THE UFO EXPERIENCE AND MORE!!!, August 3, 2008


By Joseph R. Calamia (El Paso, Texas)


Robert L. Mason starts out his book, "The UFO Experience Reconsidered" by simply stating: "Let me admit right from the start that this field of study is extraordinarily polluted." He is absolutely correct ( and unfortunately, it was the George Adamski's of the world that helped to make it that way). However, despite the heavy pollution (philosophical as well as scientific), Mr. Mason's book is a masterpiece of scientific speculations, theories, and demanding cerebral exercises (Robert Openhimer, or Enrique Fermi...I am not).


Robert Mason has written a basic encyclopedic dissertation on the scientific community's interest of UFO's in just under 140 pages. He works basically within three categories: "Natural Speculation", "Domestic Speculations" and..."Alien Speculations."


Mr. Mason has done a superb job in offering the reader some guidance through a theoretical smorgasbord of hard scientific theories. These theories range from Quantum Physics into "Active/Passive Sensing systems," "Remote Sensing," "Quantum Entanglement," to "Teleportation and... beyond! I was most impressed by the dogma of the" Quantum Entanglement" theory.


Mason indicates that more likely than not, if...there are such unearthly visitations from alien life forms then these visitations would be more of a "Virtual" or holographic format rather than an actual physical visit. Most of his book is centered on this possible theory.


Although, Mr. Mason spends a great deal of time in developing his scientific speculations he seems to shy away from the on going theories of humanoids associated with the UFO phenomenon and lacks the enthusiasm of that topic compared to the rest of his presentation.


Despite the author's obvious interest in the coverage of science and speculation, he does little to address certain atypical events associated with some of the more classic sightings. For example, if these many UFO sightings are responsible because of alien developed "Quantum Entanglement" and are virtual by nature, why is it that certain credible reports reflect humanoid creatures acting totally independent from their "landed crafts"? In addition, many alleged abductees have reported actual physical sensations (i.e.: hot, cold hard. soft...etc). These events would appear to automatically question the Virtual or holographic mirrored images as professed in some of these scientific theories.


Chapter 8 discusses a very classic case and Mr. Mason attempts to quantify it as a natural earthly event. His discussion of this event is extremely interesting and although I personally did not agree with his premise, the speculation was none the less, masterfully done.


Chapter 13 begins an even more bizarre theory...one that I find totally unlikely, but...not impossible. Is there a "living-intellectually motivated star (i.e.: our own sun), that is the causal factor for the UFO sightings? See what Mr. Mason writes about this subject.


Robert L. Mason has done an intellectually superb job of introducing and injecting Scientific thought into the enigma of UFO's.


This is not your regular "run of the mill" UFO study. It is a compilation of hard scientific theories and facts. The book is mentally challenging and at times...difficult for someone like myself to follow in it's entirety. I do not necessarily agree with the author's ideas but, I certainly respect his extensive knowledge and hard work devoted to this book.


It appears evident to me, that specific UFO organizations such as CUFOS and MUFON could use Mr. Mason's expertise as an on-going consultant in this quagmire of unknowns.

Seculations of A Renaissance Man
Review by Tyler Kokjohn (Phoenix, AZ United States) July 2,2008

Prepare for a wild ride as Robert L. Mason, engineer, artist, writer and philosopher, launches you on a journey to the vast unknown. Beginning on a factual basis he leaps courageously into a universe of speculative fancy and thought experiments, turning ideas over and trying to comprehend the UFO phenomenon from a variety of vantage points. Covering a staggering amount of territory in less than 150 pages, he offers his quite personal view of the field and develops some novel and creative ideas that I predict will soon gain a foothold among UFO investigators.

Lamenting the lack of attention paid to UFOs by mainstream science Mr. Mason offers his personal assessment and bold synthesis in a way few professional scientists would dare. No doubt he will provoke a veritable barrage of analysis and criticism. Clearly, that is his purpose for the ideas he puts forth are not conclusions as much as starting points for debate and discussion. He understands how hypotheses are formulated, tested and refined and takes the reader through the process in an appendix to the text. This exposition may give many readers some valuable insight into a problem that plagues the UFO investigation field - a marked tendency toward excuse-making rather than real hypothesis testing in which ideas are confronted with facts and modified (sometimes abandoned) accordingly. Many of Mr. Mason's extrapolations are wild, but by dispatching his own UFO-sunspot cycle correlation hypothesis he demonstrates that he knows full well how this brutal game is played.

Mr. Mason's writing is clear enough that a reader can get the gist of his arguments, but in our era of increasing knowledge hyper-specialization, as a scientist I am able to fully assess only a fraction of what he has proposed. A complete accounting of the merits will require the weighing in of many reviewers with varying expertise. Particularly interesting, however, are his thoughts on the possible import of astronomer Harlow Shapley's "Lilliput" bodies and a potential explanation for why physical trace evidence of UFO visitation is so hard to obtain.

Invoking Stephen J. Gould, Mr. Mason demolishes the idea that extraterrestrial visitors should look much like humans. Notwithstanding "Star Trek" and convergence, chance-driven evolutionary processes occurring in parallel on separate worlds are unlikely to yield the same result. The possibility that alien beings evolved and adapted to other worlds will be perfectly at home in our atmosphere and under the conditions of temperature and pressure extant on Earth is likewise remote. Although it is science fiction, perhaps we should all remember "War of the Worlds" when attempting to judge the issues facing extraterrestrial visitors to our life-infested planet.

His assessments of the state of ufology and at least one of its more notorious publications are blunt and reveal the engineer's tendency to analyze problems by breaking them down into more manageable components. And those components had better add up.

No doubt this book will generate a lot of heat. Hopefully along with that heat will come some more light as readers dissect and challenge these ideas. Mr. Mason seems to be one who will take it all in and abandon unworkable concepts while employing anything useful to formulate new hypotheses.

It will be fascinating to follow the new discussions, debates and perspectives this provocative little book sparks.

Avoids falling into the trap of simply recounting abduction stories and conspiracy theories, July 10, 2008
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)

"The UFO Experience Reconsidered: Science and Speculation" is not a typical UFO book. Hoping to tactfully and thoroughly attack potential concepts on all sides of the debate of 'Are We Alone?', "The UFO Experience Reconsidered" focuses on hard science, and avoids falling into the trap of simply recounting abduction stories and conspiracy theories. Highly recommended for community library metaphysical studies collections and for anyone who wants a rational look at the debate.

Schooner Moon Press (2008)
ISBN 9780615190457
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (4/08)

The inspiration for “The UFO Experience Reconsidered: Science and Speculation” came from a
book published in the early seventies called “The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry” by Dr.
J. Allen Hynek. At that time Hynek’s book was considered to be the authority on UFO’s but
there have been a lot of developments in the past 30+ years and Robert Mason’s “The UFO
Experience Reconsidered: Science and Speculation” seeks to explore those new findings.

There is no question that UFO’s exist. Any object that is not identifiable is considered, by
default, a UFO or Unidentified Flying Object. “The key question is whether there is an
extraterrestrial intelligence behind any of them, and that is where the confusion starts.” (p.1)

Mason mainly focuses on explaining the presence of UFO’s through three main areas. The first
of these areas explores natural causes such as swamp gas and particle accelerators. The second of
his possible explanations centers on domestic technology and experimental aircraft. The third
group of speculation focuses on actual alien technology and looks into areas such as quantum
physics, active and passive sensing systems, and teleportation. Throughout the book these
speculations are explored and applied to certain scenarios and cases to try to explain the UFO
presence.

“The UFO Experience Reconsidered: Science and Speculation” as the title implies focuses a lot
on scientific fact. Mason does a wonderful job at simplifying and exemplifying most of the
scientific processes of which he writes. As a layperson I had a clear understanding of exactly
what active and passive sensing systems were once I read his explanation. He uses examples that
we can clearly relate to. For instance, he writes, “The human eye is an example of a passive
sensing system. It gathers ambient light and transmits it as data to the brain. Hearing is also a
passive sensing system. Radar and sonar are examples of active sensing systems. A signal is sent
out and that portion that bounces back to the receiver is sensed.” (p. 42) Simple explanations
such as these are extremely helpful in forming the groundwork for when he presents his more
advanced ideas.

Mason looks at the presence of UFO’s from a number of different angles and his book really
makes you think. He brings forth many valid perspectives for speculation. Although I enjoyed
the focus on the actual UFO’s themselves my favorite chapters were the ones on Humanoid
Speculation and Motive Speculation. I found the different scenarios to be very interesting and
ones that I thought about even after I finished the book.

“The UFO Experience Reconsidered: Science and Speculation” is a unique book in the sense that
the focus is mainly on explaining the existence of UFO’s through science. I think anyone
interested in the topic will find this book to be thought-provoking as it will present you with some
new avenues to explore in looking at the UFO phenomenon.

Review by David Darling, Ph.D., science writer and astronomer

The UFO Experience Reconsidered, by Robert Mason, is a sober and refreshing reassessment of a phenomenon that has intrigued the public for more than half a century. The book takes as its inspiration and rolemodel, J. Allen Hynek's classic 1972 work on the subject, and reexamines the UFO conundrum in a modern scientific setting. That people witness unexplained luminous events in the sky and on the ground, and occasionally much more dramatic happenings, is not seriously in doubt. Some of these stories may be accounted for by poorly understood natural phenomena, such as ball lightning or "earthquake lights," which are interesting enough in themselves. Yet there remains a stubborn residue of perplexing and hard-to-dismiss cases which challenges science with the possibility that something is going on of more dramatic origin, possibly extraterrestrial, possibly artificial, and (just) possibly extraterrestrial and artificial. Robert Mason brings to the table a polymath's analysis of a topic that continues to intrigue us all.