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Rating: 
Summary: Very Interesting Parallels
Review: A reprisal (and slight revisal) of an older review of mine from a while back (April 2000). Hopefully books like this will get reprinted if enough attention is brought to them...I find Jacques Vallee's comparative essays (as I call them, finding each chapter stylized as an essay) are very intriguing. The entire book as a collective goes a long way to explaining that the UFO phenomenon (which, according to popular culture "started" in 1947 with the "Roswell Incident") has been with us a lot longer than most realize. I agree with Monsieur Vallee that civilizations all over the world have had these experiences/contacts in many different forms throughtout the millennia. As a species, we would prove to be completely ignorant if we absolutely believed that we were superior to all other life forms, to the point of ignoring "specters" that are probably with us everywhere, in everything we see, everyday of our lives. And only those who haven't been totally conditioned away from their childhood insight by society have been able to see the fleeting images of fairies, elves, leprechauns, etc., or at least even feel their presence. A definite must-read for anyone wishing to find out more about the history of UFO's & mythology, and their connection, or for anyone looking for answers as to why they have had a lifetime of unwanted supernatural experiences.
Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Parallels
Review: I can be harsh in reviews of books I find silly, but this one I found excellent and I'm glad to say so in a review. Yes, it is dated, but that is part of the interest because it lets you see how things have developed over the past 30 or so years. It is also intelligent and discerning and is not in a rush to leap to conclusions or explain everything. It trusts you to be smart and form your own judgements. No book in this subject should be read alone, no one book can begin to cover the many aspects and issues, but this should be one of the books you read.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtful and Insightful With a Different Perspective
Review: I have long admired Mr. Vallee, as I have read several of his books and have found him to be rational, thorough in his investigations, and very balanced in his conclusions. Until this book, I never realized the connection between the fairy and other unusual sightings of years ago and the UFO phenomena of today. Mr. Vallee's basic premise is that as man has evolved and become more technologically advanced, so too do the strange phenomena. They seem to parallel our advancements. It is a most interesting theory, and while it does not give answers as to why these things happen in the first place, it makes for an interesting and intelligent read. I am fortunate enough to have a copy of this book, and if you can get your hands on one, do so. You'll be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: A Ground-breaking book in its day
Review: It was nice to read the original work, after reading Mr. Vallee's theories put forth in books by Whitley Strieber, Richard L. Thompson and others. Mr. Vallee's theories about connections between the modern UFO phenomena and the European fairy lore have become fairly well known over the last 30 years. Readers familiar with more recent UFO material, may find some of the material to be quite dated and unreliable. I think that the author's preface to this 1993 edition is very helpful in this regard. That having been said, this book does not strive for answers. This is a book that states a question and gives you a lot of data to mull over and make up your own mind. If you are willing to read this book with an open mind in the spirit it was meant, I think that you'll have an enjoyable read. The appendix of "A Century of UFO Landings" is also woefully out of date. It is also not in the easiest format to read. It took quite a lot of work to put this together, and according to Mr. Vallee, no one has improved upon it since the original publication. If you're looking for a book that deals with the early years of the UFO era, this is certainly one of the more original.
Rating:
Summary: Return to Fairyland
Review: Researcher Jacques Vallee has done an excellent job synthesizing the various reports through the ages of our contact with otherworldly entities. He especially empasizes the fairy lore of the Celtic region, as this is relatively modern and also well-documented. Vallee points out that many of the chief characteristics of contact with fairies is coincidental of modern accounts of contact with UFOnauts. He surmises that these accounts are cultural-specific descriptions of a phenomenon that has been with us since time immemorial. It is probable that everything from demons, incubi, and jinns are one and the same as the aliens which now captivate our global attention. Interestingly, the entities have consistantly been described as possessing technology just beyond the means of whichever society is experiencing the contact. Today, the entities appear in antigravity spacecraft, just as in the Bible they steered luminous chariots, and in the great airship sighting wave of 1897, they seemed to be manning turbine-driven zeppelins. The one constant throughout the ages has been the entities proclivity to tinker with the genetics of mankind. Vallee offers no answers to this strange phenomenon, but only wishes to point out that it did not originate in modern times.
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