Brad Steiger Mysteries of Time & Space (1974)
Being massively into the flying saucer shit as a kid, this one seemed life changing at the time, and so I recalled it as having been a cut above the usual fare without actually recalling what distinguished it from the usual mumbling accounts of a light which definitely wasn't a helicopter seen briefly in a field. Having since developed critical faculties, or at least some critical faculties, one might predict this particular trip down memory lane leading to inevitable disappointment, perhaps even embarrassment, but no.
As usual, Steiger cheerfully throws everything into the mix with casual abandon, even the stuff you would think might drastically reduce the possibility his being taken seriously by anyone at all; and so, aside from the usual saucers, swamp monsters, ghosts, and men in black we have human footprints in Cambrian shale, ancient spark plugs, and the United States of Iynkicidu. The key to Steiger's success is that he gives everything equal whack, and avoids the usual bollocks asking whether we readers have an open mind or whether we've been brainwashed by the so-called scientistic rationale of those so-called authorities scared to face the truth of the so-called facts. If anything, he takes apparent delight in how preposterous some of this seems to be; and because everything here is offered as a claim which therefore remains entirely subject to debate, it doesn't actually insult anyone's intelligence, excepting possibly the sort of evangelical hyper-rationalists who probably deserve it.
Steiger not only writes in the spirit of Charles Fort, but with this one he does a significantly better job in so much as that it more or less duplicates the structure of Lo! in seeking a means by which all manner of seemingly unrelated screwy claims may be seen as part of the same phenomenon, but comes to a somewhat more satisfying conclusion. Well, maybe not more satisfying - depending on how much of this stuff you actually believe - so much as simply one requiring much less suspension of disbelief because, rather than anything in the realm of Fort's upside down space volcanoes, one significant aspect of Steiger's conclusion is that there may be a strongly subjective element to the saucers and swamp monsters, even something vaguely compatible with Jung's take on the same.
As ever with books of this type, some suspension of disbelief is required and one should avoid placing too much stock in the reportage of anything which is obviously bollocks, but if you read with the notion that some percentage of what is claimed here is either true, or seemed absolutely true to those involved, then there's a lot of cerebral pleasure to be had from Steiger's efforts towards figuring it out, even when skating dangerously close to self-help literature, as he does in the conclusion.
Being massively into the flying saucer shit as a kid, this one seemed life changing at the time, and so I recalled it as having been a cut above the usual fare without actually recalling what distinguished it from the usual mumbling accounts of a light which definitely wasn't a helicopter seen briefly in a field. Having since developed critical faculties, or at least some critical faculties, one might predict this particular trip down memory lane leading to inevitable disappointment, perhaps even embarrassment, but no.
As usual, Steiger cheerfully throws everything into the mix with casual abandon, even the stuff you would think might drastically reduce the possibility his being taken seriously by anyone at all; and so, aside from the usual saucers, swamp monsters, ghosts, and men in black we have human footprints in Cambrian shale, ancient spark plugs, and the United States of Iynkicidu. The key to Steiger's success is that he gives everything equal whack, and avoids the usual bollocks asking whether we readers have an open mind or whether we've been brainwashed by the so-called scientistic rationale of those so-called authorities scared to face the truth of the so-called facts. If anything, he takes apparent delight in how preposterous some of this seems to be; and because everything here is offered as a claim which therefore remains entirely subject to debate, it doesn't actually insult anyone's intelligence, excepting possibly the sort of evangelical hyper-rationalists who probably deserve it.
Steiger not only writes in the spirit of Charles Fort, but with this one he does a significantly better job in so much as that it more or less duplicates the structure of Lo! in seeking a means by which all manner of seemingly unrelated screwy claims may be seen as part of the same phenomenon, but comes to a somewhat more satisfying conclusion. Well, maybe not more satisfying - depending on how much of this stuff you actually believe - so much as simply one requiring much less suspension of disbelief because, rather than anything in the realm of Fort's upside down space volcanoes, one significant aspect of Steiger's conclusion is that there may be a strongly subjective element to the saucers and swamp monsters, even something vaguely compatible with Jung's take on the same.
As ever with books of this type, some suspension of disbelief is required and one should avoid placing too much stock in the reportage of anything which is obviously bollocks, but if you read with the notion that some percentage of what is claimed here is either true, or seemed absolutely true to those involved, then there's a lot of cerebral pleasure to be had from Steiger's efforts towards figuring it out, even when skating dangerously close to self-help literature, as he does in the conclusion.
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