Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception [Paperback]

In "Revelations" the author takes a critical look among other things at the standard ET hypothesis of crashed saucers, recovered disks, reverse engineering at Area 51 and secret government deals with the grays, and provides much needed balance in this area. He also looks at how alot of these stories came about, who could have been behind them and the possible reasons for doing so. For instance alot of the stories about Area 51 could have been deliberately planted so as to distract attention away from what's really going on there i.e. the development of high tech planes like the Aurora. Psychological warfare and mind control could have been reasons behind certain other cases like the tragic case of Paul Bennewitz.
This is not to say that the author is a sceptic of the phenomenon as a whole as he believes that UFO's are very real, and has presented detailed evidence of this in his previous books "Dimensions" and "Confrontations." He doesn't pretend to know the answer to the mystery but emphasises the need for a critical yet open minded approach, which I think is quite rare in this field as all too often researchers seem to take a very narrow minded view whether it be the sceptics who don't believe that UFOs exist at all and are always searching for some "logical explanation" which quite often are far more ridiculous than the ET theory, or the researchers who believe the ET theory is the answer to the mystery and so ignore all the cases that don't fit into the theory.
He also takes a look at the Soviet UFO wave of 1989, and has some interesting comments on the Roswell crash.
Overall I found this an entertaining and informative book, and one that belongs on the bookshelf of every UFO researcher.
In addition I would also recommend his previous books "Passport to Magonia", "Dimensions", and "Confrontations," as well as John Keels book "UFOs Operation Trojan Horse." Regarding the possibility of man made UFOs I would recommend "The Hunt for Zero Point" by Nick Cook.

Revelations (1991) is the 3rd part of a trilogy. The first two books were "Dimensions" (1988) and "Confrontations" (1990).

This renowned de-bunker of myths & psy-ops is also author of Passport To Magonia, Messengers of Deception & other books.

Dr. Vallee, a respected investigator, attempts to disentangle the entrails of the oddball UFO domain and adopts a broad-based, dispassionate view of the UFO phenomenon

I especially agreed with his verdict that the Rendlesham UK so-called "UFO" incident was a psy-op, no doubt using disco-ball lights in the forest, drugs etc. He mentioned that, in his research, radar operators at the US airbase were tipped to watch for "something" that was due to approach from the sea.

Jacques Vallee travelled a long way from the genesis of his ideas on the UFO issue in the 1960s to `Revelations'. Originally published in 1991 and reprinted by Anomalous in 2008 with a new introduction, this is the final book of the author's magnum opus trilogy summarising his 30 years of research into UFO and related phenomena.

Where `Dimensions' (1988) summarised and updated his work from the 1970s - and contained a lot of repetition from earlier books - and `Confrontations' (1990) focussed on recent field investigations of legitimate UFO/encounter cases from three continents, the subject matter of `Revelations' takes up the themes last explored in the author's 1979 book `Messengers of Deception'. A critical eye and sharp intellect are here brought to focus on some of the (largely delusional) common belief paradigms rampant in the field of UFOlogy at the time. Some of these beliefs have survived for decades, and deserve to be examined closely.

From the author's introduction on p7:

"...there is indeed a genuine UFO phenomenon and it constitutes one of the many mysteries that nature offers us...but the current proliferation of spurious material ...should be analyzed and exposed for what it is: at best, a dangerous delusion, the germ of new cults that would extinguish the light of reason and free inquiry; at worst, an attempt to draw attention away from the real nature of the UFO phenomenon, a deliberate effort to drive real research into the quicksands of speculation"

Through a series of interviews with Bill Moore, John Lear, Bill Cooper, Bob Lazar, Wendelle Stevens and countless other misguided souls, the misconceptions behind many of the myths about US government `treaties' with ETs, crashed saucers, autopsied aliens, the notorious MJ-12 documents, underground bases and Area 51 are stripped away. Vallee explains how these myths got started and propagated, and explores orchestrated hoaxes such as the UMMA-cult, the infamous Pontoise `abduction' and (so Vallee believes) the 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident as being deliberate exercises in manipulation and deception.

Vallee says of this book:

"' Revelations' is an attempt to clear the underbrush of an interesting scientific field ...cluttered with the weeds and vines of human fantasy and the poisonous flowers of unbalanced minds" (p9)

In the process Vallee manages to offend just about everybody, from the ideological "they can't get here from there" debunkers with their spurious swamp gas/Venus/weather balloon `explanations', to the equally ideologically driven cultist-proponents of various conspiracy theories and messianic ideologies. Vallee demonstrates such misguided beliefs are actively encouraged to pollute the waters and keep people chasing phantoms: the classic intelligence art of deception is to make people look at what you want them to look at, and away from what you don't want them to see.

This is one of Vallee's best published works, written in a lively style and packed with insights, and as a bonus containing more genuine humor than one usually finds in his earnest writings. It's full of radical perspectives as some commonly held myths are carefully deconstructed, one at a time. The conclusions may be briefly summarised as follows:

1. There is a genuine UFO phenomenon which deserves serious scientific investigation

2. Mainstream scientists with the academic standards needed to investigate this phenomenon with professional thoroughness and sufficient resources are kept away from the subject because it is contaminated by too much lunacy

3. Much of this lunacy is deliberately fed with disinformation by those who are perfectly aware of the gullibility and scientific illiteracy of their target audience

4. These targeted interventions often result in self-perpetuating cults and delusional beliefs (like thousands of aliens living in a huge underground base at Dulce NM and feasting on human body parts, for example) which become widely accepted and take on a life of their own, and whose proponents are too naïve to ask the obvious questions which might quickly puncture the balloon of the delusion

Vallee does not claim to have all the answers, and you may or may not agree with him on every issue. For example, his "5 arguments against the ETH" are ultimately spurious and unconvincing (though to be fair Vallee does insist his speculations are "...not intended as a complete refutation of the ETH" and could be set aside as our understanding about wormholes etc. develops), and he has always had a blind spot about abduction research because he simply does not understand the evidence. However, taken as a whole the book is essential reading. The author is certain that the UFO phenomenon is the object of deep study by many official and covert governmental agencies because of the overwhelming evidence of the persistent confiscation of photos and film from professional pilots and other credible witnesses, and their being repeatedly intimidated into silence; but it's a big jump from this documented fact to unfounded speculations about alien spacecraft being reverse-engineered at Area 51, when the `evidence' for this belief (including Bob Lazar's experiences, which he seems to genuinely believe) looks to be contrived and deliberately manufactured; a `set-up'.

If you're interested in looking into the propagation of UFO myths and sorting wheat from chaff, then reading `Revelations' is likely to illuminate some dark and murky places and help you see things as they are more likely to be.