What a difference a year makes! Binder put out this fantastic flying saucer guide just one year before his awful piece of Ancient Astronaut hackwork, Flying Saucers Are Watching Us. I guess a man's gotta eat. This time around Binder quotes extensively from NICAP's "UFO Evidence" report, compiled by Richard Hall, which results in reams of data not normally found in cheapie UFO paperbacks such as Binder's very next book! Some charts and diagrams are also reproduced (see two images below). The full report is available for download on NICAP's website, along with some other classic UFO titles.
Binder excludes contactees entirely from this volume, and only just touches on the Ancient Astronaut "theory" as one of several UFO ideas floating around. Next year von Daniken's bestseller Chariots of the Gods? would blow the field wide open for copycat cash-ins but for now, in the calm before the storm, sober scientific appraisal appeared to be winning out over the "UFOnuts." That's John Keel's own term for the lunatic fringe, from his introduction. Of course Keel himself was no stranger to the wilder side of the weird, so perhaps this slip-sliding tension was inevitable in the field. For what it's worth here Binder does a capable job sticking to just the facts, ma'am.
The photos included are of mostly indeterminate pedigree, excepting the Trinidade Island sequence recorded by the Brazilian Navy. A few confirmed hoaxes do sneak through, like one of Paul Villa Jr.'s spiffy saucer models and the very respectable McMinnville UFO photographs.
 |
| Paul Villa Jr. - too good to be true! |
 |
| The McMinnville photos - ditto! |
Some fringe ideas filter in as well, represented here by our pal Brad Steiger's large format special from Award Books, The Flying Saucer Menace. Binder mentions this text in his chapter on health effects from UFO sightings. Ray Palmer, Maury Island, and the Shaver Mystery are also mentioned for their fringe qualities. Brinsley Le Poer Trench is quoted on prehistoric UFOs, as are Carl Sagan and Fred Hoyle. The 1917 Fatima visions in Portugal come up as possible pre-Arnold UFOs. For the most part though, Binder avoids the wild speculation that was Steiger and Co.'s bread and butter.
Flying saucer occupants are recorded as reported, including that other pair of Venezuelan dwarfs, merely one of a host of little men popping up in the '50s. Binder notes that reputable sighting reports of saucer occupants are frequently "frustrated" in one way or another, as if the UFOnauts are perpetually just out of reach, and connects this with Vallee's theorizing on the continuity between flying saucers and fairy folk. He does point to Betty and Barney Hill as the single credible UFO contact experience amid a field of contactees. The word "abduction" was not yet in currency, by the way, showing how different the UFO field really was in 1967 from our modern construct. And while the Aztec, New Mexico UFO hoax gets a mention, with Binder rejecting crashed saucers as hoaxes and wild rumors, there's not a word on Roswell. That only makes sense, as that now-iconic lore wouldn't be popularized until the '80s.
The most noticeable difference between this text and Binder's sloppy work from next year is his attitude toward the US Air Force. Next year Binder would present the standard conspiratorial picture of a omnipotent government coverup. Here now Binder is quite perceptive, pointing out the USAF's "vacillation" on the flying saucer question and its almost schizophrenic attitude, sometimes debunking and sometimes encouraging sighting reports. It's a smart appraisal of a gigantic government bureaucracy being pushed and pulled by multiple agendas and occurrences, and a necessary level of analysis if one wants to make any progress at all on UFOs.
Binder's so serious about wrangling his saucer facts that he gives us a helpful summary towards the end of the book, allowing us to take an overview of the ideas presented thus far:
As you can see above he also reprints the USAF's form for reporting UFO sightings, another useful thing to have on hand. A rundown of UFO types by Jacques Vallee follows, and Binder finishes the appendix section by summarizing John Keel's "Project B" appraisal of UFO data for 1966. And so we end on an uneasy note, surrounded by scientific data but dogged by the Men in Black - or at least, the man who most popularized them.
Thankfully, this is the book Binder chose to dedicate to his deceased daughter Mary Lorine Binder. It's a suitable honor, because as a UFO reader, as a time capsule, as a fascinating journey, this title is recommended.
Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1967
No comments:
Post a Comment