Bufo Calvin
P O Box 5231, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Internet: BufoCalvin@...
Website: http://members.aol.com/bufocalvin
Link toAmazon.com

January-February, 2000 (Vol. 3, #1)

Books mentioned in BAR can be ordered on most e-mail systems by clicking on the
hyperlink title. This will take you to the book at Amazon.com. You can readmore
about it at that point and decide if you want to order it. If you do, you add it
to your "shopping cart". Then, if you want another title mentioned here, please
click on it in this post. If you have questions, pleasee-mail Bufo at
BufoCalvin@... Replying to this message will send it to anaddress that I
simply use to make my e-mailings more universally legible. While I do check it
occasionally, it is not the best way to reach me. If you wish to unsubscribe,
remember that you can do so just be sending an e-mail to
anomalit-unsubscribe@onelist.com

Books in BAR now include some titles available from the UK. This is for
theconvenience of my European subscribers, as well as allowing for the listing
ofmore titles. These books will be indicated with a (UK) designation.
Releasedates will generally reflect the U.S., except for exclusively UK titles.

As we begin our third year of BAR, this issue is the first non-holiday one to
combine two months. I wouldn’t have gotten this one out in February if we
hadn’t had the once in every 400 year occurrence of a leap year in a year ending
in 00 (the rule is, it is a leap year if it is divisible by four unless it ends
in 00 or it is divisible by400…how’s that for being a geek?).  Workon my first
book, being co-written with Gini Scott for Paragon House, is takingup much of my
“free time”.  I would expect these to go to bimonthly for the next several
months, although I willtry and provide at least two featured titles each time.
If anyone wants to be included in the book,please let me know.  I have already
begun doing interviews. Everyone who is interviewed should get a chance to
review their interview prior to inclusion, Also, we will not include comments
criticizing explicitly named otherliving people. The book is about howbeing
involved with UFOs (as a researcher and/or experiencer) has affected people.
While it will provide some resources and some overview, the main goalwill be to
let the readers meet the people involved. Interested parties should e-mail me
at UFOBOOK@....

If you have books to recommend, please let me know. If you would like to be
named as recommending it, include that information as well and tell me youwould
like to be cited.

One other note: long-time readers know that I used to cover magazines
andmagazine articles.  I think it is worthnoting the LIFE March 2000 cover
article on UFOs.  While not on-line as far as I have seen, you may want to pick
itup.  I found the excerpt from a pollthat they did of particular interest. As
has been the case lately, more people in the poll believed that thegovernment is
covering up information on UFOs than believe that UFOs exist…


In this issue: Featured Title, Bestseller, and Recent Additions

FEATURED TITLES:

Facesof the Visitors (paperback)
Facesof the Visitors (paperback) (UK)
Subtitle: An Illustrated Reference to Alien Contact
by Kevin Randle and Russ Estes
320 pages: glossary; index; extensive references; profusely
illustrated;photographs

”All sorts of people come here at times—gentlemen as well as actors.  I didn’t
know which you was, sir, for themoment.”
Horace Wyndham writing in THE FLARE OF THE FOOTLIGHTS

Kevin Randle first came to wide-spread public attention as one of the authorsof
UFOCRASH AT ROSWELL (paperback) in 1991, the book that, while not the first,was
the one that “broke the story” with the general reading public.  Randle has
since continued to write avariety of books, and to be embroiled in controversy. 
His willingness to make his own opinions known, regardless of theunpopularity of
them, is one of the things that has distinguished his work.

This book, while certainly an extensive and valuable illustrated reference tothe
different descriptions of alleged aliens, is also notable for the clearlyand
admittedly subjective “credibility rating” for sightings.  Those already
familiar with the cases willbe most intrigued.  Zeros, meaning leastreliable,
are the most common number given. Some of these go to well-known cases,
including “Roswell mortician”,Glenn Dennis.  On the other hand, nines,eights,
and sevens are tied for the least often given, and one of the ninesgoes to
another group of Roswell witnesses. In case you are guessing that it is Randle’s
position versus that ofothers, both cases cite his own books.

Speaking of the citations, they are extensive. It is often in ufological books
that documentation is lacking.  That is certainly not the case here, and
thepublishers are to be lauded for including an index as well as a
bibliographyand a glossary.  The book is alsowell-served by the “database”
sections in the back, which look at two famous“waves” of sightings, those of
1954 and 1973. 

As to the cases, each one is typically given a couple of pages.  This includes
an evocative illustration byRuss Estes, some basic facts, and a narrative. They
are presented in three sections (Visitors, Contactees, and Abductees),with a
fourth one for photographs of aliens. Each section is also given an overview
article.  The photographic cases are interesting,although the article indicates
that “…we found nothing to suggest that any ofthe following pictures are
authentic”. Despite this statement, one picture (the Police Chief Greenhaw case)
isgiven a reliability rating of 5, which is higher than the average for
thenon-photographic cases. 

Despite one astonishing gaffe (a Close Encounter of the Second Kind is defined
inthe Visitors overview as meaning that “…the craft had landed near the
witness”when it is correctly defined in the glossary as referring to a case
with“physical traces”), this book is a great browsing book for those new to
thetopic, and a handy reference and conversation piece for those
moreknowledgeable of it.

TheChinese Roswell (paperback)
TheChinese Roswell (paperback) (UK)
UFO Encounters in the Far East from Ancient Times to the Present
by Hartwig Hausdorf
August 1998
275 pages: source notes, index, map

"As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense ofbeautiful
mystery seems to gather and grow."
-A. C. Benson

At times I think that there is a chauvinistic sense withsome Americans that UFOs
are “our mystery”. That we think it is appropriate that this space age conundrum
exploded outof the state named after our first President. This perception has
been seen by others: from the Soviets “blaming” usfor them to C. G. Jung saying,
“What is worse, most of these stories come fromAmerica, the land of superlatives
and science fiction.” (FLYING SAUCERS, AMODERN MYTH OF THINGS SEEN IN THE SKY).

Of course, anyone even casually aware of the literature knows that this
isn’ttrue.  UFO sightings, both ancient andof a variety very much like those in
the US, have been recorded from many partsof the world.  In recent months, a
spateof sightings in China has made the international news. 

What Hartwig Hausdorf does in this book is give us more than just
transplantedobservances.  He strives to give us aChinese sense of it.  The
“Roswell” ofthe title, a UFO crash, didn’t occur a mere fifty years ago, but
12,000 yearsago.  The survivors were not taken forautopsy or brought into
treaties, but effectively colonized the area.  This book is not about Daylight
Discs andradar/visual cases, but about Material Immortality and White Pyramids.

That’s not to say that it is all philosophy: there are even some modern
casesthrown in.  But the paradigm of theChinese, especially the ancient Chinese,
is not that of modern Americans.  This is a common error in looking at
othercultures reports of the paranormal, and one that Hartwig manages to
mostlyavoid.  For instance, the issue ofwhether or not a particular tribe
thought Bigfoot was a “real” animal ignoresthe fact that they had a very
different sense of what real meant.

I definitely found the book interesting, but one shouldn’t expect it to beneatly
broken down into cases that will help fill in the ufological databaseson the
Internet.  In gives, instead, amuch-needed different look at what might not be
what we think it is…or evenwhat we think it isn’t.
 

BEST SELLER (Nov 1, 1999 through January 31, 2000)

US

Surprising to me was that it was a book that has not been a featuredtitle.  It’s

PracticalIntuition (paperback)
PracticalIntuition (paperback) (UK)
Subtitle: How to Harness the Power of Your Instinct and Make It Work for You
By Laura Day, with an introduction by Demi Moore
October, 1997
paperback, 192 pages

RECENT ADDITIONS:

AnimalGrace
AnimalGrace (paperback) (UK)
Subtitle: Entering a Spiritual Relationship With Our Fellow Creatures
by Mary Lou Randour and Susan Chernak McElroy
March 2000
Hardback, 224 pages

TheComplete Book of Ghosts & Poltergeists
 
by Dr. Ashley Leonard
Paperback
March 2000

ProjectMindshift
ProjectMindshift (paperback) (UK)
by Michael Mannion
Paperback, 304 pages
February 2000

SoulRescuers
SoulRescuers (hardback) (UK)
by Terry O'Sullivan and Natalie O'Sullivan
Hardback, 272 pages
February 2000

ExtraterrestrialArchaeology, New Revised Edition
ExtraterrestrialArchaelogy, New Revised Edition (paperback) (UK)
by David Hatcher Childress
Paperback, 320 pages
February 2000

LittleGray Men
Subtitle: Roswell and the Rise of a Popular Culture
by Toby Smith
Hardback, 208 pages
February 2000
University of New Mexico
____________________________

---------------------------------
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]