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Clarke, David, Dr and Roberts, Andy "Out of the Shadows. UFOs, the Establishment and the Official Cover-up". Judy Piatkus, London, 2002. Hbk. Vi, 282pp. Illus. Notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-7499-2290-7 (£5.99 from second hand bookshop)

David Clarke and Andy Roberts have carved out a niche in the UFO market purveying books which take a decidedly sceptical look at UFO phenomena, and in view of what a lot of tosh gets printed about the cursed subject, their approach is very much welcome. However, one shouldn't take this to mean that this book is simply an exercise in debunking, rather it takes a simple empirical approach, which demands solid evidence before accepting any claims regarding UFOs, and given the total lack of any agreed evidence anywhere they're onto a safe bet with their way of looking at things.

Their way into the subject with this book is to look at what the British Government and its military, intelligence and other services have recorded and preserved regarding alleged UFO incidents, in particular whether there is any evidence, firstly for the existence of (extra-terrestrial) UFOs and then to see if the government was ever engaged in any form of cover-up of the "evidence".

What emerges from the book is that the government never seems to have had any evidence that any "UFO" report that they had received and investigated was definitely related to an extra-terrestrial vehicle or its occupants, and as a consequence they couldn't cover-up what they didn't have. On the other hand there was a lot about the state of British defences (relating to the capabilities of RAF planes, radar and crew for example,) that they did not want publicised and which was consequently withheld from public view.

The bulk of the story relates to the Cold War years and much of the government's approach can be seen to be a response to those troubled times. Indeed following the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has been much greater openness regarding those documents that have survived the rigorous purging of official files in anticipation of the new freedom of information legislation (much better to destroy it than to have to go look for it!)

However, by effectively closing the matter in 1991, they fail tom properly account for the massive upsurge in UFO sightings that were reported in the mid-1990's, which weren't simply due to the "X-Files" TV program but did reflect a big increase in actual sightings. One avenue they hint at, but are unable to explore, is that there may have been an element of psychological warfare operations / experimentation involved here and / or the flying of a variety of unacknowledged / experimental aircraft. As no government files regarding this have come to light it remains invisible to the approach that the author have chosen.

I suspect that aviation buffs will be less than impressed with the treatment of aviation topics in the book. On page 148 the (Avro) Shackleton is described as a transport, whereas it was used in airborne early warning / air sea rescue / maritime reconnaissance roles (and would therefore have most likely to have been bristling with radar.) On page 145 they claim that RAF Wethersfield was home, in 1956, to "nuclear-armed F-84 bombers". Oops. The Republic F-84 Thunderjet, an interceptor that was not equipped for bombing roles, used the F-84 designation. And no USAF fighters of this period would have been nuclear-armed. Perhaps they meant B-52 or B-47's? Over the page the error is compounded where they talk of the F-84D Sabre. No such beast, perhaps they meant the North American F-86 Sabre? They even get the date of Operation Market Garden, the landings at Arnhem and elsewhere dating it as 1943 (Page 69.)

They are also guilty of a lapse in logic early on in the book. On page 9 they state that the fact that foo fighters were taken seriously enough by RAF intelligence officers to warrant recording them "implies that the British government took an interest in these early UFOs." Not necessarily so, I'm afraid. The work of the intelligence officers was determined by the senior RAF hierarchy and was strictly operational in its scope. I doubt whether politicians (i.e. the government) had any say in the matter or were in the slightest bit concerned with foo fighters. The government determined the policy regarding the bombing campaign; minor operational matters would not be in their remit.

These quibbles aside, the book is an interesting read and can be recommended to anyone with an interest in the UFO phenomenon, whether or not you believe there is an extra-terrestrial component to any particular sightings. The authors don't wrap up every case presented, as the RAF / MoD themselves were unable to definitively prove what some sighting reports related to. As the overall policy had been determined early on that unless these reports related to a proven threat to national security, that was the framework within which all subsequent sightings were interpreted. This doesn't mean that they (and the authors one presumes) weren't open to the possibility that extra-terrestrial life forms existed, and by extension, were possibly capable of space / time travel. Only that without definitive proof thereof, it was a lot simpler to disregard the possibility when trying to account for UFO reports.

Minor details aside, this can be recommended.

7/10

Richard Alexander