The UFO Enigma

November 1, 1999
If the truth is out there, why haven't we found it? A 1997 conference at the Pocantico center in Tarrytown, N.Y., assembled UFO researchers and distinguished air and space scientists to review theories and evidence concerning inexplicable lights, big disks and other odd, exciting stuff in the sky. If they produced no new conclusions, their work certainly makes informative reading. A professor emeritus of Space Science and Astrophysics at Stanford, Sturrock synthesizes the conference reports and deliberations into 120 carefully considered pages. One presentation (in Sturrock's summary) shows why some UFOs can be explained as weather-related phenomena. Another shows why UFO investigators and SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) radio astronomers don't get along. Sturrock calls for more, and more widely available, research into UFOs; he notes that physical scientists, while not trained to evaluate witness reports, can analyze material evidence. Most of the rest of the book is comprised of essays ("Post-Pocantico Reflections") and "Case Material" (about specific UFO reports) by a variety of hands. Richard Haines considers a Frisbee-shaped aerial object in a vacationer's photo; Jennie Zeidman reports on "A Helicopter-UFO Encounter Over Ohio." The ongoing French study called GEPAN or SEPRA emerges as a leader in recent studies of UFOs, decidedly on the back burner in the United States. All the contributors write in the impersonal, precise, deliberately colorless language proper to scientific journal articles. If the results are less than thrilling, they represent a hoard of raw information, and some admirably cautious reasoning, from which any reader who already cares about UFOs might be glad to learn. Photos, charts and diagrams not seen by PW.

November 15, 1999
Anyone who doubts that the UFO phenomenon deserves a scientific evaluation should read this book. Sturrock, an astrophysicist at Stanford University, selected a panel of eight scientists in various fields and brought them together in Tarrytown, New York, September 30^-October 3, 1997, to review the evidence for UFOs presented by eight UFO investigators (all but one with doctorates themselves) from four different countries. The result, unlike the much-criticized negative conclusion of the U.S. Air Force^-sponsored Condon Committee in 1969, was a recommendation that the scientific community set up a project to examine physical evidence related to UFO sightings. Sturrock reports on the panel's conclusions and summarizes the case studies they looked at, from UFO photographs and radar returns to interference with the electrical systems of cars and airplanes, ground traces, and debris analysis. In short, this is a sound professional study that contrasts sharply with the unauthenticated anecdotes and rank speculation that pass for UFO literature these days. ((Reviewed November 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)