'A journey from childish faith to adult disbelief, from a yearning for the fantastic to a regular invocation of Occam's Razor. The stripping away of a desire to believe, although clear-eyed and sensible, seems in the long term rather a chilly process, unsparing and ruthless. This is not to say that Clarke does not make for excellent company. He is often droll and always insightful.' Times Literary Supplement 'True believers in the ETH will undoubtedly dismiss this fascinating book as a whitewash, even as part of a government cover-up. One would expect nothing less.' Fortean Times 'UFO believers will not like this book. It is not a classic debunking; David Clarke is too subtle and warm for that. But it is written by a turncoat, a former believer turned journalist who, in 2007 curated the release of all 52,000 pages of the Ministry of Defence's UFO-related documents to the National Archives... This is a good book...sceptical, respectful and dry.' Sunday Times

DR DAVID CLARKE, is one of Britain's leading writers on folklore and mythology and in recent years he has acted as a consultant and spokesperson for The National Archives during the release of the Ministry of Defence's files on investigations into UFO 'sightings' under the Freedom of Information Act. As such he appears regularly in print for major national newspapers, and on air for programmes such as BBC Radio 4's Today and BBC 2's Timewatch. He lives in Leeds.