Pope, Nick. Open Skies, Closed Minds: For the First Time a Government UFO Expert Speaks Out. Woodstock NY: Overlook Press, 1999. 270 pages.

Nick Pope was in charge of the "UFO desk" in Britain's Ministry of Defense from 1991 to 1994. His job was to interface with the public on UFO sightings, collect and analyze evidence, and assess any potential threat to national security. This book is not sensational by the standards of other UFO books, but instead is objective and cautious. The bottom line is that Pope believes that many reported observations are best explained as being of extraterrestrial origin.

Pope was apparently not privy to much information that was not also available publicly, and there is nothing in this book that can be considered new. The jacket says this book remained on the Sunday Times top ten list for over ten weeks, and the blurb from the Sunday Times on the back says that it's "the first book on UFOs from someone with inside knowledge and access to Top Secret material. The Ministry of Defense tried to stop this book." Sounds like hype to us, but perhaps something was deleted between its publication in Britain in 1998 and the edition we have. Even without any smoking guns, this book is a well-written, reasonable overview of the history and extent of the public's experiences, exposure, and knowledge of UFO phenomena, from strange lights and crop circles, to missing time and abductions.
ISBN 0-87951-916-9

Extract the names from this source

Back to search page