BELGIUM IN UFO PHOTOGRAPHS. Volume 1 (1950-1988) By Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos and Wim van Utrecht.

In the course of a day or so, I receive a number of requests that I provide information about various UFO related books. Rarely do I publish the information on this blog, unless, of course, I believe that important information is included in the book, and that the writer is someone who has an interest in the truth. Given that, and the fact that I know there is interest in the Belgium UFO photographs (I know this because I receive inquiries about my opinion on the sightings and pictures), I thought this might be the best way to answer those questions. I freely admit that this is taken directly from the press release that was sent to me. I saw no reason to rewrite or edit it. This is how I received it and I publish it with no additional editorial comment.

BELGIUM IN UFO PHOTOGRAPHS. Volume 1 (1950-1988) By Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos and Wim van Utrecht.

Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos

The FOTOCAT Project (Spain) and CAELESTIA (Belgium) are pleased to announce the release of their joint book.  Belgium in UFO Photographs – Volume 1 is a research book that makes no concessions to literature. It is a scientifically oriented inquiry into a collection of supposed UFO pictures taken in Belgium in the period from 1950 to 1988. But the reader will certainly find more than descriptions of UFO sightings and detailed analyses of UFO images. For instance, the included catalog not only has numerous examples of how normal folks can be deceived by common phenomena, it also reveals the dubious background against which some photographs that received worldwide endorsement made their way into UFO history.

The book is a documented history of four decades’ worth of UFO incidents that involved witnesses who provided photographic evidence (be that negatives, prints, slides, films, or videotapes), on top of their own testimony. The authors have investigated every event weighing the evidence for real anomalies occurring in our atmosphere.

Though only a small country in Central Europe, Belgium’s rich UFO patrimony serves as a representative sample of UFO phenomenology worldwide.

The book has over 400 pages, 366 illustrations (pictures, diagrams, maps, sky charts, etc.) and contains a statistical review of the cases that were studied. This is FOTOCAT Report #7 and, like the rest of the series, it is available free online at the following link:

https://www.academia.edu/35133835/BELGIUM_IN_UFO_PHOTOGRAPHS._Volu me_1_1950-1988

For book collectors, printed book lovers and libraries, a printed edition in full color and large format has been published by UPIAR (Turin, Italy) and can be purchased through the publisher’s website at the following link:

http://www.upiar.com/index.cfm?language=en&artID=191&st=1

The book’s foreword has been contributed by James Oberg, one of the world's leading popularizers and interpreters of space exploration. Oberg had a 22-year career as a space engineer in Houston, where he specialized in NASA space shuttle operations for orbital rendezvous. Excerpts from his foreword follow:

Vicente-Juan Ballester-Olmos and Wim van Utrecht have been practicing a methodology of research that—were it far more widespread—could help determine the better theories from the more extreme ones . . . Ballester-Olmos and Van Utrecht, like me, believe that ‘IFOs’ have lessons to teach ‘ufologists’ that are crucial to making sense of cases that remain in the ‘true UFO’ data bases . . . The newfound power of combining GOOD records keeping with Internet tools and search engines can be seen in specific cases discussed by the authors . . .  In case after case, the authors apply wide knowledge of geometry, optics, meteorology, human perception, and human cultural context, to illustrate that plausible explanations often are found . . . The approach shown by Ballester-Olmos and Van Utrecht should serve as an example and as an inspiration to other ‘citizen scientists’ who have played a crucial role in providing the resources that will allow theorists with more data and wider insight to someday make more sense about what lies behind this mysterious phenomenon.  

You are kindly requested to extend this information to other colleagues, organizations, scientific institutions, and/or libraries. In addition, any mention on your blog, website or magazine will be greatly appreciated, as well as any book review you might want to submit to any scientific or specialized UFO journal.