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Jenny Randles has done a good service to the editors of UFO journals who receive letters from schoolchildren asking for help with projects on UFOs - for this is the audience at which this book is aimed (in practice if not in intention). She succeeds quite well, and the book is far better than other UFO books supposedly written for children, often by people with no background in the subject.
Large parts of the book will be useful to other beginners in the topic, if the 'things to do' sections at the end of most chapters doesn't put them off. The author is at her best when dealing with her own experiences, and is perhaps too prone to take the work of others at face value - thus every single one of her 'Checklist of Discoveries' in Chapter 17 is subject to serious controversy , and several are very suspect indeed.
Ms Randles' comments on my own articles need some correcting. I raised the possibility that some of the BAVIC cases were hoaxes, and did not state it as fact. Nor did I assume that there was only one kind of UFO, in an article called 'The Concrete Dream' - though I did imply that a psychological interpretation of some 'plasma' reports is plausible. Finally, the description of some ufologists as having a pre-pubescent interest in toy telescopes was not meant to denigrate any attempt to explore UFO experience in physical terms but was aimed at the appalling naivety of many such attempts.
Despite some reservations on detail, in general I can recommend this book as a useful introduction to the subject, and one that is still worthwhile for the more experienced ufologist. -- Peter Rogerson, from Magonia 8, 1992
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