Arthur Shuttlewood. UFO Magic in Motion. Sphere Books, 1979.
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Mr Shuttlewood 's latest offerings consist mainly of UFO reports quoted or paraphrased from various books, newspapers and correspondents. He complains about 'rebukes and unkind criticism from cynics and sceptics," yet he fails to submit the reports he presents to any sort of critical analysis or evaluation. How can one take seriously a report which states that a UFO "journeyed at an estimated speed of 732 miles per hour"? The UFO reports are interspersed with un disciplined and ill-informed pseudoscientific speculations, and where Shuttlewood does introduce an interesting idea he fails to develop it. He apparently believes that God is not omnipotent: "He cannot control every mobile creature in the gamut of individual and corporate 'workmanship' displayed through all infinity in an immeasurable universe; so there must of necessity be able deputies ... " He does not say where he got the idea from, nor does he take the obvious step of using it to develop a rational theodicy. It is not Shuttlewood's odd ideas which attract the scorn of the critics, but his failure to define and develop them and set them out in an orderly manner.
- John Harney, from Magonia 1, Autumn 1979
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