Author: Stan Romanek
Publisher: LIewelyn Publications 2009
Price: £16.50
Isbn: 9780738715261

The fact that a few scientists have endorsed this book is worrying. Romanek is an ‘experiencer’, someone who has been plagued by UFOs and alien visitors since childhood. We called them contactees in the old days. To Stan, UFO sightings were everyday occurrences and his first abduction consisted not of being beamed up, oh no: the trio of aliens politely knocked on his door! And so it goes. Nuggets of scientific information imparted to Stan lead him to believe interstellar flight is possible.

The events in Messages are reminiscent of some of Whitley Strieber’s experiences and updated versions of those undergone by the classic contactees of the 1950s and ’60s, but whereas their tales of travels beyond the planets had a certain naïve charm, Romanek comes across as a hustler out to secure a name for himself in the annals of ufology. The high (or, depending on your point of view, low) point comes when Stan takes his ‘famous’ photograph of an alleged alien peeping through his window. The resultant image is risible; a balloon-like head with two black blobs for eyes. It could be anything at all. Stan’s reasoning for why it could be a real alien, “The fact that it’s possible to counterfeit a twenty dollar bill doesn’t mean there is no such thing as a real twenty dollar bill” is just silly. Note to Stan: we know 20 dollar bills exist; we don’t know that aliens do. And, frankly, if the best aliens can do is appear in windows, then they are wasting their talents! Anyone completely unfamiliar with the UFO subculture would read this book and be convinced Stan had a diagnosable mental illness. Forteans know better than to cast such slurs, and if you appreciate tales from the farthest shores of ufological strangeness, then Messages will enthral you. Similarly, if you are a student of UFO history and a collector of the subject’s folklore, this book will give you enough mind food for a very long picnic. However, if you believe you are going to read an objective account of anomalous alien-related phenomena, you will be let down.