Scientific Ufology
by Kevin D. Randle
Avon Books, N.Y., 1999, 241 pages, Price $12.50
Kevin Randle is a familiar name to readers of this newsletter. He wrote two books on Roswell with Donald Schmitt. Recently he has written several books on his own and acquired a Doctorate in Psychology. Formerly he had been a Captain in the US Air Force Reserves. His current book has the lengthy subtitle of "How the Application of Scientific Methodology Can Analyze, Illuminate, and Prove the Reality of UFOs." In chapters he examines eyewitness testimony, radar cases as physical evidence, direct physical evidence and photographic evidence.
The chapter on UFO photographs examines several famous photos of alleged UFOs. They are the July 1952 Tremonton, Utah film, the May 1950 McMinnville Oregon photo, the Rex Heflin photos from August 1965, the Great Falls, Montana film of August 1950 and probably the best photos the Trindade Island case of January 1958. Each UFO case has its proponents and detractors. Randle presents both sides of each case and comes to the conclusion that the photos are genuine and are real UFOs. Of course that doesn't prove aliens from other planets are visiting Earth. It proves that there are photographs of objects in the sky we cannot explain. Randle points out that debunkers when they can't explain a photograph, always use the "hoax" explanation even though the eyewitnesses involved never made any money from their photographs. In the case of the Trindade Brazil photos, the eyewitnesses were scientists aboard a ship. Hardly the kind of people to hoax a photo and ruin their reputation.
The chapter on physical evidence examines the 1967 Shag Harbor, Canada case, the 1964 Socorro, New Mexico case involving a police officer who saw a landed UFO take off and the November 1971 Delphos, Kansas landing case. The Delphos case is still being studied and the soil samples have been examined by an Ohio Ufologist with chemical analysis expertise.
Of interest to Ohio readers are some Ohio cases mentioned on pages 178 and 179 involving sightings in Albany. Centerville, Madison, and Cincinnati in March 1968.
If you have read many UFO books you may not learn much from this book, nothing new is presented. However, if you are new to Ufology and seek an excellent introduction to a handful of unexplained sightings then this book is recommended. There are eight pages of photos to supplement the text.
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