Kean’s book is advertised as an objective examination of UFOs/UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), but it’s unfortunately far from being objective. While I was curious about the encounters many pilots, military and civilian, claim to have had with UAPs, much of the book revolves around the ‘appeal to authority’ fallacy. Kean argues that there can’t be earthly explanations for these phenomena because police officers, pilots, generals, and other people who should be considered credible have either

Kean’s book is advertised as an objective examination of UFOs/UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), but it’s unfortunately far from being objective. While I was curious about the encounters many pilots, military and civilian, claim to have had with UAPs, much of the book revolves around the ‘appeal to authority’ fallacy. Kean argues that there can’t be earthly explanations for these phenomena because police officers, pilots, generals, and other people who should be considered credible have either claimed to see UFOs or have taken them seriously. She assumes that people like this would never perpetrate hoaxes, would never intentionally lie, would never hallucinate, would never be confused by an optical illusion, would never be taken in by a hoax, or never be mistaken.



She doesn’t address the possibility that sightings involving large numbers of people could be the result of mass delusions and glosses over the fact that eyewitness evidence isn’t always reliable. See ‘The Miracle of the Sun’ for an example of how thousands of people believed they saw something they couldn't possibly have seen. See the ‘Halifax Slasher’ for an example of someone who made a fraudulent claim and others jumping on the bandwagon. Kean doesn’t address the malleability of memory and how exposure to certain information and ideas can permanently alter memories when dealing with individuals coming forward with claims after retirement.



Kean also rules out the possibility of experimental aircraft even when it isn’t warranted. So what if an American official thought the US wasn’t flying experimental aircraft or spy planes over a particular country? That wouldn’t make it true. The vast majority of American government officials would know little or nothing about top secret experimental or spy programs. She berates the government for not putting into place a program to immediately investigate sightings. A program like this would include sending up military planes to investigate, using high powered telescopes to view the object, thoroughly documenting eyewitness sightings, and holding press conferences to inform the public on the status of investigations. But if many UFO sightings are the result of top secret military programs, of course the government wouldn’t want to operate such programs.



This book was published in 2011. Since then, there has been a large decline in reported UFO sightings. One possible explanation is that with everyone carrying a smartphone nowadays, people will be less likely to make extraordinary claims they can’t back up with evidence. Thirty years ago, someone could claim to see a spaceship hovering near their house, and as long as they seemed credible that would be hard to dismiss. Now that person would be expected to show evidence in the form of a high quality photograph or video. And that kind of thing can be hard to fake. If many of the claims made in this book were indeed true, such as someone saying they saw a spaceship hovering close to the ground for twenty minutes, there should at least be a handful of high quality videos of spaceships on YouTube at this point.



For a book to be considered objective, an author should not take a position. They should look at arguments for and against extraterrestrial explanations. And as scientists often say, it’s ok to say we don’t know. Kean takes the position that there aren’t explanations for some UFO sightings, therefore they must be alien in origin. Regardless of how she sees herself, she isn’t objective. And that’s unfortunate because in the hands of a truly objective author, this could have been a fascinating book.



There’s another big problem with this book that made me question every subsequent claim Kean made. When she addressed the disappearance of Frederick Valentich early in the book, she left out some important details. Valentich was flying a Cessna when he radioed that he was being followed by a strange craft. Just minutes later, he lost contact and was never heard from again. Valentich was an inexperienced pilot with a history of flouting regulations to the point he received a letter of reprimand. He and his father also believed in aliens and UFOs. Could he have been playing a joke when he radioed for help? Was he looking for notoriety? Is it possible that while playing this joke that the inexperienced pilot flying over water at night wasn’t paying attention and then became disoriented and crashed? Kean doesn’t raise this possibility at all. She also doesn’t mention that some wreckage consistent with Valentich’s plane was found, leaving readers with the impression that he and his plane may have been captured by aliens, even if she never specifically made that claim. An objective author would not leave out crucial details that call into question Valentich’s claim that he was being followed by a strange craft. I kept thinking throughout the book, if Kean wasn’t being completely honest about this event, how can I trust any others she addresses?



The same kind of thing happened with the Phoenix Lights incidents. Reasonable explanations have been given for these sightings, but Kean dismissed them to focus instead on the opinions of people who believed they weren’t manmade. She never mentioned Mitch Stanley who looked at the UFO through his telescope. He said, "They were planes. There's no way I could have mistaken that." An objective author would absolutely have wanted to seek out someone like Stanley, or at least mention what he claimed to see. Kean is also very dismissive of the possibility that a UFO sighting above O’Hare Airport was a hole punch cloud even though these clouds often look like UFOs and they are often caused by airplanes. Kean demands investigations, but then when they happen she dismisses the results. Throughout the book, Kean provided accounts from individuals involved in the military and government who insisted that events they investigated must have been extraterrestrial in nature. I wondered if there were other individuals involved in those same investigations who came to very different conclusions. It always felt like Kean was giving one-sided accounts of everything.



It’s unfortunate that Kean didn’t take a more even-handed approach with this book, because it is a genuinely fascinating topic. Yes, there are strange sightings, or claims of sightings, that can’t easily be dismissed. And, yes, it’s very possible that intelligent life has evolved on many planets, and it’s possible that some civilizations have advanced enough to travel vast distances in space, or at least send out probes. I agree with Kean that sightings should be taken seriously. People who actually do see strange things shouldn’t feel like they can’t come forward and tell their stories. The more data we get and the more these claims are investigated, the better. Kean makes a valid point that it can be risky when pilots come into contact with UAP. It can be distracting and potentially dangerous when pilots focus their attention on an unexplained object, real or illusory, that they believe is flying around them or off in the distance. Examining and studying these claims, and trying to find answers isn’t unreasonable. What is unreasonable is saying we don’t know what these UAP are, therefore they must be extraterrestrial in origin. This could be called the alien of the gaps argument (similar to the god of the gaps argument). We don’t know, so it must be aliens. How about stopping at we don’t know until more evidence is found?