Neil Nixon
Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, 2002; £3.99
Pocket Essentials are the publishers who have had the taste and good sense to publish my Conspiracy Theories and The Rise of New Labour; and will publish a volume from Lobster contributor John Burnes on MI5 this year. So, yes, this is a shameless plug. However Nixon’s book is really rather good. Though neither a beginner’s guide nor a comprehensive summary of the subject – how big would that be? – this manages to contain elements of both within a 90 page extended essay which rattles through both the history of UFOs and much of the con-temporary agenda. This is quite a trick to pull off with such a vast and slippery subject. Some of the content was familiar to me and some not; Nixon clearly knows a great deal; and he can write. Nixon doesn’t really adopt a position though he is inclined towards the Fortean view that whatever this phenomenon is, it isn’t the arrival on earth of thousands of extra-terrestrial craft containing aliens bent on abducting and impregnating the women of America.
In short, Nixon gives the reader a witty guide to the major mystery of the post-war era, from its pre-history in the late 19th century airship flaps, through to the attempt by Albert Budden to explain the phenomenon by the effect of electromagnetic fields on the human brain.