COSMIC DEBRIS: Become a "Witch!"

Ad appearing in Fate, Volume 26 - Number 2, February 1973. 

THE TERROR ABOVE US by Malcom Kent

Quickie cash-in on the Betty and Barney Hill abductions reads like an amalgamation of existing cases before it, with a dedicated psychiatrist and hypnotic regression a la the Hills, plus a sexy synthetic woman like the Antonio Villas Boas escapade. Abductees "Jason and Robert Steiner" are supposed pseudonyms, as is Dr. Brant and the author himself! Some googling reveals the following:

While most of those "in the know" claim the book was written by a "George Houk," it turns out that Houk is a pseudonym, too! Recent inquiry has brought to light that both "Malcom Kent" and "George Houk" may have both been used by John A. Keel, the most widely known ufologist of the time. All three of them roll off the tongue in the same way, and the location (in upstate NY, where Keel grew up) and details (a "freelance writer for 10 years") seem to match with Keel, along with the writing style. Since Keel spoke of having helped "several of his friends" write such pseudonymous UFO books, we might also consider the possibility that Keel was helped on this book by his good friend, psychiatrist Berthold Eric Schwarz, and by Gray Barker, who is described in the book as "Lex" Barker. 

The author claims that brother "Robert" is active in UFO circles and likely soon to go public with the case. Of course, no such exposure ever came about. For a final suggestive touch, the blobby cover photo is credited to NASA.

Tower Books, 1967

ALIEN by George H. Leonard

After a month's hiatus POTG returns with a new category: UFO fiction! Here's a cheerfully sleazy offering from author George H. Leonard, who also wrote one of the all-time great works (and titles) of UFO fiction/nonfiction, Somebody Else Is On The Moon, which claimed mysterious megalithic structures were visible in NASA lunar photographs ... This thriller is far more down to earth but still carries our bewildered protagonist on a crash course trek through three decades of UFO hunting, with lots of namedropping and references to the Falcon Lake, Manitoba encounter of 1967, South American UFOs, and Californian Contactees among others. 

Leonard is canny enough to work it all into an original configuration rather than simply recycle Bluebook/disclosure conspiracies, though there's plenty of globetrotting and some CIA/KGB skulduggery. It's all competently written and the ending is as satisfying as any of these UFO/mystery novels can be, so many of which fail to stick the landing after spending 200-300 pages crafting their Ufological setting.

A 1981 reprint of the novel changed the title to Alien Quest, to differentiate it from a certain film which had come out in 1979.

3/4

Playboy Press, 1977