Review of Revelations by Jacques Vallee

I have a backlog of books that I need to read in my collection, but heat and work have kept me from them. Fortunately, audiobooks are still quite doable even when my jobsite temperature is in the triple digits. My latest completion is probably unusual for this forum at first blush, but hopefully I will make the case for its inclusion over the course of this.

Jacque Vallee is a highly controversial figure in Ufology, and the reasons for this are completely relevant to the subject of the book. Jacques is equal parts skeptic and believer where the mainstream is concerned, and it is precisely his outlook that has made it possible for an outstanding Skeptic's Handbook for Ufology to be written by one of the foremost researchers of our day in this field. Beginning with Passport to Magonia, Jacques has long been making his case that whatever it is that people and governments have been observing in the sky does not necessarily have to be from another world. Moreover, he points to the folklore of peoples across the globe as evidence that They have always been here. It was likely his unusual beliefs and his personal friendship with the likes of Dr Hynek that brought him to the attention of Spielberg who based one of his scientists on him in the legendary film Close Encounters. It is surely from here that many people may be at least passingly familiar with this most unusual and intrepid of professors.

Revelations is the third book in his Alien Contact trilogy, the previous two being Dimensions and Confrontations. Dr Vallee has written extensively and authoritatively on the subject for literally decades, but this particular book is especially worthy of note as he chose to turn his withering gaze upon not flying saucers or visitors from afar, but his own community. As mentioned previously, he takes the approach of an ardent skeptic in his writing of this book while constantly reminding the reader that he does earnestly believe in the UFO/UAP phenomenon. Indeed, this book might contain one of the first usages of the latter phrase.

A quick synopsis for convenience, he asserts that this book is an investigation. He describes it as something of a detective thriller, and in good form he begins with a visit to Area 51 in the first person. Rather quickly, he cuts to the chase laying out how he first heard of the place and presents us with certain logical problems with the idea of a literal city size underground facility teeming with scientists and alien collaborators there. Top of his list? He challenges us to find out who takes out their garbage and to where. While NORAD certainly resolved this problem, the spirit of the question is one very often overlooked by armchair investigators. We get so caught up with the wonderment and grandeur of the big story that we lose sight of minor yet abruptly critical details that can easily unravel the entire presentation. Moving along, he glosses over the crash retrieval narrative wherein he first hints at his personal views concerning governments and ufos, which I will endeavor to explain later much the way he did, and he touches upon a few personal anecdotes from his field research experience.

The high point of this text comes after all of the crash retrieval and area 51 hooplah. Soon after these chapters, he gets to the subject of cults. This is where the nitty gritty of delusion and gas lighting is really hit upon, and the dialogue gets really interesting with his extensive exploration of a very unusual organization called UMMO. As far as he is aware, noone has ever discovered who their leadership is or was and they claim to be guided by ETs. Far from a harmless fraternity of eccentrics and nutjobs, they have apparently successfully staged faux alien abductions so convincing that Interpol was at a loss as to how they did it, and are also implicated in the theft of human cadavers that they desecrated so as to match the common descriptions of cattle mutilations. He touches upon the cattle mutilation subject as well, primarily to debunk a common theory about the total exsanguination of the cattle, that being the surreptitious development of an emergency blood supply due to genetic similarity between humans and bovines. Apparently we aren't similar enough as a blood transfusion would be lethal. All of that aside, Jacques makes a number of very sober observations concerning UMMO and society at large. I myself have often observed how weirdly receptive people are to big ideas, however fantastical. It is as though we are capable of reasonable analysis of minor and mundane issues, but somehow scale defeats our powers of reason. He points out a number of examples here, especially authority. We rely on authority to make up for our shortcomings with this weird tendency to overlook all of the times that authority fails us, or even betrays us. Chief examples that he cites are the Intelligence community, which he provides examples of throughout including a documented and verified example of the Air Force deliberately driving a lay researcher insane when he came to their attention.

The UMMO section is the longest and most interesting segment in my opinion, as previously mentioned because of his observations concerning gullibility and bias. Continuing on, he starts in on firsthand experiences with possible government or intelligence service chicanery. He apparently met the late William Cooper and John Leer, who both impressed and disturbed him as archetypes of the opposite of his previous observations. Bill Cooper in particular disturbed him for how quickly and uncritically he leapt to believe seemingly any story concerning evil aliens, or high government strangeness. This falls in with the theory about the failure of reason when confronted with abstractions of scale, merely from the opposite direction. An interesting story concerning Cooper, he had apparently seen a document allegedly coauthored by Dr Hynek of Blue Book fame that Jacques knew to be fake. Another extensive aside on his part, he observes at length how disturbing it is that Leer promotes absurd theories about aliens and humans collaborating in exotic and extensive underground lairs that noone can verify and he himself has never seen or validated by his own admission, and yet people believe him because of his noteworthy credentials and very real accomplishments. Again, reason failing because of scale.

Skipping further along, Jacques chronicles in brief an investigation he did in Russia where hundreds of witnesses beheld saucers landing and aliens disembarking in and around Voronezh. He uses this experience to provide examples of valid evidence and investigation in contrast to previous adventures in fallacy and bias. Closing in on the end, he takes the opportunity to lampoon Bob Lazar who apparently not only admits to having had his memory chemically tampered with but is also apparently the co-owner of a Vegas brothel.

Dr Jacques Vallee at no point endorses any particular theory about aliens or UFOs. What he does do is call attention to how long the militaries of the world have been developing drones and how useful UFO crackpots are for concealing aerospace development on various levels.He also observes how rarely credible encounters actually involve Greys, and how convenient it would be for governments if aliens from afar should happen to be in favor of a global federation. He soberly notes how interesting it is that aliens from afar always seem to want world peace for us through social models that would be condemned as horrifyingly fascistic if they were to be suggested by some mere mortal. In short, he suggests that many things can be true at once. There can be real UAP, UAP don't necessarily have to be aliens from afar, public investigations are probably smoke screens hiding government investigations that have nothing to do with finding aliens, and governments probably have their own ufos that make great cover for open psy ops against a gullible world public.

This synopsis fails to cover the ground that he touches. His explanations of logical fallacies and self bias phenomena are far superior to my own. I was drawn to this book by the author, hooked by the novelty of a ufologist providing skeptical analysis of his own field, and stayed the full length over a weekend because of his broader social observations. If you are interested in the paranormal and would like something adjacent to bring you down from the clouds but maybe not all the way to Earth, this is a good one.