sky watcher's guide to the studies, stories, and debates that this elusive subject has inspired. It shows that, despite all the competing interests and errors clouding the subject, there is substance beneath the clutter, a genuinely mysterious phenomenon that deserves attention as more than a myth.

Introduces students to the mysteries surrounding UFOs, with first-hand accounts of alien encounters.

"UFO Mysteries is one of the best works on the subject of UFOs since Jacques Vallee's seminal 1965 Anatomy of a Phenomenon. Sutherly has blended skillful writing with the determination of a true investigator to produce an objective and introspective look at one of the greatest enigmas humankind has so far faced." Rick R. Hilberg, Ufologist and Anomalist Cleveland, Ohio Fifty Years of UFO Stories Filled with anecdotes and insider information, UFO Mysteries chronicles fifty years of UFO occurrences in the United States and Europe, from Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting over Mt. Rainier to the wave of triangular UFO sightings over the U.S. and Great Britain during the 1990s. Derived in part from Strange Encounters, the author's earlier book, this updated and expanded version combines a journalistic style with first-person recollection to give the reader a fresh-and remarkable-view of the UFO phenomenon. Included are fifteen rare photographs from a private collection, among them a previously unpublished UFO photograph mailed anonymously to radio station KYW in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cam Jansen series #2/Puffin Chapter Books.