Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs

Former Guardian columnist Pilkington (Far Out) runs the fringe-science publisher Strange Attractor Press. He writes with an entertaining flair, but is nevertheless scholarly. Pilkington views UFOs as "weapons of mass deception." Unlike many UFO researchers, who analyze blurry photos and extrapolate a few facts into highly imaginative speculations, he explores the notion that the government manipulated the public's belief in UFOs to conceal military aircraft experiments. He has pored through briefing papers, books by other researchers, declassified documents, and internal memos to examine every angle of the links between intelligence agencies, the U.S. military, and UFO believers. Was the famed 1952 flap about UFOs over the White House—reported by pilots in the area and detected by radar—simply a staged event involving "ghost aircraft on radar screens"? Other classic cases collapse as Pilkington details man-made UFOs, quiet helicopters, secret facilities, disinformation techniques, and the creation of fake documents. While others have looked skyward for contrails, Pilkington has followed paper trails and interviewed key figures. His impeccable investigative journalism makes other books on this subject read like fantasy fiction. (Sept.)