ALIEN CONTACT

Not only do the aliens walk among us but, until recently, they were working tentacle-in-hand with the US military—or so British ufologist Good (Above Top Secret, 1988) implies in this erratically organized, incredible report. While Good's earlier book made a well-documented case for clandestine federal involvement in UFO research, this more anectodal study will convert few to the cause. Despite the tantalizing subtitle, much of what Good presents is familiar fare, beginning with his selection of reported run-ins between aircraft and UFOs. He focuses next on the provocative (and well-covered elsewhere) controversy about alleged UFO culpability in cattle mutilations. A close-up look at strange doings at a Colorado ranch plagued by mutilations sheds more mystery than light (``At about two a.m...a mechanical-sounding voice was heard coming from all the radio and TV speakers....`Attention. We have allowed you to remain. We have interfered with your lives very little. Do not cause us to take action which you will regret' ''), while Good's rapid-fire rundown of assorted purported human-alien contacts rehashes old cases like the Roswell incident (alien bodies recovered in 1947 in New Mexico). A gnarly discussion of intelligence community disinformation about UFOs follows, leading to Good's core case: the testimony of physicist Bob Lazar, who claims to have worked at an Air Force test site in Nevada where he tinkered with extraterrestrial craft and learned that aliens had been in ``liaison'' with the military until a 1979 ``incident'' resulted in the death of 66 humans and the flight of the ETs, who left their craft behind. Good does admit that Lazar's credibility has been shaken by a recent conviction for pimping. True believers will be interested to learn that Jesus may have been a ``genetically engineered'' alien; others will want to pass in favor of the more grounded work of Jacques Vallee (Revelations, 1991, etc.). (Photographs—not seen.)