UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record Paperback – August 2, 2011

Leslie Kean is an independent investigative journalist known for pioneering human rights work in Burma. As Director of the Coalition for Freedom of Information, between 2005 and 2009 she fought and won a FOIA federal lawsuit against NASA to release "lost" records on the 1965 Kecksburg PA incident. She is patient, persistent, tenacious and skeptical. Her new book, ten years in the making and two years in the writing, has received open endorsement from so many leading politicians and scientists that it just might be a game-changer.The intended audience is not the committed reader steeped in the lore of UFOs or discussions of the ETH and competing origin-hypotheses. Plenty of books explore these subjects and their readership is, against the mainstream, pitifully small and marginalised. Such works, however well-researched, are often self-published or condemned to share shelf-space with political CTs, channelling and new-age mush, undeservedly consigned to the ghetto of the kooky, ridiculed fringe.Readers familiar with the works of Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, Tim Good, Jerry Clark, Stan Friedman, Richard Dolan and writers of similar calibre will find little new here, though they will find a few interesting nuggets. They are already persuaded of the evidence, and not the target audience for this book. These writers, collectively, have never effected political attitude-change: the contributors to this book are such serious, credible, high-profile people they just might.Kean's target audience is professional academia, those involved in politics and the media, the skeptically-minded scientist with little familiarity with the subject matter due to its long contamination with fringe elements, and the concerned, civic-minded man or woman in the street who has never read a book on the issue and knows little of the powerful evidence for the existence of persistent strange aerial phenomena. The book is carefully crafted to bring the subject out of the UFO conference fringe and place it firmly centre-stage into the political and academic mainstream where it belongs; to make it a respectable and important subject for discussion. The argument is: These are responsible officials going on the record, and here is serious evidence of something real. You are irresponsible if you ignore this subject, or allow it to continue to be marginalised.To this end, the book's tone is deliberately sceptical. The tag-line "Generals, Pilots and Government Officials go on the Record" describes exactly the content: only incontestable cases with multiple official witnesses plus supporting evidence have been chosen for inclusion. The author worked for years to contact and gain the confidence of these military pilots and high-profile government officials and to bring them together at the National Press Club in DC in November 2007. High priority is given to cases involving air force encounters; documented, confirmed, official. The contributors are truly international, confirming the global reach of the phenomenon.This cautious tone, the international perspective and the author's avoidance of contamination by book jacket-cover endorsement from anyone associated with the "UFO community" sets this book apart from other work on the subject. This will be extremely difficult for a debunker to deal with, and that is the intention. Journalistic standards are high, so there are no "anonymous whistleblowers", no ID kept secret, nothing flaky or un-checkable. These establishment people have gone ON THE RECORD, and write in total around half the content of the 302 pages of the book. Introducing the section written by Nick Pope, Kean writes: "He is yet another example of the many officials and military officers who, as they became acquainted with UFO investigations by accident, flexed their skeptical muscles only to find themselves absorbed by the unexpected power of the evidence they had initially expected to disprove." The accumulated evidence presented is virtually un-debunkable.Kean contrasts the relatively open way the UFO subject has been managed in recent decades by nations such as France, Belgium, the UK, Brazil, Peru and others, with the history of stonewalling and ridicule from all government and military bodies in the USA. Since the closing of Blue Book, the phenomenon no longer officially exists in the USA even though pilots, operators of military facilities and ordinary folk encounter it all the time. It's an Orwellian environment. What is to be done?In the third and final section of the book, the author explores the nature of UFO secrecy in the US. She sticks to the facts as known and documented, and acknowledges the unsupported speculations frequently put out by various people in the UFO field about the cover-up inhibit understanding of the issue and serve to marginalise the subject. Her reasoning is logical, thorough and grounded.In Chapter 26, "Engaging the US Government," Kean lays out the reasoned objective sought by the CFI:"The coalition is asking for responsible action on the part of the United States concerning UFOs. We make this request not as an accusation of wrongdoing in the past, but as an invitation to join an international, cooperative venture under way now...we are seeking the creation of a small government agency to investigate UFO incidents, and to act as a focal point for action at home and for research worldwide."Her objective is to bring about legitimization of the subject, so that scientific interest might be encouraged and government grants enable scientists in the academic, research and aviation fields to pursue serious study free of ridicule. She is not impotently shouting for "Disclosure" whilst remaining forever shut outside. She, and the impressive contributors to this book, ask for official recognition of the UFO issue as real, and for the establishment of a small agency to co-ordinate international study as a first step. No assumptions about the origin of the phenomenon are made: just that it exists, and needs to be acknowledged as real. It's a reasoned, achievable objective, unarguable in the face of the unassailable evidence presented here. That's why this book might be the catalyst for permanent recognition of legitimacy: in other words, a game-changer.The production quality of the book is first class and the writing from all contributors literate, straightforward and completely free of typos. It has a logical structure, is an easy and absorbing read containing nothing extraneous, concerned with the facts and testimonies. It builds a compelling argument. If you haven't read it yet, maybe you should.

There are thousands and thousands of UFO books out there. They range from such folderol as 'A Dweller on Two Planets', 'Secret Nazi UFO Bases Revealed', or the timeless classic 'GREETINGS EARTHLINGS My name is Appleton and I come from the Planet Reginta' to serious studies of the phenomenon (or phenomena) written by credentialed military officers, main stream scientists, professional historians and investigative journalists.Ms. Kean's book needs to be added to that latter list, and in my view it should be placed a long way up the pile, amongst the select few books on the subject that must be read by anyone, be they believer, skeptic or debunker who expects to be taken seriously in a real discussion on the subject.Ms. Kean, an investigative journalist by trade, was first introduced to the subject of UFOs, or UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon - not such a pejorative term) when in about 1999, a reporter colleague in Paris sent her a copy of the COMETA Report. This remarkable 90 page white paper, authored by a group of distinguished retired French generals, scientists and space experts, including the former head of the French equivalent of NASA, was a result of three years study analyzing records of military and pilot encounters with UFOs. No jokes about 'distinguished... French' being a tautology please.Amongst the conclusions which startled Ms. Kean when she read the COMETA Report, was that when all factors on 'good' reports were considered, although about 95 percent were explainable there was a residue of about 5 percent of 'good' sightings which could not be explained by known natural phenomena or earthly sources, such as secret military tests. They concluded that this 5 percent seemed to be '...completely unknown flying machines with exceptional performance that are guided by a natural or artificial intelligence'.This was the start of Ms Kean's personal journey and I heartily approve of the route she has taken and the travelogue she has written for those of us without her perseverance nor investigative skills.Along the road, Ms. Kean has been joined, as the title implies, by serving and retired high ranking military officers, military and commercial pilots, space scientists and government officials from many countries whom she has persuaded and assisted to end decades of silence and go 'on the record' about their own UFO experiences.Her witnesses include, amongst others:- the Airforce General responsible for scrambling F 16 fighters to (unsuccessfully) chase the silent black triangles seen by thousands of witnesses, photographed and tracked on radar over Belgium in 1989 and 1990;- the former United States Federal Aviation Administration Division Chief for Accident Investigations who followed up the 1986 Japan Air incident when a UFO 'larger than an aircraft carrier' circled a 747 over Alaska and was tracked on aircraft and ground radar;- the Iranian Airforce Major (who retired as a General) who attempted to fire missiles on a giant brightly lit UFO over Tehran in 1976. His F-4 Phantom jet's airborne radar picked it up but when he tried to lock his missiles on to it his controls froze and he lost all of his instruments;- the American missile launch officer who while on duty in 1967 in an underground command bunker at Malmstrom Airforce Base in Montana, watched ten Minuteman nuclear missiles shut down and go off-line within minutes of his top-side ground security calling to report a UFO hovering over the launch complex; and- the American Deputy Commander of a nuclear armed Airbase in Suffolk who in 1980 investigated a UFO landing at his base involving physical and radiation traces along with multiple military and law enforcement witnesses.Ms. Kean's whistle-blowers include serving and former military and government officials from France, Belgium, the UK, Chile, Peru, Iran, Portugal, former US military, aviation officials and NASA scientists and the former two-term Republican Governor of Arizona. The forward of the book was written by President Bill Clinton's Chief of White House Staff who also served on the National Security Council. These are not people with tinfoil pyramids on their heads.I recall being thrilled by the COMETA Report when it came out and I had high hopes it would blow the lid off what I believe to be the greatest news story of our known human history. I was disappointed, not for the first time, when this didn't happen.Ms. Kean's contributors include two prominent social/political scientists who explain the American and Western media 'taboo' against acknowledging UFOS quite clearly and that is one of the most interesting parts of the book, together with her discussion and analysis of the postulated American cover-up.Ms. Kean goes to great lengths to stick to the facts and the book is comprehensively referenced and indexed. She repeatedly makes the point that even though COMETA and other serious investigators have concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is the most likely explanation, it is by no means proven. All we really know for sure is that something unknown is flying around in our skies, all over the world, buzzing our aircraft, airports, cities (and nuclear weapons depots) and we not only can't stop them, we really have no idea what they are or whether they might be dangerous to us.Her basic question is: isn't it time we stopped pretending there's nothing there and try to figure it out?Seems like a reasonable proposition to me.To all of you earnest, well-meaning (and ignorant) self-styled 'skeptics' who like to maintain the position that 'there is no reliable physical, photographic or other evidence to demonstrate the reality of the UFO phenomenon', you are flat out wrong and clearly have looked no further than the pages of James Randi's debunk-rag 'The Skeptical Enquirer' and the ends of your own nose.Ms. Kean's book, easily read in a day, would be a good start to get you to uncross your eyes and look up. As one of the reviewers (the science correspondent for PBS's NewsHour) who is quoted on the cover puts it "She may not have the final smoking gun, but I smell the gunpowder".

First of all, I must greatly comend miss keen on her excellent writing skills and great attention to the facts. This book was researched very throughly and brought many important issues regarding UAP's to the worlds attention. The best aspect of this work is that off the quality of testimony; made almost exclusively by high ranking miltary or well respected scientists and pilots. Leslie Keen's "activist journalism" keeps to a narrow, concise goal throughout the whole work. By the end of this book one will have no doubt about what goal she is promoting regarding the ufo phenomenon! Which is good, and bad in my opinion.... The fact that she has done such a good job of stating her overall mission and then backing it up with the appropriate evidence and testimony is the good, even the great. The only real complaint I had with the entire book, which is why I did not give it the full 5 stars, is that she drove her point through the ground. In my opinion alot of this book was un-called for, akin to beating a dead horse. After the first chapter and the second and third one half-way intelligent person completely gets what the message is! No need to keep reminding readers and providing basically the same thoughts over and over again. Although it can be redundent miss keen is a very good writer and it doesn't become too un-bearable.....she keeps the flow going nicely. And for what its worth her mission or goal is very deserving and needs to be completed by the powers that be. So, overall a great factual, credible ufo book with un-peckable reporting and great writing! PS...its not way out in left field either if you get my drift....