Beginning with the publication in 1966 of Betty and Barney Hill’s report of abduction, examination, and release by extraterrestrials, and accelerating madly after the publication of Whitley Strieber’s best-selling Communion in 1987, the idea of UFO abduction smells of nonsense and fantasy to many Americans. But it is the core narrative of a well-established subculture that perpetuates itself through interest and support groups, UFO investigation organisations, and print and electronic media, embracing hundreds or, quite probably, thousands of supposed “abductees” nationwide. Brown attempts a cultural analysis of this phenomenon, drawing on fieldwork and interviews with abductees in the New York City area.

This book offers no startling new theories, but takes on major themes in the abduction mythos in thought-provoking ways. Especially incisive is Brown’s analysis of the shady business of “recovered memory” hypnosis—the most prominent source of abduction narratives. She quite rightly casts doubt on the reliability of hypnotically retrieved memories and relates the phenomenon to more high-profile debates about recovered memories in (quite earthly) sexual-abuse cases. She draws parallels between the paralysis, mind control, and emotional scars inflicted by abducting aliens and the dynamic between the same (typically female) abductees and their (usually male) hypnotists. This parallel is curiously neglected in most of the academic and non-academic literature on the subject.

UFO investigators themselves have perhaps steered clear of this observation because of themes of sexual assault that characterise much of the narrative content in UFO abductions. Indeed, Brown refers to abductees as “terrestrial bottoms” (p. 51) acting out “sci fi porn” (p. 50), and what does that say if the aliens are really metaphorical therapists?

Some folkloristically inclined readers, however, will be frustrated that Brown maintains this discussion mostly on a hermeneutic level—rather than attempting to understand the mechanics of how these narratives are thus generated—while psychologists will lament that Brown misses the opportunity to connect this discussion to the vast and timely literature on the Freudian concept of transferrence and on the sexual politics of the psychotherapeutic encounter.

Brown is most provocative in her discussion of the themes of cross-breeding and technologically assisted reproduction in the UFO abduction mythos. She writes: By positing the alien as part medical technician, part bureaucrat, and part fetus, abduction narratives began during the 1960s to give shape to anxieties about the increasing power of a growing technical-professional class to control all spheres of human activity, no matter how intimate. (p. 82)

In this, she draws together themes other scholars have noted in a more piecemeal way and, although not presenting an airtight case—the stories and their tellers are too diverse for that—she nonetheless presents an argument other “ethno-ufologists” will have to build on or reject. In this, though, as in some other discussions, Brown relies more on her informants and on cultural studies colleagues such as Elaine Showalter and Jodi Dean than on scholarly and sceptical writers from within ufology, such as Peter Brookesmith, Martin Kottmeyer, Jacques Vallee, and the folklorist Eddie Bullard, some of whom long ago developed ideas on which Brown could be building directly. This is a tendency common to many mainstream academics who tackle this topic: a hesitancy to cite people in the UFO field as colleagues. I was also surprised by the omission of any reference to Jim Schnabel, who investigated the same milieu in the same geographical location as Brown a mere decade earlier and generated a fine book (Dark White, Penguin, 1994) teeming with insights.

Brown’s discussion of the relationship between the UFO and conspiracy subcultures contains useful insights, especially her analysis of The X Files, but it is marred by an idiosyncratic historical perspective. Brown situates the current “conspiracy theory” movement as a recent and largely liberal project, arising initially from reasonable outrage over the American government’s Cold War excesses. In so doing, she ignores the centuries-old anti-Semitic and otherwise racially inflected roots of conspiracy thinking and its right-wing and libertarian manifestations in the likes of the John Birch Society and, ultimately, in the 1990s militia movement, which, as Michael Barkun has demonstrated (A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, University of California Press, 2006), was a moment of convergence between UFO and extremist rightwing subcultures. (It is hard to know whether Brown consulted Barkun, since so many of the citations in her endnotes simply do not show up in her bibliography.) My reading and experience tell me that conspiracy theorists in the UFO world are less likely to be reading All the President’s Men and fuming over the Tuskegee experiments than they are to be reading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and worrying that Hillary Clinton might herd “patriots” into concentration camps. Perhaps Brown’s take is partly an effect of doing fieldwork in and around New York City—compare the folklorist Susan Lepselter’s fieldwork among UFO folk in the rural west—but, even so, there are crucial themes and influences that Brown is missing here, ones that shed much light on the logic of UFO lore.

Lastly, I am sorry to have to warn readers about the very low editorial standards in this book. In addition to the incomplete bibliography mentioned above, the index is cursory and inadequate and there are pervasive punctuation and spelling errors, which are distracting—although occasionally funny: a reference to “grizzly Satanic sexual abuse” (p. 39) had me wondering if devil-worshippers were molesting bears. However, readers should overlook these shortcomings and appreciate the intensive fieldwork and deep thinking that went into this fine ethnographic study. It sets a new high watermark for fieldwork-based cultural analysis of a crucial body of turn-of-the-century American lore.

The CIA goes in. They place animal informants throughout the forest. They question all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigations they conclude that rabbits do not exist.

The FBI goes in. After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit and they make no apologies. The rabbit had it coming.

The LAPD goes in. They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear is yelling, “Okay, okay, I’m a rabbit, I’m a rabbit!”

Also, I believe that Scott Sharkey’s picture in the Review Crew lineup was mistakenly replaced with one of a young Charles Manson.

The Introduction is very good: thorough, clear, and confident, but at the same time appealingly humble. There is a useful Bibliography, including a section on relevant websites and databases, and a lengthy Glossary of Elements. The authors have chosen to follow the conventions of English place-name dictionaries, including the alphabetisation, which speakers and readers of Welsh will know is slightly different in the two languages.

This has led to a faintly odd situation in which the entries in a Welsh place-name dictionary are alphabetised by their English forms (where one is well established). Thus, “Cardiff, Caerdydd,” “Ludchurch, Yr Eglwys Lwyd,” rather than the other way around. However, this convention has not been extended to river names, which are listed with the Welsh first, as follows: “Dyfi, Afon, River Dovey.” It is hardly an insurmountable problem, but it does slow the reader down a little when looking for specific entries. I was also perplexed to find no entry for the River Severn, whether under “Severn” or “Hafren.” The entry for “Bristol Channel” gives the alternate names “Mo? r Hafren, Aber Hafren,” but there is no separate listing and nor is any derivation or discussion provided for “Hafren.” There are a few other oddities. I was uncertain why the Glossary of Elements needed to include very obvious English elements such as “four” and “road.” There are also several Old English elements, such as a?c, “oak,” which do not appear to occur in any of the names (although their modern equivalents do). Finally, leaving out the commas when referring to place-names in England (“Poole Dorset,” rather than “Poole, Dorset”) could also lead to confusion. It is obvious enough in an English dictionary, where the town or village would be in boldface or capitals and the county in a different font, but here it is a little unclear without punctuation.

Another minor quibble concerns the derivations of some of the river names from purported divinities. While “Dee/Dyfrdwy” from British De?ua?, “goddess,” is reasonable enough, some of the others might better have been put more tentatively. For instance, I would like to see more evidence to back up the statement that there was an “Aerfen the goddess of war associated with the river Dee which flows from Llyn Tegid” (p. 300). Although Llyn Tegid was called Llyn Aerfen in the fifteenth century, it is a very big jump to get from there to a pre-Christian deity.

That said, this is otherwise an excellent reference book and an engaging read. There are some enlightening correctives to popular misconceptions. For instance, “Eryri” is apparently not, as often believed, from eryr, “eagle,” but from eryr, “ridge, rise,” and thus means “highland” (p. 443, s.v. “Snowdonia”). Likewise, and of particular interest for folklorists, “Beddgelert” is not “the grave of Gelert” (from the tale of Llywelyn’s hound), but “the grave of Celert,” an unknown individual about whom the authors say “he was certainly a man and not a dog” (p. 26). There are also some new discoveries, made by the authors while researching the book. One such is “Llay, Llai,” which they derive from “*llai ‘river meadow, pasture’ . . . a hitherto unrecognised cymricized el[ement] derived from OE le?ah . . . preserved only in p[lace]-n[ame]s” (p. 292).

Scattered throughout the dictionary are fascinating lengthy historical entries on a variety of names, including, for example, “Menai Bridge, Porthaethwy,” “Pembroke, Penfro,” and “Caer-Went.”

Gomer Press has once again lived up to its reputation for excellent production values. The dictionary is a handsome, good-quality hardback, with a sewn binding, lovely cream paper stock, and the publisher’s signature ribbon bookmark, which should be standard for all reference volumes. I noted a few typographical mistakes which they might like to correct in a subsequent edition: “indeeed” (p. xxiii); “Arbeth” (p. 342), “house, of prayer” (p. xxvii), “beonging” (p. lii), “agreeabale” (p. liii).

Overall this dictionary is to be recommended to anyone interested in the place-names of Britain, and it should certainly be stocked routinely in the reference sections of university libraries.

So we have a game that’s robbed of all of what gave SimCity its greatness: The cities don’t grow, and there’s no challenge. It’s like Zoo Tycoon without the animals, and by no means from every standpoint is Zoo Tycoon this bad (even if it had no animals). Your review was plain idiocy.

In a small town on the South Coast of France, holiday season is in full swing, but it is raining so there is not too much business happening.

Everyone is heavily in debt.

Luckily, a rich Russian tourist arrives in the foyer of the small local hotel.

He asks for a room and puts a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, takes a key
and goes to inspect the room located up the stairs on the third floor.

The hotel owner takes the banknote in a hurry and rushes to his meat supplier to whom he owes E100.

The butcher takes the money and races to his supplier to pay his debt.

The wholesaler rushes to the farmer to pay E100 for pigs he purchased some time ago.

The farmer triumphantly gives the E100 note to a local prostitute who gave him her
services on credit.

The prostitute goes quickly to the hotel, as she was owing the hotel for her hourly
room use to entertain clients.

At that moment, the rich Russian is coming down=2 0to reception and informs the hotel owner that the proposed room is unsatisfactory and takes his E100 back and departs.

There was no profit or income.

But everyone no longer has any debt and the small town’s people look optimistically
towards their future.

Could this be the solution to the Credit Crunch?

You can buy this disc here

Lara’s scantily clad dress is only one aspect of a consistent tradition of sexism in the Tomb Raider series. Lara’s unrealistic proportions and a camera dedicated to displaying her womanly features at any gameplay cost reek of a developer pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Not to mention the infamous 1990s ad campaign that glorified Lara as a sexual object and alienated sensible male gamers, female gamers, and casual observers alike.

So here we are, eight Tomb Raider installments and 12 years since the series debuted, and sexism in this series and in other parts of the industry get a free pass in the gaming press. It is long past due for video game consumers and especially journalists to confront this serious issue.