Flying Saucer Review November 1987 [antikvár]

(2) In the Sunday Express (July 12, 1987), their principal reviewer,Graham Lord, gave a very fair account of the book, with his headline emphasising the report that "Neil Armstrong had been warned off the Moon by the Aliens". Graham Lord concluded: "I'm still sceptical, but millions aren't". (Maybe his job would have been in jeopardy had he voted otherwise, for we know very well that, over the course of these past forty years, no newspapers in Britain have been more consistently hostile to "our subject" than the Beaverbrook Newspapers Group.)(Nevertheless, Graham Lord's review was seen by at least 2'A million readers.)(3) In the Sunday Telegraph (July 19, 1987), the reviewer David Sexton made an (entirely predictable) savage attack on both Tim Good and Admiral Hill-Norton. He also attacked the publishers, Messrs Sidgwick Jackson, for "issuing such a farrago as this, no doubt because they saw, or thought they saw, distinctly identifiable conglomerations of money coming towards them over the horizon at well-nigh incredible speed."Well, of course, how low can you get? And we all know the track-record of the Telegraph newspapers too.(4) By far the most interesting and most important reaction to the book was the whole-page devoted to it in the weekly review, The Spectator (August 1,1987) by Adrian Berry, the Science Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.Mr Berry refrains no doubt wisely from addressing himself to, or tackling, a single one of all the points made in the book; a single one of the cases or pieces of evidence adduced; or a single one of the 106 pages of photostated documents which constitute about one-fifth of the book. All that Mr Berry can find to say is that: "It is an evil book". And: "Mr Good's ideas are those of a maniac" He concludes: "The dust jacket tells us that he is also a professional violinist. Better for the world if he and his kind were always so harmlessly employed. "On the whole, I think we can congratulate ourselves on Adrian Berry's "review". We have grounds for great satisfaction.In the Middle Ages, the monks and scholars had a very useful term, "Argumentum ad hominem" {in English, "The Argument against the Man'). Its meaning of course was that, if you cannot win your dispute in a scholarly and gentlemanly fashion, by the power and logic of your case, then you descend to personal and venomous insult against your debating adversary. (Muchthe same sort of idea as prevails today among the alleged sportsmen, the yobbos of our football fields, who, if they cannot secure the ball by skilful play, do not hesitate to "tap" the other fellow's ankle or break his leg.)We do not know, of course, whether Mr Adrian Berry was brought up to be a devotee of the "Gentleman and Scholar" code, nor where he went to school. But one thing is at least certain, namely, that in the present case he has descended to the "Argumentum ad Hominem", seeing in it his best recourse.I suggest that this is immensely significant, because it indicates that somebody, somewhere, is badly rattled by Tim Good's book.Very conveniently or fortunately as some may think its publication came very late in the year. In fact it appeared right at the start of Fleet Street's traditional "Silly Season", when jokes about Loch Ness Monsters and flying saucers get their annual spawning. (The publishers might find it worthwhile to check up on this, and ascertain how the book "just happened" to be ready at the precise moment for the "Silly -Season". I have heard of cases of good money being paid for this sort of "delaying tactics".)When all is said and done, however, the book will have generated much unease, and this unease will not go away. For one thing, we have seen from the booklists in several papers that it has been quite high, several times, in the weekly polls of the best-selling Non-fiction.All in all, then, we congratulate Timothy Good. And we congratulate his courageous sponsor. Lord Hill-Norton.We trust that both of them will continue to enjoy the very best of health, and that they will both be extremely careful Before we conclude this over-long Editorial, there remains one other "interesting" little point which we think needs ventilating.We have all seen the frenzied ravings of the British newspapers, in their desire to have full access to the contents of Mr Peter Wright's book, SPYCATCHER. Just like ABOVE TOP SECRET, SPYCATCHER deals with matters that Controlling Powers would prefer to see hushed up.How interesting it is, therefore, to see the different fashions in which our British press have dealt with these two books!As one of our readers observes: "That UFO books are subject to harassment does not matter. 'Subversion' alone is important!"Various individuals including even the manager of one important bookshop have sent me snippets of information which may point to some "disturbance factor" (shall we call it that?) which is impeding the distribution of ABOVE TOP SECRET. But naturally it is still far too early for an accurate assessment of such a possibility. If more evidence comes in, we shall publish it.