As a youngster, Rupert Matthews was inspired by newspaper reports of the “Great Warminster Mystery”. In Ufologist terminology, this was what is known as a “flap” where there are several UFO sightings from different witnesses within a small area over a short period of time. The Warminster case is related to “The Thing” - an unidentified silver rectangular object, rounded at both ends and accompanied by strange noises and orange or red balls of light. The sightings were centred at Cradle Hill, Warminster. Matthews had friends in the area so he was able to visit the town and spend time on Cradle Hill looking for flying saucers. Although he never saw any, from then on he was hooked on the subject.

“Alien Encounters” is a well-researched and comprehensive examination of the UFO phenomenon. The chapters take you through ascending levels of the extended Hynek scale. Starting with Close Encounters of the First Kind (when a UFO is seen but it doesn't interact with the witness or environment) in the first chapter, “The UFOs Arrive” and running up the scale to Close Encounters of the Fourth & Fifth Kinds in chapters “Alien Contact” and “Alien Adductions”.

Sightings of unidentified and potentially alien craft have occurred throughout history and were usually quickly dismissed. The UFO phenomenon began to be taken seriously in the late 1940s following numerous incidents that were seen as a potential threat to the national security of the United States. This was a period of increased sightings amidst fear over the development of atomic weapons. The first serious study into the UFO phenomenon, Hynek’s “Project Sign”, found that as many as 23% of 237 sightings had an “unknown explanation”. In 1952, sightings of strange lights over Washington DC and the White House caused great alarm and the CIA was concerned that such sightings could be misidentified Russian missiles. To give the authorities space to investigate such phenomenon it was decided that all UFO reports would be routinely debunked to quell the general public’s curiosity about “alien craft”. That strategy obviously didn’t work as this book is absolutely crammed with amazing case studies of sightings.

A book like this inevitably turns into a bit of a “list” but Matthews skilfully orders and organises the information so it perfectly illustrates the development of the UFO phenomenon. He has given emphasis to first-hand witness accounts, rather than to the views of experts and other third parties “theorising”. These witness accounts tend to become more detailed and elaborate as the book progresses. Reports certainly become more fantastical from Chapter 4 onwards where witnesses encounter parked flying saucers and “ufonauts” at close quarters. Numerous descriptions of craft with transparent domes through which you can see small alien pilots remind me of cartoons & comic books of the 1950s/60s. It is also surprising how small many of the reported craft are often only the size of a car which is pretty diminutive for interstellar craft. Pity there were no mobile phones around at the time to take snapshots!

No book on “Alien Encounters” would be complete without the famous 1947 incident at Roswell, New Mexico. Originally reported as a crashed “flying disk”, this was soon dismissed by the authorities as the wreckage of a weather balloon. This incident would gain notoriety through the investigations of Friedman and Moore as broadcast in 1986 on the NBC television show “Unsolved Mysteries”. Matthews gives a good detailed account of Roswell in Chapter 5. He covers both the official USAF version - the debris found at the Brazel Ranch was a crashed high-altitude “Mogul” spy balloon, and the conspiracy theory stating that it was material falling from a UFO struck by lightning before flying north and crashing at Hillside Pine Lodge Road near Corona.

The conspiracy theory will have you believe that alien bodies were recovered from the crash site and taken to Wright Field for study. Local mortuary assistant, Glenn Dennis, apparently took calls from Roswell Air Base asking for advice on “preserving bodies”. Matthews gives readers the opportunity to reassess the strange sequence of events and their different explanations. The recovered Roswell aliens were described as the archetypal “Greys”, being diminutive in stature with a large head and big oval eyes etc. This chapter also covers a few other common ufonaut types: tall blond well-intentioned “Nordics” commonly reported in the 1950s & 60s, Goblin-types similar to those found in folklore and short humanoid “Tricksters” who may only be “somewhat uninterested in humans” but certainly “deeply interested in plants and animals”!

After a chapter covering Alien Abductions, the book rounds out with an essay asking “What is out there”? This is a summary where Matthews identifies and considers common threads running through the myriad of reports. Reading some might suggest that this review belongs more in the “Science Fiction” section rather than “Non-fiction”. However, it can be seen that a vast number of encounters repeat the same features time and again. This suggests that we are either dealing with a real phenomenon (whatever that phenomenon is) or a bit of what psychological Carl Jung calls “the collective unconscious”. That is where people react in similar ways to similar events, interpreting occurrences according to the prevalent ideas of their time and culture. Because of our fascination with the universe and the desire to understand our place in it, it could be that many people may actively “want” the UFO phenomenon to be caused by real extraterrestrial visitors from far-off alien civilisations.