"Alien Contact (The First Fifty Years)" by Jenny Randles.
Published by Collins and Brown.
London House, Gt. Eastern Wharf, Parkgate Road, London, England. SW11 4NQ
Priced at £14.99 (hardback)

We are now into the 50th year of the modern era of "flying saucers), and in this time there has been a multitude of weird and wonderful cases, which not only include strange objects seen in the sky, but entity reports as well in, other words, alleged sightings of what could be termed, aliens.

Jenny Randles is a prolific writer and investigator of phenomena such as ghosts, poltergeists and other weird and wonderful events, but the UFO phenomena is still Jenny's speciality and one would have expected she would write a book such as this in this 50th anniversary year. So, what do we get? Well you name it and I'm sure you'll find it in here. Alien crash landings, Contacts with beings from other worlds, UFOs in Space, Alien abductions, Star Children, Roswell (well come on, it had to be in here didn't it!), Betty and Barney Hill, etc., etc. For seasoned Ufologists and researchers on such events, we've heard it all before, it's old hat.

But for the many new and younger people who are now showing a thirst for this phenomenon and who are reading up on it in their thousands due to the success of the X-Files and other television shows, well you can do no better, and although Jenny didn't have the space to go into her cases with any great detail, what is given is important and much to the point. Moreover, many good photographs and illustrations are peppered throughout this book which gives the reader a feel for the story.

The book takes the reader through the years 1947 to 1997, and in each year, cases are presented. Some would argue that not all best UFO cases are in here, but of course, there have been so many that it would a brave woman/man to pick out what she/he considers to be the best case of the year considering how big the planet is and that this is a global phenomenon.

My only gripe about the book and it's a small one can be found on page 136 for the year 1996. Jenny briefly mentions the important "Fife Incident" of an alleged UFO landing with witnessed entities in Fife, Central Scotland. No mention of the research work conducted by the SPI (or others) is referred to, and the sparest of details is given. That point aside, this is an educational book for those newer members of Ufology. As a source book it will certainly leave its mark, and although a pot-pourri of similar books are on the market, Jenny's writing style and presentation wins hands down.

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