Just recently, I re-read a few books from the early years of Ufology, including Harold T. Wilkins’ Flying Saucers Uncensored, Gray Barker’s They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, and The Humanoids, edited by Charles Bowen. And, on doing so, something important struck me. Back in those bygone days, when face-to-face alien experiences were all the rage, the ET’s very often provided the witnesses with names. Unlike today’s modus-operandi of, mostly, downright extraterrestrial anonymity.
While those early alien monikers often sounded like they came straight out of the world of science-fiction (and maybe, in some cases, they did!), the fact of the matter is that, today, even in close encounter cases of a definitively alien kind, the entities seem to be far more anonymous in nature than they were in decades-past. And there’s certainly no better way to gain an understanding of the sheer wealth of curiously-named ETs of the past than An Alien Who’s Who, by Martin S. Kottmeyer, which is published by the good people at Anomalist Books.
Depending on your own personal perspective regarding what lies at the heart of the UFO puzzle, An Alien Who’s Who reveals a great deal about (a) the dizzying variety of weirdly named extraterrestrials that have visited the Earth for a good many years; (b) the tall-tales of a whole range of fantasists and con-merchants; or (c) the way in which the UFO phenomenon, and those within it, are constantly being manipulated and exploited by a true trickster of a type that would make both John Keel and Jacques Vallee very proud.
Or, maybe it’s all three theories, or perhaps none of them. Whatever the case, I know only this much for certain: Martin Kottmeyer’s book is damned good fun and highly informative – and in equal measures, too.
Basically, it’s a 263-page, A to Z-style page-turner that lists a truly startling number of names attributed to aliens that are said to have visited the Earth. Of course, reading about the trials, tribulations and exploits of hundreds of alleged aliens that range from Acorc (the denizen of an over-crowded planet 52 million kilometers from Earth) to Zyloo (who supposedly “followed Apollo 13″ and became involved in the “Sixth Patrol Division,” whatever the hell that is or was) could very quickly become tedious.
In the hands of Kottmeyer, however, tediousness is the last thing that springs to mind.
Certainly, most of the entries are relatively brief; however, they are also tinged with a welcome bit of deadpan humor. For example, Herronoah – who hails from the planet Epicot – tells a startled earthling named “Edwin W” that human beings wear too many clothes, and goes on to inform Edwin how, on one occasion, “their ship spooked a naked woman and man in a clump of bushes.” Ahem.
Then we get treated to the spectacle of Aura Rhanes, the hot space-babe from a far-off world called Clarion who, according to Truman Bethurum, the man she appeared before, wore “slacks” that “appeared almost as if painted on her, so snugly did they fit.” Lucky Truman, that’s all I can say. And what are we to make of Motag, who “once converted a flying saucer into a truck”? Or Nokyle, who intriguingly threatens to reveal details of a certain incident involving what are tantalizingly described only as “crazy girls”?
As you have probably already guessed, many of the entries contained within the packed pages of An Alien Who’s Who hail from that much-ridiculed era of the so-called Contactee: those seemingly elite souls who claimed face-to-face encounters with long-haired aliens back in the 1950s and whose names were invariably made up of a lot of Q’s, Z’s and X’s.
It should be stressed that the ridiculous and often hysterical nature of some of the stories does not undermine Kottmeyer’s credibility as an author. Indeed, he points out in his Introduction that he does not believe in “physically real aliens,” from Venus, Mars, Pluto, and so on.
Rather, for the most part, Kottmeyer has done something that few authors seldom do: he leaves his own views and beliefs at the door, and instead provides the reader with entertaining – and otherwise very hard to find – summaries on alleged other-worldly entities that have supposedly been manifesting before select members of the Human Race for decades.
Kottmeyer relates their bizarre, unverifiable and at times completely false tales, prophecies and warnings. And, in a roundabout way, he amply demonstrates that for all the attempts to legitimize Ufology as a serious science, it is still a subject that is packed with odd and unusual characters with weird names and even weirder motivations – and if you think I’m just talking about the aliens here, well, you’re very wrong, my friends.
With an entertaining and insightful Foreword from ufologist and Project Beta author Greg Bishop, An Alien Who’s Who is vital reading for anyone and everyone that wants to learn more about some of the strangely-named, other-worldly beings said to have visited our planet and whose exploits, without Kottmeyer, would otherwise be lost to the fog of time.
And, with all that now said, I’m off to meet Solar-Commander Xzzobovaxxx for a spot of dinner, followed by a flight around Venus with the bikini-clad Amazonians of Delta-Zorvog 12. Wish me luck!
Source: mysteriousuniverse.org
I enjoy reading Kottmeyer’s work because it’s always saturated in sourced research. He casts a wide net and reads across many fields. Chasing down his references can be educational and take the reader off into areas they didn’t expect. I disagree with some of his conclusions without losing respect for him or his analyses.
His stuff on the Magonia blog and articles on The Daily Grail (‘Still Waiting’ is a good one) should be required reading for anyone with an interest in this amorphous ‘field.’ He’s guaranteed to generate some ideas and cognitive dissonance.
The book sounds interesting and anyone who’s grown up with sci-fi will recognise consonant-heavy names for alien characters. The thing is – what should alien critters be called?
If anyone can come up with an alien name that doesn’t sound like something else, I’ll pay them. X,Y and Z has already been done to death.