'Chasing UFOs' Stars Blast Their Own Show [EXCLUSIVE]

Lee Speigel for the Huffington Post on the criticism backlash concerning Chasing UFOs:'Chasing UFOs' Stars Blast Their Own Show [EXCLUSIVE]

Many have criticized the program, including UFO researchers. Speigel pulls quotes from mainstream outlets like The Wall Street Journal (!) and L.A. Times, and, of all people, uber-skeptoid and, oddly enough, highly misogynistic (but that's another story) Robert Sheaffer.

I don't expect the producers of the show to get it, and the inclusion of their quotes are to be expected in this context. Mainstream media doesn't get it, and Speigel caters to them because they're big time. But quoting a debunker like Sheaffer?

Tim Beckley: The Authentic Book of Ultra-Terrestrial Contacts

I was happy to see that the mail delivered Tim Beckley's newest: The Authentic Book of Ultra-Terrestrial Contacts. I'm always happy to receive anything from Tim Beckley, aka "Mr. UFO" and this latest publication continues to delight. For us saucerheads and Forteans, the book enormously satisfies!

Authentic Book of Ultra-Terrestrail Contacts is a diverse collection of stories of alien contact, much not previously published. Included in the book are stories of telepathic contact, "silvery midgets," space brothers, contactees, Fidel Castro's viewing of a captured flying saucer and its alien corpse, the Mitchell sisters (Betty and Helen, who wrote of their contacts with space beings in We Met the Space People), David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, nine foot Martians, William Shatner,  and Beckley's own UFO experience. The book includes a chapter by Francine Steiger: "Star Maiden" ...How to Contact Space Beings. (While that last may seem like space brother-sister new age silliness, as I was reading the chapter I simply had to acknowledge the similarities with my own experiences along those lines. Invisible realms indeed, where some alien presences live, and sometimes, us and "them" connect. )

While it's fun, and chock full of saucerhead goodness as well as humor (you might be surprised at Shatner's participation) Beckley is also serious about the fact of UFOs and strange beings.

I particularly appreciated Beckley's theories on the Djinn. And was startled by the chapter Silvery Midgets, which is similar in some ways to an experience I had when I was a child. I was even more startled, as I continued reading, that the sighting was not of alien silver suited midgets, but a hoax. Or, was it?

In Authentic Book of Ultra-Terrestrial Contacts, Beckley looks at hoaxes, jokers, demonic, negative entities or aliens, and peaceful, benevolent aliens. It's all there, and all those angles exist within UFO land, as we know. In this book we get witness narratives, Beckley's personal experiences and views, and the input of flying saucer researchers such as Brad Steiger and John A. Keel.

What I've always admired about Tim Beckley is his unabashed presentations of UFO tales by the witnesses themselves. There's no embarrassment, no apologies, simply the offering of the tales for us to consider. There's humor and fun while at the same time the very serious, very real fact: humans have been encountering UFOs and their occupants for a very long time. Thanks to Beckley, their stories are told.