John A. Keel (1930–2009)

Originally published in 1971, John Keel's Our Haunted Planet is, quite probably, a more hilarious read than the author intended, especially when dealing with planet formation, outdated scientific knowledge, and unexplored areas of Earth and other planets.

All I could think while listening to this actually enjoyable book was how Keel would write such a book now with NASA having sent probes to Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, how the Hubble Telescope has given us visual evidence of pulsars and neutron stars (sources of radio signals) and the number of satellites which have given everyone access to the inaccessible parts of our own planet. All the guesses, based on dodgy science of an earlier era, made in this book, like the idea that Venus was actually a comet originally and that it was torn out of Jupiter's atmosphere (the source of the Red Spot) have been overturned by new, better theories about planet formation in recent years and that the realization that the Red Spot is actually a storm in Jupiter's atmosphere.

The rest of the book is a mix of ufology, MIBs and ultrahumans (paranormal), a conspiracy of world domination (called WoW - and I couldn't help but laugh at the initials because the narrator is very careful to say W-O-W and never "wow", but let's face it World of Warcraft is a more fun version of world domination) a bit like the Illuminati, and lots of rather random anecdotal information about alien abductions, etc.

All in all, a fun read.… (més)