This critical exploration of the UFO phenomenon was written nearly 40 years ago; sadly, it reads like it could have been written yesterday (with the notable exception of assuming a teenager must be from a wealthy family if he had his own phone number). This is a good example of the more things change, the more they stay the same. In spite of accessible, thoroughly researched books like this one, the hype and pseudoscience surrounding objects in the sky remains as strong as ever, maybe stronger. The myriad of ways in which our brains fool us into thinking we're seeing something we're not are even better understood than they were at that time, and yet we still refuse to believe that we didn't really see what we thought we did, or that our amazing experience can be explained by Venus or a meteor or even a swarm of fireflies. The mundane is elevated to the unusual,. and the believer clings with tenacity. All the ways in which intelligent, thinking people, even people skilled in the ways of aeronautics and well aware of what the moon and Venus really look like, can be fooled by their own brain are discussed and dissected here. The author does not sneer or belittle the individuals who report UFOs, and is even able to give a little chuckle of pleasure when the National Enquirer pays out on a UFO he has demonstrated convincingly to be a hoax, because they wanted to believe. All in all, it gives a lot of information to those of us who teach in the sciences, and are frequently confronted with students who say "Well, science can't explain that!" This book should be a staple of a skeptic's library, in spite of its age, because it does such a good job of explaining the how of illusions, not just the illusions themselves. ( )