Faces of the Visitors

by Kevin D. Randle, Russ Estes

A comprehensive album of incidents where people have claimed to have direct contact with aliens includes descriptions of encounters, detailed drawings, reliability ratings, expert evaluations and narratives of each sighting. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mythology

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Ufologist and historic fiction & science fiction writer.

Within the UFO community he is often regarded as one of the preeminent experts on the reported crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947.

A professional writer with more than 80 books to his credit, Randle is perhaps best known for his books about UFOs and the Roswell story.

Reviews

[Charles Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guess what we have here is the closest thing available as a
observer's guide to common (and uncommon, and likely non-
existent) UFO occupants.


Authors Kevin Randle and Russ Estes, longtime UFOlogists, have
put together a book of flying-saucer lore that is amazingly
simple in concept, fascinating even to a pretty skeptical person
as myself. They've apparently collected every case they could
find (previously-published, that is) of encounters with space
aliens, where an eyewitness drawing or reconstruction or even
photograph of the alleged visitors was made, and published them
with brief histories to go along. A great book to skim (I
finished its 300-or-so pages in two sittings, because it sums up
the `evidence' of close encounters succinctly and sometimes
amusingly (unintentional or not depends on your particular bias).
Famous sightings of aliens are presented in chronological order,
1947 (get set for lots of Roswell) to the 1990s, accompanied by
the authors' own `realiability' ratings on a 0-10 scale. Some
sightings are completely discounted as hoaxes, based on weak
testimony or that the creatures depicted look exactly like
monsters from well-known sci-fi flicks. There's also a brief
summation of UFO flaps of the 1950s and 1970s, with George Van
Tassel and the `integraton,' Barney and Betty Hill, most of the
great conctees of lore, included (one glaring absence:
"Communion" author Whitley Strieber and his "alien abductors").
Even if you approach the material from a skeptical point-of-view
- and I did - it's an amusing chronicle of weirdness and modern
saucer folklore, and puts some vaporous facts (or at least admits
to lack of facts) on various "alien autopsy" photographs I've
seen published in less-discriminating newspapers and journals.
And, if you grant the authors' claim that older contact stories
are more likely to be true (because they could not have been in
imitation of previous contact stories), then maybe you'll get a
slight thrill of `what if...?' and watch the skies for such alien
varieties as the Hairy Attacker or the Fairy Creatures of West
Midlands. Sorry, no Mothman.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting guide to the variety of beings reported in conjunction with UFO sightings and landings, starting in the late 1940's. The author makes the point that UFO writers and investigators seem to have become overly focused on the so-called "greys" while ignoring the many other creatures described by eyewitnesses. This book attempts to correct that oversight. My one complaint is that many of the drawings by eyewitnesses are rough and difficult to decipher. More careful professional artists' interpretations based on the descriptions (labelled as such, of course) would be a welcome addition.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read. Detailed information about various sitings all over the world, as well contact and abductions stories that have occurred for many, many years.

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the weakest books of this author. He is not the best author for high strangeness cases. HE is very good for more traditional cases.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did not really like the reliability score aspect of the book. Also the author uses his own books as sources of information. Other than that the alien contact stories are interesting and worth a look.