Article/Document:

The UFO Enigma, by Peter Sturrock (Book) - Press Release

original source |  fair use notice

Summary: THE UFO ENIGMA: A New Review of the Physical Evidence is Stanford Professor Peter A. Sturrock's fascinating scientific look at the possible evidence behind UFO sightings that continue to baffle both the scientific and the public communities of the world.

"A comprehensive investigation of encounters with unidentified flying objects, all the more riveting because it is both skeptical and scrupulously objective." - Kirkus Reviews

Stories of UFO sightings have tantalized the world for ages. Tales of circular discs of light flying in the sky, and artistic renderings of who might be piloting them, have long made us wonder if extraterrestrial life does indeed exist somewhere in the universe. Most people tend to either dismiss or accept such stories without investigating the evidence with which to either prove or disprove their veracity.

THE UFO ENIGMA: A New Review of the Physical Evidence (Aspect Hardcover; November 4,1999; $23.95 FPT) is Stanford Professor Peter A. Sturrock's fascinating scientific look at the possible evidence behind UFO sightings that continue to baffle both the scientific and the public communities of the world. Sturrock and a panel of nine physical scientists examined data, presented by eight experienced investigators, on a number of intriguing and inexplicable events which may or may not have involved the appearance of an alien vehicle. His findings, which focus on the physical evidence, comprise what is the first major independent scientific review of the controversial topic in over 30 years.

THE UFO ENIGMA is the product of a collaborative study led by Peter A. Sturrock, Emeritus Professor of Space Science and Astrophysics at Stanford University. The study, which received impressive news coverage and involved scientists hailing from M.I.T., Cornell, Princeton, the Universities of Arizona and Virginia as well as other institutions in France and Germany, was commissioned by Mr. Laurance S. Rockefeller and implemented by the Society for Scientific Exploration.

This fascinating and extremely cogent analysis contains the full panel report as well as Sturrock's introductory material and personal reflections. With sophistication and acumen, he reviews such intriguing stories as:


The crew of a commercial aircraft in Paris, 1994, reports "a gigantic disk" in the sky. It is detected on military radar, during which time it suddenly slows from 110 knots to zero, then vanishes.


A police patrol car in Florida, 1992, is paced by a flying object that shines a probing light into the vehicle.


Four crew members of an Army Reserve helicopter give vivid accounts of an encounter with an unknown cylindrical object, during which their flight system malfunctioned.


Using physical evidence including photographs, radar scans, vehicle interference, ground traces, injuries to vegetation and to witnesses, and debris, Sturrock and his panel responded critically to each case, theorized how someone could have constructed it as a hoax, and examined whether evidence existed to prove the possibility that an unknown object--a UFO--had indeed been involved.

Fascinating as well as enlightening, Peter A. Sturrock's THE UFO ENIGMA is the first serious and scientific examination in years to address the question of whether extraterrestrial life has indeed visited us, and the evidence which may, or may not, verify it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Peter A. Sturrock is the Emeritus Professor of Applied Physics and Emeritus Director of the Center for Space Science and Astrophysics at Stanford University. He has received numerous awards including prizes from the American Astronomical Society; The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; The Gravity Foundation; and the National Academy of Sciences. His other publications include five edited volumes, two monographs, and over two hundred scientific articles.

Read more articles on this topic:

Sturrock Panel