Here’s a roundup of recent accolades. In his review of Worlds Before Our Own, Bob Rickard at Fortean Times notes that author Brad Steiger’s “influence on forteana equals John Keel’s on ufology.” He then goes on to say: “From the prodigious Anomalist stable comes another breeze from the past..[the book’s] thesis is that before conventional ‘prehistory,’ there could have been a large, possibly global, and culturally advanced civilization…This is a refreshing glimpse of original sources unfiltered through the likes of von Daniken, Charroux, Tomas and more modern writers.” The tagline reads: “An inspiring and ground-breaking blast from the past.” Brad told us he was quite touched by Bob’s review. So were we.

Next comes Bill Chalker’s review of An Alien Who’s Who from The Ufologist Magazine, published in Australia. Bill’s lack of fascination with the contactee realm clearly tempers his opinion of the book: “The UFO saga has spawned what must be the most bizarre Who’s Who in history. We have the prolific watcher and commentator on the historical, cultural, and psychological facets of UFO culture, Martin Kottmeyer to thank for [this book]….[It’s] an intriguing testament as to why the aliens of contactee tales inspire little confidence, and the why normally nameless abducting aliens seem more substantive. A matter of debate, I suspect, and Kottmeyer’s guide book may provide a helpful calibration point. It is from that perspective that his book is a welcome contribution.”

And last, but certainly not least, John Carlson of The Paranomalists reviews Extreme Expeditions. “The book is a firsthand account of Adam Davies’s experiences taken directly from his travel diaries while visiting various remote–and often dangerous–areas of the globe, pursuing his dream of finding and scientifically documenting the existence of so-called ‘legendary’ creatures (known as cryptids, for those who are unfamiliar). Besides being an enormously entertaining and frequently riotously funny read, Extreme Expeditions is, I felt, a very moving account of a man that is motivated by both a fascination for these creatures and a deep concern for their safety and preservation…I came away from reading his book with deep respect for the man’s sense of purpose and sheer determination.”

Some people are wondering if An Alien Who’s Who is a put-on. It’s not, but we’ll be the first to admit that what it presents –summaries of human contact with named extraterrestrial aliens – is hard to swallow. How should one process this kind of material? As it happens, author Michael Prescott recently tackled the subject of unbearable strangenesson his excellent blog. He wasn’t referring to this book in particular, but to all the stories of bizarre, unexplainable phenomena out there, which he finds “a bit unsettling.” He suggests three ways of understanding this material, “none of which is very palatable,” he admits. But it seems to us that these are the only choices we have, particularly when coming to grips with the material in An Alien Who’s Who by Martin Kottmeyer. Says Prescott: “The first possibility is that these weird claims are true, in which case reality is bafflingly and perhaps frighteningly strange. The second possibility is that these claims are false, in which case there is a great horde of otherwise normal people who believe things that are, in fact, crazy. This, too, is rather bewildering and scary; it means the human race is largely insane; psychosis is rampant; we are surrounded by nuts, and may be nuts ourselves. Then there is the third possibility, the one I personally find most likely – namely, that some of these things are true, and some are not, and a great many occupy a wide swath of gray area, an ambiguous borderland where the labels ‘true’ and ‘false’ are not easily applied. And this is, in some ways, the most disturbing prospect of all, because it suggests that we can never be quite sure what is real and what isn’t. We can make educated guesses, we can say that one case seems valid and another seems bogus, but we can’t really know and we could be quite wrong.”

The new issue of the British magazine Alien Worlds features Nick Redfern’s review of Martin Kottmeyer’s new book, An Alien Who’s Who. “Kottmeyer has done something that few authors seldom do,” writes Redfern, “he leaves his own views and beliefs at the door, and instead provides the reader with entertaining – and otherwise very hard to find – summaries on alleged other-worldly entities that have supposedly been manifesting before select members of the Human Race for decades. Kottmeyer relates their bizarre, unverifiable and at times completely false tales, prophecies and warnings. And, in a roundabout way, he amply demonstrates that for all the attempts to legitimise Ufology as a serious science, it is still a subject that is packed with odd and unusual characters with weird names and even weirder motivations…An Alien Who’s Who is vital reading for anyone and everyone that wants to learn more about some of the strange, other-worldly beings said to have visited our planet and whose exploits, without Kottmeyer, would otherwise be lost to the fog of time.” Did he like it? Try this: “Martin Kottmeyer’s book is damned good fun and highly informative.”

We have just published what may be the most unusual reference book of all time: a who’s who of reported extraterrestrials–-nearly a thousand of them. That’s right. SETI is still searching for the existence of aliens, but we already have their names. Ashtar, Xyclon, Teletron, Sananda, Umaruru–-so many names, so many aliens. Who can keep track of them all? Thankfully, you don’t have to. An Alien Who’s Who has done it for you. The indefatigable Martin S. Kottmeyer has sifted through the writings of hundreds of UFO contactees, ufologists, and experiencers to bring to you not only their names, but also their views on God, Earth’s future, eternity, politics, and how we should run our lives. Seriously. Or not. Includes an Alien Who’s Where, a long essay on when Venusians were cool, a foreword by Greg Bishop, illustrations by Charles Berlin, and more.