Flying Saucers and Science: A Scientist Investigates the Mysteries of UFOs: Interstellar Travel, Crashes, and Government Cover-Ups

Very interesting

A great book, right up there with other offerings from Friedman. I almost did not buy it because of some of the negative reviews posted here, but I am glad I did. After reading this book, I was left scratching my head at the negative reviews, but then realized the driving force behind them.Friedman, among other things, takes many UFO debunkers to task here, including those idiots behind SETI, and shows how useless their work really is. Taxpayer money is being wasted on SETI, and the knuckleheads earning a living off this travesty will say and do just about anything to keep their jobs. The American public really needs to read this book to see how their money is being flushed down the toilet. Friedman also blasts the mainstream media for doing a poor job over the years of covering the UFO phenomenon. If somebody from the Washington Post or New York Times were to spend half as much time on the UFO subject as what was expended on Watergate, the lid on what Friedman calls the "Cosmic Watergate" would have long been removed by now. Oh yes, Friedman steps on a lot of toes here and it is easy to see why so many people got their undies in bunches over it. The truth hurts.This a great, great book that will be cussed and discussed for years. If you want to be enlightened on UFOs, this book is a must buy.

I'm a big fan of Stanton Friedman and his scientific and methodical approach to the subject matter. He's a reliable, grounded. and very intelligent source of content. He's not delving into oddball speculation. To describe the book, it seems the focus is debunking the debunkers. By debunkers, I mean those who will dismiss any witness or phenomenon despite evidence. Friedman uses this book to provide a lot of counter-arguments based on his years of research. Friedman stands his ground in debates and makes a very compelling case for UFO realitiesThe book is a quick read, but somewhat repetitive. For someone brand new to the UFO topic, I'd suggest Richard Dolan's book UFOs for the 21st Century Mind. Then come back to this book after you have a base of UFO evidence and history.

Stan has written many books on this topic and if you're like me you recognize him from his TV appearances.If you were to pick a book to explore the UFO subject, this would be a great place to start.The information is well laid out, logical and points you to further exploration.Not sure if UFOs are extra terrestrials?Why not look at the evidence?Wonderful book, informative too.

I am very impressed with Friedman as both a scholar and an informative, captivating writer. This book however is very repetitive in places and needs an expert editor to cut it down in size. The repetitiveness detracted from the flow of the writing. I found his writing on future scientific research in nuclear physics convincing and thought-provoking.This book is a great supportive text on verifying the existence of UFOs. Friedman is sober in his interpretations of witness sightings and is not prone to whimsical fancy or speculation beyond what is verifiable. A great UFOlogist.

Finally a book on Flying Saucers/UFO's that gets away from the old genre and brings us into the 21st century. Stanton Friedman's handling of the subject is befitting a man of his education as a scientist and stature as a life long researcher and believer in the phenomenon. This should be required reading in every news room across the globe. Let every empty talking/writing head who ever made fun of the idea or derided those that reported the sightings take a sobering look at themselves and the matter. I hope I live long enough to see this government 'give it up' and open up their UFO files to the world. Best work yet on this issue.

A long term review of still controversal topic. If you would search for any proof this book serves the references and some piece of science facts too. For most people understanding of our role in universe seems to be 'a left alone' topic. However, the bigger problems accumulate on earth, the more important it comes to realize some universal facts. Friedman has indeed the courage to step in front. In these days of disinformation putting forwards ideas that funny enough seem as some defition of disinformation is actually representing information! Governmental and media role playing in also well-illustrated.

Mr. Friedman starts out by making the case that UFOs are visitors from other planets, and then he answers some fundamental questions about them (where do they come from, how do they get here, why are they visiting us, why don't they land on the White House lawn, etc...). His answers are logical, but he assumes that for all practical purposes you can't get from point A to point B faster than the speed of light, and that beings visiting us from other planets are concerned about the same things we'd be concerned about if the situation were reversed. Of course, Mr. Friedman's assumptions might be right, and maybe things aren't any more complicated than that. Nothing strange here - just burger and fries. The problem is, while I admit Mr. Friedman may be right, I'm skeptical that's all there is to it. In fact, my interest in UFOs is driven primarily by the possibility those assumptions might be wrong, and that what's really going on may bend or even totally blow away our existing paradigms. I'm giving this book four stars because it's excellent in every way except that it omits an investigation of possible new paradigms.

Very enjoyable read.

Scritto da uno scienziato, fisico nucleare che ha lavorato in vari progetti dell'industria e governativi, con un'esperienza di oltre 50 anni nel campo dell'ufologia investigativa e di ricerca, tocca gli aspetti più controversi della materia, dandone la sua interpretazione attraverso una scrittura semplice ma sempre lucida. Mi aspetto una traduzione in italiano.

An excellent factual review of the ET craft phenomena, a must read for any skeptic or for those who want to prove the skeptics just don't look at the facts, and base opinions on rubbish served up by the media to rubbish the subject which should be taken seriously.

This book has been well put together (BY ONE OF THE GREATS) and as such is a very good read for a beginner to this subject or someone researching it. After all this man put Roswell back on the map.

Item reviewed: New Page edn, 2008OVERVIEW. This book is an interesting one from one of the most serious and well-qualified of ufologists. It is a collection of 11 topics written over the years, which ideally should have been rewritten. Prior knowledge of science is not a necessity, but a knowledge of UFOs is.DETAIL.This book is a collection of topics written over the years, which ideally should have been rewritten instead of assembled. Sometimes this is very obvious, as in references to the Soviet Union, dissolved 17 years before the book's publication. Some of the topics give the flavour of a man long used to the insults and misrepresentations spread by the opposition. There are too many verbs that are in the first person singular.He is (or was, as he is now in his 70s) a nuclear physicist. He may be regarded as a heavy hitter for the more respectable side of ufology. Friedman prefers the term "Flying Saucer" to "UFO", to avoid the ambiguity of the latter, although both terms have ambiguities.Friedman unfortunately uses the term "believer" for someone who takes the reality of UFOs to be extraterrestrial. So Friedman, a physicist whose views on UFOs were arrived at from a serious scientific examination of the evidence, is a "believer", whereas someone like the magician-philosopher Paul Kurtz, whose views on UFOs are based on his deep faith in humanism, is a "non-believer". This is both misleading and an unnecessary propaganda gift to Friedman's enemies.There are a couple of good forewords by Bruce Maccabee and astronaut Edgar Mitchell.Chapter 1 is very good once he gets on to the various scientific studies of UFOs and asks why so few of them are well-known.Chapter 2 is to say that aliens could come to Earth, unfortunately made long-winded because he insists on including material on his past career researching nuclear aircraft, etc. With my technological background I found this quite interesting, but others may see his career as simply irrelevant.Chapter 3 is about where flying saucers might come from. Friedman introduces the Betty Hill/Marjorie Fish star-map centred on Zeta Reticuli. He does nothing to convince the reader that the map (obtained under hypnosis) is correct, or that Zeta Reticuli is the only possible interpretation of the map.Chapter 4 is about how the military keeps secrets. Main good points: much U.S. government deception, most relevant info still kept above Secret level and not released, the media is generally unquestioning of what the government says, UFO data still held by many different agencies. Much of Bob Lazar's evidence on Area 51 is to be disbelieved.Chapter 5 gives 16 reasons why SETI will not work, regardless of whether or not there are aliens out there. This is a chance for him to move onto the attack.Chapter 6 answers a number of FAQ including the perennial Why Don't Aliens Land on the White House Lawn?Chapter 7 concerns why 3 SciFi writers (Asimov, Bova, Clarke) have dissed the UFO subject and UFO witnesses.Chapter 8 is about flying saucers and public opinion, which is much more pro-the reality of UFOs than is commonly supposed. Friedman makes the bull point that what deniers call a "conspiracy theory" is simply a case of classified materials being kept secret.Chapter 9 is about Roswell, where Friedman was instrumental in demolishing the "weather balloon" explanation, still fondly believed by many deniers. I found myself lost in the detail.Chapter 10 says persuasively that while the press may be sceptical of the government on political matters (e.g. Watergate), they ask too few questions over UFO "explanations".Chapter 11 is about the Majestic-12 documents: Friedman says some are genuine and some are fakes. Again, a lot of detail.There is a small index. The book is unsuitable for a beginner to the UFO scene. It is not essential to know any science before reading.There was one thing that puzzled me, so I e-mailed the question to the author. He stated that the USAAF retrieved a crashed saucer in 1947, and could not immediately reverse-engineer it. That would be expected in such a circumstance. But surely there would have been a truly major effort at reverse engineering in the 1950s. Instead, the USAF spent hundreds of $millions on ultimately futile advanced research that had nothing to do with alien technology, as he knew very well because he worked on some of these programs. Did that not strike him as odd? He was kind enough to reply: the USAF research was not necessarily futile, such advanced technology as on the saucer would take a very long time to back-engineer, possibly samarium cobalt permanent magnets were developed as a result of examining the saucer wreckage, but in any case the exigencies of the Cold War required new weapons quickly. Let the reader decide.