Astonishing Drivel

[finncullen]

Sorry if this offends any UFO believers out there. Actually, no, no I'm not, I'm sure you're used to people deriding your beliefs and you can take it as a testament to how special and informed and aware you are in comparison with the rest of blinkered humanity. Consider me a willing collaborator in allowing you to feel superior in that case.

Anyway, I heard about this book today:


Basically it's a book for Pre-Schoolers about alien abduction designed to make it less frightening and to remove the trauma of it when it (inevitably) happens.

This is astonishing drivel of course on many levels.   What amused me even more was that one of the critical reviews of it came from a UFO freak, as follows:


Haley, Leah. Ceto’s New Friends. Greenleaf, 1994. 8 1/2 x 11 HC, 32pp.

My jaw dropped so far down when I saw this that my belly button hurt for a week (though it might have been a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut causing the pain, I admit). This is a book for ultra-young readers by abductee/author Leah Haley (Lost was the Key). It has a total of 281 words in the text. It’s apparent intention is to introduce toddlers to alien abductions early (say, age 3 or so), before they find out the hard way — later in life — via trauma, ruined lives, etc., and to make the introduction a friendly one, in which the toddlers apply their innate trust in all things and all beings to the very monsters who are going to stick long needles into their bellies, ram huge contraptions up their behinds, empty their brains, make them pregnant and then rip out the fetuses, cut them, scrape them, inflict unspeakable pain on them and tell them (if anything at all) ‘it is necessary that we do this.’

Of course, none of those things ever happen to the two tykes in the book — and that’s what strikes me as being the ultimate Big Lie that one could ever inflict upon a totally impressionable mind: the idea that the greys are our friends. Sorry folks — I think it’s a bad idea to fill tiny little heads with Santa Claus just because you want to see ‘em glow with happy anticipation around Christmastime. It’s bad to stuff Jesus, heaven and hell into all-trusting minds. And it’s certainly bad to lie to infants about alien interaction with humans.This is the most unfortunate development in UFOlogy in many years, certain to create numerous traumas of it’s own for some of it’s innocent little readers — as they find out first hand what the greys really do with humans. This book is an appalling artifact — we recommend it only for extremely open-minded adults. Keep it locked up like you keep your handguns locked up, so that the kiddies don’t blow their heads off. $18.95

So basically the reviewer is not objecting to the book on the obvious grounds that it is 

a)  Complete nonsense, and
b) highly inappropriate to target three year olds with this drivel

but that it is the wrong type of drivel and doesn't accord with his own fatuous delusions.

I thought that was worthy of sharing.   If the mocking tone of my post offends anyones sensibilities then I can only suggest you take comfort in the thought that I am using it as a more palatable alternative to the seething contempt which is my true response.

Comments

[ronja-liek.livejournal.com]

But the reviewer has obviously not looked at the pictures correctly:

Their are clear signs of all the bad things that might happen to you even when looking at the front page:

The girl's hands are or have been broken, plus the preschool children avoid both the alien's as eachothers eyes.. a clear sign of something bad going on.

I'd say this book is a very good way to introduce pre-schoolers to the world of alien-abductions, and a worthy compagnion of the books Noddy and the nazi-conspiricy on the North Pole, Seabert and the Several CIA Assasins of JFK, Howert and How we never landed on moon and
12 in 2012, the end of the world seen through a young teen's eyes.