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"Shockingly Close to Fun!" 2009-01-24
By W. Staples (West of 40 degrees Lon and South of 40 degrees Lat)
An excellent look at the UFO community and it's history. It illustrates why some observers of the in-group (out-group?) maintain that the members should be forced to wear numbers so that it's easier to follow the internecine feuds.
James Moseley has been providing fun and diversion for both the UFO community and those who observe them for decades with his "Saucer Smear." Part of the debate is whether "Saucer Smear" is a poor man's magazine or a overgrown newsletter. Whichever it is, it's now available on Amazon.com's Kindle. For some reason, though, the editor is listed as James Mosley (as you can see if you go to that site, this confused at least one reviewer).
"One of the most useful books of its kind" 2006-01-21
By Rory Coker (Austin, TX USA)
James Moseley was the stereotypical rich orphan trust-fund kid, inheriting millions while still in college. He promptly left college and attached himself to a shady, Indiana-Jones-style South American graverobber. The graverobber wanted for some reason to do a book on the flying saucer myth, then only a few years old. Moseley was sent crisscrossing the US to interview anyone and everyone who had made contributions to that myth in the period 1947 - 1954. The book never materialized, but Moseley was left with extensive notes, and the indelible and accurate impression that, apart from a few people who had genuinely seen something in the sky they didn't recognize, and would have been expected to if it were anything familiar, the majority of the mythmakers were, as my old Grandma used to say, "crazy as a betsy-bug."
Over the years Moseley kept his hand in, meeting and interviewing anyone who came onto the scene in what he sometimes calls The Field, other times (more accurately) "ufoology." He edited and published a long series of saucer fanzines and newsletters and still publishes one to this day. He met everyone and he shrewdly sized up everyone. He organized many flying saucer conventions and seems to have attended most of the others. Here's his information-packed account of about 48 years in The Field, and there is no more accurate word-picture anywhere in print in english (I've looked!) of the classic early 1950s contactees led by George Adamski, on to the 1960s abductees led by Betty Hill, on to the growth of the crashed-saucer myth from its humble beginnings with the 1949 Scully hoax, on to the full-blown Roswell hoax of 1985 - 90, and on to the "supernatural" abduction stories of the 1990s. Moseley was an eyewitness to the birth of many hoaxes, a few of which he perpetrated himself.
Highly recommended, as a true insider's look at this nearly 60 year-old and seemingly immortal myth of "things seen in the sky."
"The Truth is Stranger than Aliens" 2005-10-17
By doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania)
This book doesn't demand to be taken seriously, so it can be read with a sense of fun and there's no need to over-analyze. These are the slightly sarcastic and fun-loving memoirs of James Moseley, who has spent the past fifty years in the community of UFO enthusiasts, and has served in several organizations that behave more like competing fan clubs. Moseley claims he's a "skeptical believer" which is pretty levelheaded in that arena (such as it is), though at times you get the feeling that he's trying to cover up his own episodes of credulity in the past. Moseley's memoirs give us an entertaining history of the cult of UFO believers, from ultra-gullible fanatics who believe anything, to serious ufologists who tackle the issue with scientific reasoning. Most interestingly, we see how UFOs themselves have changed over the decades, with quaint metallic saucers giving way to conspiracy theories and chilling tales of alien abduction. Have the aliens really changed that much, or have we? Moseley's coverage of the infighting and ideological disputes amongst believers of various stripes shouldn't mean much to the rest of us, but I'll admit that the book is quite entertaining as it covers the evolution of weird beliefs and the people who have them. However, the book is docked one star due to Moseley's bragging about robbing ancient archeological sites in Peru, and his shifty descriptions of his own ongoing attitudes toward his field. [~doomsdayer520~]
"why bother?" 2005-04-29
By FruityAsANutcake
Here's my review: This book stinks. I didn't learn anything new. It was boring.
"Ufology, Tricksters, And A Gaggle Of Geeks" 2003-02-28
By J. E. Barnes (Bayridge, Brooklyn, New York)
With Shockingly Close To The Truth!, Jim Moseley provides Forteans and ufologists with a detailed, occasionally funny account of his fifty years on the 'saucer beat.' As Moseley readily admits, by 1956, his real interest and enthusiasm had shifted from unexplained aerial phenomena to "the people - and - personalities - side of ufology." Forteans in the dark about the psychology of the trickster may find the book especially educational, as Moseley evolves from a somewhat serious minded, independently wealthy if initially aimless young man to someone who "takes the phenomena seriously" but finds the dialogue around it, decade after decade, continually absurd. Moseley quickly becomes an expert absurdist himself, hoaxing tremulous believers in the extraterrestrial hypothesis and generally leading the gullible of all colors and creeds in any foolhardy direction he is able. Moseley states that he has a fine appreciation for the "sideshow" aspect of ufology, and indeed presents himself as a carnival barker and circus master supreme. Like appropriately named "best friend" Gray Barker, Moseley is a talented manipulator who is loyal to no one and to nothing. Apparently remaining center stage or thereabouts in the relatively small pond of ufology has been his single genuine priority. Moseley cleverly attempts to box his audience into an uncomfortable and indecisive corner: since he freely admits he has an actively lying, hoaxing, attention - grabbing nature, why should readers believe anything he writes here? However, the teasing subtext continually suggests the reader should disregard Moseley's reportage and reflections strictly at their own risk. What is genuinely shocking is not how completely Moseley plays both sides of the fence, but how comfortably he sits on a sharpened fencepost right in its middle.
According to the author, most of the 'contactees' and the early and later elder statesmen of the movement were either charlatans, fools, con men, lunatics, narcissists, or uneducated, credulous bumpkins. The list of men and women Moseley presents as having varying degrees of intelligence and idiocy is long and well known: Frank Scully, Albert Bender, Donald Keyhoe, George Adamski, George Van Tassel, Howard Menger, Orfeo Angelucci, Truman Bethurum, John Keel, Stanton Friedman, Long John Nebel, Linda Moulton Howe (or "Linda Moldy Cow," as Mosely calls her), and John Mack among others. Readers are also introduced to forgotten bright lights like Andy Sinatra, the "mystic barber" of Brooklyn, who single - handedly prevented the United Nations Building from being destroyed by "terrible, destructive forces" in 1962. Younger readers will not be surprised when told that the yearly Giant Rock conventions of the fifties and sixties were every bit as ludicrous as they may have imagined.
Moseley levels sarcastic, content - empty criticism at Meade Layne and John Keel (his comment on Layne's theory of a 'vibrational plane' is "whatever that means"), but admits he "semi - accepts" the "4 - D theory," which readers won't find surprising, since Moseley's "father figure" J. Allen Hynek also 'semi - embraced' it. Idiotically, Moseley doesn't seem aware of the fact, even after fifty years of saucer - trotting, that Layne's and Keel's theories are only unsubtle variations of the of the fourth dimension premise in the first place. Though Moseley wisely tackles and attempts to debunk Budd Hopkins, as an intellectual or even a garden - variety rationalist, he repeatedly exposes himself as the flighty Joey Heatherton of ufology.
What does any of this really have to do with the UFO mystery? Right: Not Much. The apparently extroverted Moseley comes across as equal parts raucous frat boy, back fence gossip, middle school science fair competitor, frustrated comedian of the rubber dog turd variety, and restless, underachieving adult badly in need of attention. The author also reports that "best friend" Gray Barker preferred men to women in matters of love and sex, a fact mentioned more than once. As the numerous photos attest, Moseley, king of the pocket-protector brigade, was no alpha male, and if his text is accurate, not much of a hit with women either. Thus readers will be left to guess what motivated Moseley's desire for strict factual accuracy on the irrelevant matter of Barker's predilections.
Shockingly Close To The Truth! is a book written for ufology insiders and historians, many of whom may be disappointed to learn how completely Moseley was obsessed with the gossip on the ground rather than with the unexplained phenomena in the skies. General readers who find their way to it are likely to come away concluding the phenomenon is really just a matter of human hot air and ufological swamp gas after all.
Buy Shockingly Close to the Truth : Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist Now
