British UFO researcher Philip Mantle began his active involvement in ufology in 1980 when he joined the newly formed Yorkshire UFO Society. One of the first UFO cases that he investigated was a landing case in the West Yorkshire town of Normanton in England. This incident took place only a few miles from where he lived. The case in question was to do two things: The first was to confirm that he was not wasting his time investigating this phenomenon, and the second was to give him a lifelong interest in both UFOs and in particular UFO landing cases.

This audiobook looks at UFO landing cases in the UK only (with the addition of the Republic of Ireland) beginning long before the modern era of UFOs began in 1947 right the way through to today. Case histories are separated into decades and come complete with photographs, documents, artwork, and much more. The case histories featured in this audiobook are looked at for their "high strangeness" value.

The late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the man who invented the phrase "close encounters", suggested long ago that an area of research to concentrate on were the cases which were up close and personal--in others words, UFO landing accounts. Dr. Hynek argued that the greater the degree of high strangeness, the less likely it was that the UFO case in question could be explained away in conventional terms.

As UFO researchers we know that most UFO sightings reported have a conventional explanation and at the end of the day there remains only a few that seem to remain "unidentified". The author argues that the closer the witnesses are to these UFO landings then the less likely they are to have a rational explanation. The high strangeness factor increases in a number of ways, the length of time the UFO is in view, how close the witness was to it, more than one witness being involved, and so on.

The case histories featured in this audiobook come from some of the author's own investigations along with other UFO researchers, UFO groups, publications, and of course, UFO books. At no point in this audiobook does the author argue that any one specific theory is better placed to explain these cases than any other. The listeners are left to make up their own minds in this respect.

Instead, and in keeping with the theme of the audiobook, the author has obtained comments from a significant number of his colleagues around the UK and the Republic of Ireland. A wide variety of opinions on the nature and origin of UFO landing accounts are featured in full and unedited, providing a fascinating outlook from the British UFO research community. There are many fascinating and bizarre UFO landing cases featured in this audiobook, all of which have confirmed, like they did in 1980, that the author is not wasting his time investigating this phenomenon, which he has done now for over 40 years.

About the author:

Philip Mantle is a long-standing UFO researcher and author from the UK. He was formerly the director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) representative for England. He is the founder of Flying Disk Press.