CAPTURED!: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience

by Stanton T. Friedman, MSc., and Kathleen Marden

New Page Books, a division of Career Press

2007, 320 pages, $16.99 • ISBN: 1-56414-971-4 • Information: www.newpagebooks.com

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

The Betty and Barney Hill story, considered by many to be one of the earliest and best documented UFO “abduction” accounts in ufological history, has not been told before with this depth of clarity, insight, and compassion. Naturally, all ufologists are familiar with UFO researcher/author Stanton Friedman, but the other author, Kathleen Marden, is a virtual unknown personality to the ufological mainstream. Nonetheless, her contributions are especially significant and meaningful here since she happens to be the niece of the late Betty Hill and is the conservator of a large collection of the Hill’s papers, correspondence and audiotapes. This therefore I think interjects more accuracy and behind-the-scenes familiarity into the rendering of this crucial account.

Contained within its pages are details not previously published, and not only about the historic UFO sighting and “abduction” of 1961, but also the complex, often mysterious and fascinating aftermath of events that continue to befall otherwise respected, ordinary people everywhere. Other UFO events and peculiar paranormal occurrences continued to enter their lives, and now you can read many of these never before published details.

You’ll also read fascinating stories about the many interesting researchers and people that Betty and Barney met. You’ll also read of the great psychological and social impact and struggle that this strange event had on their lives, and of their initial and considerable reluctance to become publicly identified with this bizarre story.

This book is due to be published on August 1st. So you have no excuse. You’ve got plenty of time to place your order!

________________________________________________________________

The Gift of Gabe: A Novel Experience

by Brian Joseph

Aventine Press • 1023 4th Ave. #204 • San Diego, CA 92101

2005, 184 pages, $12.95 • ISBN: 1-59330-266-5.

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

People will surprise you sometimes. Gabe initially seemed more like an ordinary yet lonely old man, living by himself, isolated in a wooded section of remote northern New England. But soon the author discovered Gabe was deeply intellectual, though seemed part mystic, and though he began suspecting that Gabe was somewhat of an oddball eccentric type of personality, maybe even somewhat crazy, his words and music selections nonetheless touched him and soon drew him into Gabe’s unique worldview, a worldview that Gabe claimed was part of a hidden language in the music of John Lennon and the Beatles! Beginning with a copy of The Crack In The Cosmic Egg, by Joseph Chilton Pearce (a book that can’t help but inspire alternate perspectives), Brian Joseph was soon walking in a new world that he previously had not comprehended or even imagined. Basically, Cosmic Egg describes how there exists a cultural overlay beneath which can be found our own natural state of perception and awareness.

Brian was to find that it seemed that some artists, poets, musicians and mystics and others share in worldviews that are inspired or channeled in some mysterious way through altered states of consciousness that can transcend ordinary, everyday consensual reality and understanding. Music was one vehicle for enabling this transcendence to manifest itself. As a friendship progressed and Gabe shared more, he additionally claimed to have had meetings and conversations with such giants of philosophy and modern insight as Joseph Campbell, Joseph Chilton Pearce himself, Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, and even Albert Einstein. He claimed to have been a former college teacher from out west who had taught courses in philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and the humanities. He gave Brian a crash course in Sufism, Gnosticism, speaking in tongues, the experience of “illumination” and spirituality as described by Richard Bucke, Alan Watts, and others (giving Brian more and more books to read), touching upon the modern physics of David Bohm, always interspersed with the music of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Police, etc. What began as a simple curiosity into what made Gabe tick soon evolved into a personal and complex journey of self-evolution for this author.

If you enjoy deep philosophical and metaphysical explorations and discussions, and also like the music of John Lennon and the Beatles and feel like such music not only rocks your world but also sends you into a whole other multiverse of worlds, then The Gift of Gabe just may contain the sorts of insights and revelations that you’ve been long thirsting for (but maybe wasn’t conscious enough to seek)! Read and rock on!