John and I have shared many writing projects over our long friendship, including our books Phenomena, Living Wonders and Unexplained Phenomena. We have agreed on most things, finding common ground in Charles Fort’s philosophy. The only subject we differed upon - and then only mildly - was crop circles. I edged towards the belief that they are all, every one, man-made, while John stuck to the agnostic creed of “I don’t know”. My conclusion arose from hearing first-hand tales from artists who claim to have made them. John, bless him, points out that as I had not seen them at work on an identifiable masterpiece, all I was doing was taking their word for it, which is not proof of anything. John is quite right of course; as a fortean, I should stay strictly on the fence until I have better evidence one way or another.

This little booklet - which some might find steeply priced - is John’s own testament, strung around the astonishing design of a face in half-tone-like dots found at Chilbolton on 20 August 2001. Nearby, was a replication of the famous digital message panel transmitted in the direction of the M13 star cluster from the Arecibo Observatory in 1974, although a closer look reveals important differences.

On the balance of evidence, John argues in some detail that this is a “literal spelt-out message from an intelligent, non-human life-form”, the gist of which is that “there are extraterrestrials among us”. It is a reasoned, passionate and philosophical argument, but mystical more than factual and therefore will not appeal to materialists, cynics and so-called rationalists. But it is pure Michell, and therefore eminently readable and well worthy of consideration.