Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Reporter's Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T.

Inspired perhaps by this summer's blockbuster film adaptation of Carl Sagan's Contact, a handful of nonfiction works have been reissued, all of which explore the possibility that we are not alone. C.D.B. Bryan's Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind--an engrossing work written for those skeptical about extraterrestrial visitors--is a compilation of testimonials and interviews about alien abductions. Bryan's sources, interviewed at a five-day academic conference held at M.I.T., include psychiatrists, researchers, science writers, "ufologists," and abductees, including John Mack, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard and author of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. In addition, Close Encounters includes transcripts from hypnotherapy sessions with self-described "abductees." Bryan, journalist and author of Friendly Fire (1976), blends a reporter's objectivity with great compassion for the traumatized victims of these mysterious and horrific violations.