Dr. Esoterica and Contactees

The slightly mysterious "Dr. Esoterica" reviews my Contactees book and says:

"Nick Redfern’s Contactees: A History of Alien-Human Interaction is both profoundly enlightening and entertaining. It is also an indispensable historical study based on previously unavailable primary source documentation. The author is to be commended and we recommend the present title without reservation."

Here's the link to the Doc's full review...

Desmond Leslie: A New Book

For anyone interested in the Contactee movement in general, and the saga of George Adamski in particular, there's a new book that you'll definitely want to get hold of. The author is Robert O'Byrne, and its title is Desmond Leslie 1921 -2001: The Biography of an Irish Gentleman.

Leslie was, of course, the co-author with George Adamski on his famous (or perhaps infamous!) book, Flying Saucers Have Landed.

Here's the blurb for the book, which looks to be massively entertaining and informative:

"When a guidebook to Ireland described his family as being 'mildly eccentric', Desmond Leslie took offence and wrote to the publishers informing them that, on the contrary, the Leslies were very eccentric. Throughout his life, he maintained a reputation for unconventionality - hardly surprising when one of his godparents was a noted Satanist who kept a pet parrot in his trousers.

"Desmond Leslie more than matched this behaviour: one of the most popular items on YouTube is a BBC broadcast showing him punching the critic Bernard Levin on live television more than forty years ago. Thanks to his 1953 bestseller "The Flying Saucers Have Landed", co-written with George Adamski, Desmond Leslie remains a cult figure among UFOlogists.

"After serving as a Spitfire pilot during the Second World War, he settled in London and embarked on a career as a writer, producing a string of innovative and critically acclaimed novels, one of which anticipated George Orwell's 1984 by a year.

"At the same time, he worked as a film producer and screenwriter and composed music for film and television in the second half of the 1950s. In 1963 he returned to Ireland to live at Castle Leslie in County Monaghan, and for the rest of his life devoted himself to protecting the family estate, today one of Ireland's finest country-house hotels.

"Son of writer Sir Shane Leslie and brother of historian Anita Leslie, Desmond Leslie has never before been the subject of a biography, which includes personal recollections by family members and by the well-known writer Herbie Brennan. In portraying the Anglo-Irish during the second half of the twentieth century, as they struggled to find a new role in a rapidly changing world, Robert O'Byrne offers a wholly engaging case study of his propulsive and charismatic subject.

"Robert O'Byrne, journalist and art historian, is author of The Irish Georgian Society: A Celebration (2008), Dublin's Gaiety Theatre (2007), Mind Your Manners (2004), Living in Dublin (2003) and Hugh Lane 1875-1915 (2000)."

Angelucci & LSD

Over at his blog, Mark Pilkington - author of the book Mirage Men - discusses the strange case of friend to the Space-Brothers, Orfeo Angelucci (whose story is told in my Contactees book).

As Mark notes, Angelucci recorded in his 1959 book Son of the Sun a weird experience that occurred in 1954, when he may have been the unwitting player in some bizarre MKUltra-type experiment - one that had everything to do with clandestine psy-ops, concerns about Communism, and nothing to do with literal aliens.

As Mark says: "So how’s this for a temporary working hypothesis? Adamski and others were claiming alien contacts and espousing anti-American beliefs. Meanwhile Orfeo Angelucci and fellow contactee George Van Tassel, both employed at one of the US’s most advanced aircraft development plants, also claimed contacts with space beings. Angelucci, as it happens, had previously sparked a police hunt after launching balloons containing the aspergillus clavatus mould, a fact sure to have drawn the FBI’s attentions. Were Angelucci and Van Tassel given some kind of hallucinogen, deployed as a ‘truth drug’ to quiz them about possible Communist or Soviet sympathies and, perhaps to pump them full of extraterrestrial anti-Commie rhetoric for good measure?"

And here's Mark's full post, which I strongly urge you to read!

Raven Reviews Contactees

My good friend, Raven Meindel, of Raven's Crypto Haven and the Exploring All Realms radio-show that we co-host reviews my Contactees book and says:

"If you're wanting to know the "who's who" of the contactees, this book includes the best of the best and the most famous of the contactee stories. You'll read about cases like the one of George Hunt Williamson, who made claims that he--like others before and after him, such as George Adamski--had captured the attention of the "Space-Brothers", an alien race that seemed eerie, but very concerned for the human race and our warring ways. You'll also learn about Truman Bethurum who had a romantic liaison with the lovely female alien 'Captain Rhanes' ( One of my personal favorite accounts in this book).

"Redfern also covers several of the bizarre yet intriguing theories that have surrounded Alien related cases over the years, such as mind-control experiments instrumented by our Government, and whether the UFO agenda may be tied to an ancient, Earth-based society that secretly live and move among us under false pretenses even today.

"Nick Redfern has a delightful way of making all his books pop to life, so you feel like you are part of every account he's detailing. This book is a 'must have' to ad to your collection !"

George Adamski: A New, FREE Book!

Yep, that's right! I did indeed say free! Titled George Adamski: The Toughest Job In The World, the book in question is a new one from Auckland-based writer Tony Brunt and is available from Scribd at this link.

I have already started reading the book and can say with certainty that it's a great addition to the body of data that we have on the "Professor." And I'd urge one and all to download and read the book.

After all, it's not every day you get a book that is both very good and free!!

Lecturing on the Space-Brothers

On Saturday afternoon, I drove down to Austin, Texas, where I was due to speak that evening on the subject of my Contactees book, at the Austin Center for Spiritual Living. The gig had been arranged by SMiles Lewis, and a good time was had by all! There was a decent-sized turn-out of about 50 people (including good friends Ken Gerhard - my co-author on Monsters of Texas - and Richie and Naomi West of the Center for Fortean Zoology).

And: in the two-hour-long lecture, I got a lot of very thought-provoking questions about the near-legendary, long-haired Space-Brothers (and Space-Sisters too, of course!), demonstrating that although the Contactee phenomenon may have been at its height in the 1950s, it's a subject that still continues to fascinate and intrigue.

PsiOp Radio & Contactees

This coming Sunday night, I'll be speaking about my Contactees book on S. Miles Lewis' program, PSiOp Radio. This will be a long interview, and we should cover a lot of good ground, cases and personalities: Adamski, Van Tassel, Bethurum, Angelucci, etc., as well as the various theories that have been put forward to explain what may lie at the heart of the Contactee puzzle. Hope to see you there!

Here's the link to the show.