When I received my review copy of Kevin Randle's Conspiracy of Silence, I was fully prepared to put up with lots of twaddle about black helicopters, general paranoia and other severe psycho-nuthouse mumbo-jumbo regarding our intergalactic friends harvesting us for the greater good of the galaxy's DNA banks. That, and the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Roswell Incident and the opening of Men in Black and you've got yourself a case of happenstance.

Ahem.

Here's another confession: I'm a bit schizophrenic concerning aliens, UFOs, and other unexplained phenomena. As a long-time science fiction fan and generally open-minded person, I'd have to conclude, like Carl Sagan did in 1962, that yeah, from a statistical point of view, we've probably been visited by extraterrestrials. On the other hand, being the Doubting Thomas, I have to see these fellers with my own eyes. And I'm talking a "landing in my back yard and asking directions to the nearest starbase" kind of situation.

What about government conspiracies to keep the existence of aliens a secret? folk, the government can't seem to secure certain websites from hackers, much less keep a secret as big and utterly earth-shattering as the actual existence of aliens, Area 51, Dreamland, et cetera, et cetera. It'd be all over Oprah, for pete's sake.

Muddying the water even more is the fact that everyone, from the town of Roswell to Hollywood, has eaten filet mignons off the cash cow known as "alien mania" and--well, people believe what they want to believe, no matter who jumps up and down and tries to change their mind.

Certainly, this whole issue of aliens and UFOs is not one that lends itself to clear, incisive, and penetrating analysis (to borrow a phrase from Nightline).

Except Kevin Randle's book. Carefully, tediously, with fact-gathering gusto, Randle presents his case that the U.S. Government has been lying to us since the day after the Roswell crash; and that in other cases, such as the famous Lubbock Lights viewed by many witnesses in August 1951, they have sought to intimidate, discredit and bury the testimony of many witnesses. The press of the 1940s and 1950s, with other pressing issues like McCarthyism and the Korean War (not to mention naïvety regarding Government proclamations) didn't help the situation either, often quoting verbatim from misleading and erroneous press releases, instead of sending investigative reporters.

So much for swaying public opinion on the matter.

It's pretty amazing, too, the absurd lies that were dished out to the public. Randle points out, for instance, the absurdity of declaring the "Roswell UFO" a weather balloon. If what was recovered was just a simple balloon, then why were all the Roswell files left out of Project Blue Book? Why was this common balloon shipped to Wright Field in Ohio for study, first stopping off at 8th Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas? Why did the Air Force put out a press release declaring that a flying saucer had crashed near Roswell, then one day later recant, calling the recovered wreckage a balloon?

Randle plugs away at this case and many others, working inexorably toward his central thesis--that everything that the Government has told us regarding UFOs has been an outright lie. It is well-documented and includes appendices with skeptical viewpoints concerning the entire UFO mess. A splendid read, whether you're a believer in UFOs or not.