cover image The Threat: The Secret Agenda: What the Aliens Really Want and How They Plan to Get It

The Threat: The Secret Agenda: What the Aliens Really Want and How They Plan to Get It

David M. Jacobs. Simon & Schuster, $23 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-684-81484-1

Whether UFOlogy--the study of UFOs--falls into the realm of science or science fiction is an open debate, but a number of serious scholars seriously believe that not only do UFOs exist but so do their alien crews. Perhaps the best known of these scholars is Harvard's John Mack. Jacobs (Secret Life) is another, and in this sensational book he contends that the aliens are using abductees to create a new race of ""hybrid"" beings, with the goal of ""complete control of the humans on Earth."" Jacobs bases this assertion on the premise that the majority of close encounters involve sexual contact. He inflates the meaning of this twist to the abductee experience by citing a poll that places the possible number of abductions in the United States at several million. Basing his theory primarily on interviews with abductees, many of them conducted under hypnosis, Jacobs outlines a scenario that includes women becoming impregnated, then having the embryos removed and brought to term artificially aboard a spacecraft. Men are also forced to contribute genetic material for the cause. Readers with even a passing familiarity with alien lore will feel they have read much of this before, as the replenishment of an alien gene pool is a staple of some of the more pessimistic quarters of UFOlogy. Die-hard paranoids may find this work a titillating confirmation of their worst fears, but most nonbelievers will find the book bizarre and unsavory. Some of the interview transcripts contain descriptions of rape by insectlike creatures intent on world domination; maybe it's time to call in the Starship Troopers? (Jan.)