ARCHIVAL UPDATES: THE U.F.O. REPORT & WHY ARE THEY WATCHING US?

Two vintage UFO texts from 1967 by Irving A. Greenfield are now available to read and download: The U.F.O. Report and Why Are They Watching Us? (as Allen Louis Erskine) from Lancer Books and Tower Books, respectively. In both texts Greenfield is hot for the Northeast Blackout of '65 being down to UFO shenanigans.

Original reviews are here and here.

THE U.F.O. REPORT by Irving A. Greenfield

The meat of Greenfield's book is his investigation of a series of UFO sightings in Sag Harbor, Long Island, not to be confused with the much more famous Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia UFO incident the same year of 1967. Greenfield beats feet around town, interviewing locals and dropping in at the famous (and now long shuttered) Black Buoy Bar. Among the witnesses is 11 year old Susan, who describes a craft similar to the Socorro, New Mexico sighting of Lonnie Zamora. Greenfield places a lot of weight on her sighting syncing up with Zamora's, as they occurred thousands of miles apart and almost contemporaneously.

The gumshoe routine is some good stuff, but we also have to slog through the standard UFO history lesson with Kenneth Arnold, the Air Force, Contactees, etc. We've read all that before! And Maury Island too! Poor Captain Thomas F. Mantell's crash is gone over again, with Greenfield convinced that the Air Force is withholding evidence of otherworldly destruction. The evolution of phantom airships to "modern" flying saucers is explained by Greenfield as the aliens keeping pace with our own technological progress. The year 1967 sure was a busy one for UFOs. Between the writing and publication of Greenfield's book, the University of Colorado was revealed to be behind the Air Force's new study on UFOs. The Northeast blackout of 1965 is pondered as possibly UFO related, thoughts shared by Allen Louis Erskine in Why Are They Watching Us? also published in 1967. (Update Sept 3 2023: according to Hilary Evans in his catalogue of his personal UFO library, Erskine was a pseudonym used by Greenfield!)

Typos and misprints abound. Socorro is misspelled as "Sorcorro" and poor J. Allen Hynek has his name misspelled as "Hynke" throughout the first half of the book before the editor notices and corrects it in the second half. This is before Hynek's change of heart on UFOs, and Greenfield excoriates him for the infamous "swamp gas" explanation Hynek gave for a series of sightings over southern Michigan in 1966.

Want the straight scoop? The U.F.O. Report is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Lancer Books, 1967

WHY ARE THEY WATCHING US? by Allen Louis Erskine

FIFTEEN YEARS IN THE MAKING! Clocking in at a slim 124 pages with some very large text, it's hard to imagine how author Erskine spent all that time. This meager volume delivers all the same old midcentury UFO meatloaf, barely reheated despite the blistering ad copy about "frightening facts" and how this book might just save the entire planet. At least you can't say that Tower Books didn't know how to dress up a piece, as they give us another one of those fun covers with a menacing model UFO.

Those flying Swedish jelly bags are back, as is Antonia Villas-Boas and his very close encounter ... although perhaps out of modesty for his sake Erskine leaves him anonymous, decent chap. By now we should know the Hill's story by rote, and all the back and forth between J. Allen Hynek, debunkers like Philip J. Klass, the USAF and the Condon Committee. Things like the Mystery Airship flap of 1897 and Mantell "dogfight" crash of 1948 are trotted out again, we get a quick sidetrack to Ezekiel's Wheel, and by the time we're begging for some reprieve Erskine finally shakes it up and blames the great Northeast Blackout of 1965 on UFOs! 

(Update Sept 3 2023: According to Hilary Evans in his enormous catalogue of his personal UFO library, Erskine was a pseudonym used by Irving A. Greenfield which accounts for their shared interest in the Northeast Blackout of '65 being UFO related.)

In 1975 Tower Books put this title out again with a Chariots facelift, which must have been de rigeur judging by the frequency of reissued bold text plain faced covers we've seen!

This title is available to read and download at archive dot org with its original groovy cover art.

Table of contents:

1.  UFOs Swarm Over the Northeast (5)

2.  UFO Overflights (20)

3.  From Beyond (41)

4.  The 1947 Flap (63)

5.  Fighter Pilot Dogfights UFO (69)

6.  The Ghost of Mantell (71)

7.  UFOs at White Sands (75)

8.  UFOs - The Illusion Becomes Real (77)

9.  "The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth" (83)

10. They Have Landed and Made Contact (89)

11. What Caused the Blackout? (98)

12. Yes, We Have Pieces of a UFO (103)

13. What UFOs Are Not (107)

14. The $300,000 Snow Job (110)

15. A Touch of Human Interest (114)

16. What's the Answer? (121)

Tower Books, 1967