Bear with me here. Before you say “aw fuck, not another UFO book,” many regard Timothy Good’s Above Top Secret as THE standard. Seriously, it’s one frightening standard.
I’ve picked up some pretty wack shit in the so-called “non-fiction” section before. Where UFO books are concerned, you have to navigate through the hacks to get to the more reputable authors. Timothy Good falls among the latter. Even though it was written in the mid eighties, this book is still a treasure trove of information.
Timothy Good is not a scientist. He’s a violinist, believe it or not. After reading the likes of Major Donald Keyhoe and Edward Ruppelt in the ‘50s, he decided do his own investigating into the phenomenon. After decades of research, he has become an authority on the subject. Above Top Secret is his second book.
Within it, you’ll find a breakdown of sightings, encounters, and government operations and policies regarding UFOs in many countries. You’ll find declassified documents that imply a cover-up. You’ll also read about UFO recovery operations, harassment of pilots who have seen UFOs, and the stance of the CIA, NSA, KGB and other government agencies around the world. Pretty interesting stuff.
One thing that I liked about this book is that Mr. Good dispenses with the America-centric format of other UFO books. This guy collects information on UFOs from many other countries, from China to Belgium. Do you need to know what China’s official policy on UFOs are? Curious about Russian investigations? Each country has its own little chapter, and the more incredible international cases are explored in detail.
Some of the more incredible stories include the shooting down of a Cuban MiG-21 by a UFO, an Iranian Phantom being rendered impotent when attempting to get a lock on a UFO, and scores of declassified documents betraying evidence of a program called “Moondust” whose objective is to retrieve crashed UFOs (under the guise of satellite retrieval).
The book also takes time to examine government contradictions with regard to UFO policy. On the one hand, many governments officially state that UFOs are of no interest to them because they “are of no defense significance.” Yet at the same time, documents obtained under the FOIA indicate that UFOs have toyed with interceptors, enter and exit a country’s airspace with impunity, and even (on one occasion) disable ICBMs or aircraft avionics and weapons systems. Organizations like the CIA and NSA constantly claim that they have never been interested in UFOs, yet these organizations appear on forwarding lists at the top of UFO reports and other UFO related government documents.
For those among you with doubts as to the veracity of the claims made, a detailed bibliography is included, so you can check out the sources. If that weren’t enough, every time a declassified document is mentioned in the book, you can flip to the appendix to examine a copy of the document in question. All were obtained through FOIA requests.
One thing that the book lacks is conclusions, and that’s a good thing. Mr. Good leaves it to the reader to use the information presented to draw their own conclusions.
I left this book in our Toilet Library, and others in my family have read it. To quote my wife’s brother: “If any part of this book is true, then something really fucked up is going on.” I’d say. But I’ll let you be the judge. After going through hundreds of eyewitness interviews (ranging from military personnel to pilots to cops), reading the scores of declassified documents, and checking out the sources, I guarantee that Above Top Secret will leave you wondering what’s out there, what’s already here, and how much we already know.