Richard Dolan: UFOs and the National Security State, Volume I

Richard Dolan comes from an immense historical/political background. According to his bio, he holds an MA in History from the University of Rochester and a BA in History from Alfred University. He earned a Certificate in Political Theory from Oxford University and was a Rhodes Scholar finalist. Prior to his interest in anomalous phenomena, Dolan studied US Cold War strategy, Soviet history, and international diplomacy.

It follows then that his book is an exhaustive study of known UFO reports from 1946-1973. A reading of this book will inform anyone interested in knowing most all of the history there is to know about UFOs and issues facing the most powerful government in the world, the United States.

Dolan primarily focuses on the UFO issue, but he also discusses other controversial issues in American history-CIA mind control experiments, Hoover, Kennedy, Russia, the underground workings of the CIA-these are important because they prove that the government is not be beyond keeping secrets and using undercover methods.

A very important thread is the leading up to, the politics involved in and the closing of Project Bluebook and the Condon Report. Dolan is a master of a minute detail and the bigger historical picture.

He also shows how a citizen UFO group came to power and was nearly effective in UFO disclosure, before its demise due to possible CIA infiltration.

The book is complete with Table of Miltary UFO encounters for the years presented and something many UFO books don't have-an index.

The only problem that I had was from his concluding statement, ‘we must be willing to consider [the ET] presence as a threat’.

This conclusion is not so well built. True, Dolan does go into cattle mutilations and abductions, but by Dolan’s account the first such report did not occur until 1953, six years after the recovery of the disk in Roswell and no doubt others. With overwhelming proof that the CIA would act against it's own citizens, it stands to reason from the book itself they would do it with any technology available to them-yet the possibility that back-engineered UFO technology may have been developed by the US is not addressed here beyond the likely acquisition of such technology at Roswell in 1947.

This point is a controversial issue in the UFO community and and we may never know the real answer until contact has been made with these beings. Yet, from interviews and other media the idea of evil aliens is something that is of great concern to Dolan and a subject he is passionate about.

Despite my misgiving with that particular issue, Dolan’s book is still very much a winner and should be in every UFO researcher’s collection. I can't wait for Volumes II and III.