UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe

Best known as Detective John Munch on the hit TV series Homicide, Richard Belzer is also an accomplished standup comedian with a knack for political commentary in the tradition of Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory. In UFOs, JFK, and Elvis, he applies his analytic powers to two of the most controversial topics of the late 20th century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the alleged U.S. government cover-up of the existence of alien life. (The reference in the title is the book's only substantial Elvis sighting.)

Belzer sensibly avoids pretending to have the answers, opting instead to focus on the questions themselves. Why does the Zapruder film fail to synchronize with other footage of the Kennedy shooting? What's the real background on Lee Harvey Oswald--and who really posed for that famous backyard photo? Did NASA regularly suppress UFO sightings by Apollo and Gemini astronauts? And how about that giant face on the surface of Mars? While Belzer's sarcastic, antiauthoritarian tone may not convince you that aliens walk among us, it's rather difficult by book's end to fully dismiss his belief that "history is just a collection of accepted lies" told to keep the masses in line. --Ron Hogan