Forbidden Science: Journals, 1957–1969

📖 Forbidden Science

Jacques Vallee, widely known in publishing, has a fascinating set of identities: he is both a major figure in the study of the UFO phenomenon (author of Dimensions and other works) and a science-fiction novelist. Born in France and now living in the United States, he has also worked as a computer scientist in academia and in industry. UFO researchers will not find the answers to every question here. Although Vallee believes UFOs do exist, he himself has no idea what these phenomena actually are. That is precisely the beauty of this dazzling journal: it lets us into the mind of a scientist who seems to challenge every preconceived idea and every established authority. Rigorously trained as a mathematician and a scientist, Vallee might have been expected to follow a rational path to solving problems, yet he has a deep interest in mysticism, psychic phenomena, and the paranormal. He was once a member of the Rosicrucian Order and studied the writings of ancient scientists such as Paracelsus. His journal is full of penetrating insights into the strengths and weaknesses of France and the United States, and into researchers in academia and industry in both countries, often with thought-provoking critical observations. The book includes photographs.

—Copyright ©1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Vallee’s book Anatomy of a Phenomenon (Anatomy of a Phenomenon, reviewed in Library Journal on June 1, 1965) is one of the earliest popular UFO studies written by a scientist. A computer specialist, Vallee became interested in UFOs after seeing an unidentified flying object near his home in France. His journal records most of the important stages of his career: his early training in astronomy, his move to the United States, and his close collaboration with J. Allen Hynek, the well-known U.S. Air Force consultant in the UFO field. Vallee admits that he still cannot say what these objects are with any more certainty than he could 25 years ago. His research points, however, toward a paranormal answer—a theme he also explored in Passport to Magonia (Passport to Magonia, reviewed in Library Journal on September 15, 1969). Vallee describes the scientific community’s lack of attention to UFO research as “one of the greatest intellectual failures of this century,” and argues that U.S. government agencies have withheld the most important UFO data and shamelessly manipulated the public record. Vallee’s journal is a fascinating intellectual journey, and anyone interested in open inquiry grounded in rational thought will be absorbed by it. Recommended for most library collections.

—Gary D. Barber, State University of New York at Fredonia Library

Beyond his bestselling “alien contact trilogy,” Dimensions, Confrontations, and Revelations, Forbidden Science is also the rich personal story of a young Frenchman obsessed with the stars and the sky. Vallee grew into an astrophysicist and a computer scientist in France’s nascent computer industry and, in 1962, left France for the United States to work on early computer languages—and, with other scientists, on the UFO phenomenon. In 1967, when the U.S. Air Force funded a major university to evaluate UFO sightings, Dr. Vallee and his mentor, Professor J. Allen Hynek, took part in the first briefing. In this elegantly written journal he records, day by day and in detail, how “the problem” became not only a surge of sightings but a complex, many-layered public-relations challenge. The debate was not only about the study of these new phenomena, but also about how they were explained to the American public. Dr. Vallee reveals how, as early as 1953, leading American scientists were led astray by the intelligence community for reasons that had almost nothing to do with the pursuit of truth.

—From the publisher

📚 Source:UFO Evidence Bookstore