Few people enjoy a hearty conspiracy theory as much as I do, and if extraterrestrials are behind the conspiracy, so much the better. Thus I was excited to find Marshall Vian Summers’ book, The Allies of Humanity , which promises to explain just how the evil aliens are taking over Earth. My optimism was misplaced.

Here’s the gist of it: A couple of decades ago, a bunch of ETs met up somewhere in Earth’s solar system and began surveillance on another group of ETs who are actively engaged in taking control of our favorite planet through a four-pronged strategy. The former, who like to call themselves The Allies of Humanity, are acting on orders from the Unseen Ones, “spiritual counselors who oversee the development of intelligent life.” The Allies refuse to get involved beyond passing on messages of impending doom, and they don’t want anything from humans; they’re just here to help because the Unseen Ones told them to do that. They repeat themselves a lot, which Summers says is because they want us to understand just how important certain messages are, but judicious editing would have been an even better choice.

The latter group, referred to as ‘visitors’, don’t want to wipe out humanity, either; they only want to use us for their own nefarious purposes, i.e. to gobble up our “biological resources”. Their strategy is to

Influence powerful individuals, manipulate religious views and values, “acclimate us” to their physical presence, and interbreed with humans.

The visitors’ agenda has been in place for quite a while and The Allies frantically assert that time is short, but they’re having trouble getting through to naïve human beings. “Our speaker, the author of this book, is the only one with whom we have been able to establish a firm contact,” they say. Apparently even technologically advanced civilizations haven’t worked out those glitches in the cell phone system. If the visitors can influence multiple minds of politicians, religious leaders, and business czars, do humans really have a chance of winning this battle when our Allies can’t even communicate with a handful of Roswell tourists?

The Allies, who have all sorts of Knowledge about the universe, don’t know why only Summers can take their calls; they just do as they’re told by the Unseen Ones. They worry that Summers will “encounter disbelief and ridicule.” The simple solution to that obstacle would be to provide some sort of proof of their allegations, and this does come up in the Q&A section of the book. The Allies assure us that “there must be” evidence because they “have been told [by the Unseen Ones] that this is the case.”

Much is made of the fact that Marshall Vian Summers is a regular Joe, a nobody with no standing in the world. The cover copy clearly shows that someone expects this to change as his “inspired writings may ultimately be regarded as the first Theology of Contact.” Frankly, I believe The Allies have grounds for a plagiarism suit, but that would surely violate their warm-fuzzy moral code.