UFOs are physically real.  But they are embedded in a matrix of deception and irrationality.  This book explains how and why.  Cases are presented along with theories from anthropology.
 

Case Studies

    The case studies include: John Keel’s mothman, Budd Hopkins’ investigation of the abduction of Linda Napolitano (Cortile), Ralph Steiner’s “Sandy” case, and Linda Moulton Howe’s report on the activities of Richard Doty, among others.

    Gerald Haines’ report on CIA activity is assessed.

    The U.S. Air Force report on Roswell was prepared under the direction of Colonel Richard L. Weaver.  The author corresponded with him.  Weaver admitted that, years before he started the report, the CIA had confronted him with questions about activities of AFOSI Special Agent Richard C. Doty.  Doty showed documents to civilians which stated that the U.S. government had an agreement with extraterrestrial aliens.  Weaver’s report carried no mention of Doty.
 

Theoretical Perspectives

    This book draws from the writings of John Keel and Jacques Vallee.  Both understood that UFO phenomena have much in common with mythology.  Reports of UFOnauts are very similar to accounts of elves, demons, fairies, leprechauns and the like.

    Keel and Vallee did the bulk of their writing in the 1960s and 1970s, before some significant findings in anthropology and folklore were developed and effectively disseminated.  The concept of liminality, and ideas from French structuralism, are directly relevant to UFO phenomena.  Some of that work was briefly telegraphed in Peter Rogerson’s amazingly neglected article “Taken to the Limits” (Magonia, 1986, No. 23, pp. 3-12).  Patrick Harpur’s Daemonic Reality (1994) is in the same direction.

    European psycho-social theorists tend to discount the physical reality of UFOs.  I do not.  UFOs are real, but they are extremely problematic for science.  I address “high strangeness” cases.  Ufologists often are reluctant to take them seriously, because they embarrass ufology.  But they are a key to understanding the UFO mystery.

    Ufologists often bemoan the hoaxes that plague the field.  This is understandable, but an error.  Hoaxes have significant benefits, and investigators need to understand them.

    Establishment science ignores the UFO problem.  Very little funding is available for research, and there is a “giggle factor” surrounding the topic.  These are not accidents but rather important clues to the nature of UFOs.

    The Trickster and the Paranormal addresses all of these issues, and more.
 

Author’s background

    For a decade the author has been a contributor and loyal non-subscriber to Saucer Smear, the most glorious zine in ufodumb.  Its editor, James Moseley, the clown prince of ufoology, is an exemplary trickster figure—a believer, a grand hoaxer, and a debunker, all in one.