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Roundtown UFO Society PO Box 52  ~ Circleville, Ohio  43113 ~ (740)474-6773

Come visit us at one of our Roundtown UFO Society meetings on the 2nd Thursday of each month presently at the Pickaway County Public Library in Circleville starting at 6:00 pm and ending at 8:30 pm.  There is usually a sign indicating where the meeting is.

Home of America's First Classic Close Encounter
& Circleville - Roswell Connection


Secret Life: Firsthand Accounts of UFO Abductions
by David M. Jacobs
Simon & Schuster, N.Y. 1992, 336 pages


David Jacobs is a Professor of History at Temple University in Pennsylvania. Previously, he had written the 1975 book The UFO Controversy in America now considered a classic. Secret Life is based on research with dozens of individuals who claim to have been abducted by strange beings. As Prof. Jacobs knows, these abductees are no different from you or me. They are not publicity seekers; they are not fantasy-prone individuals; and they are not mentally ill. The abduction phenomenon seems to be on the increase. When this phenomenon began is unknown. Jacobs speculates is began last century. He disagrees with experts such as Dr. Jacques Vallee who feel that folklore legends of fairies abducting people and causing missing time are ancient cases of abductions. John Mack, a doctor of psychiatry in the forward, notes that throughout history there have been accounts of humans interacting with intelligent beings from some other place, be it another dimension, another time, or another planet. Accounts of angels, devils, fairies, elemental spirits, and other beings were taken seriously by our ancestors. It is only the rational Western civilization that stresses materialism over spirituality that has rejected or ignored these extraordinary tales of encounters with other beings. This is the best book I've read on abductions.

Much of it is disturbing and as Prof. Jacobs himself states, he would weep with joy if he found out the abduction phenomenon was merely a psychological phenomenon and not something physically real. Jacobs makes educated guesses as to why people are being abducted and what is the goal of the aliens doing the abducting. My only criticism is that Jacobs seems to be in the ET camp and gives little attention to those theories that speculate the abductions may be by beings from another dimension, another time, or maybe metaphysical.



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BOOK REVIEWS BY JON FRY