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The UFO Beat, as Huyghe calls it, is a drama of many scenes based upon a puzzling complex of physical, physiological, and psychological phenomena...The personalities involved are fascinating; and Huyghe has confronted many of them in his many articles...His interviews and oversight give him an unrivaled vantage point from which to sketch out one of the most fascinating social phenomena of our time...It's an insider's view well told. - William Corliss, Science Frontiers Having removed himself from the 'gutter-roots' of UFO group controversy, Huyghe is able to combine an outsider's objectivity - being in thrall to no group or partisan publication - with an insider's knowledge of the complexities of the subject and of the politics and personalities involved...each of the pieces in this book is a model of literate UFO journalism...An essential book for anyone who wants a rational guide through the UFO jungle... - John Rimmer, Fortean Times H.G. Wells once wrote An Experiment in Autobiography, and this title is a good description of Swamp Gas Times by Patrick Huyghe. There are very few books about UFOs that put the phenomenon in a setting of the character and atmosphere of a workaday journalistic world...[Huyghe's] vision raises the sheer thrill of our dawning realization that we are indeed living within domains of high strangeness...What makes this remarkable book special is that it relates all these matters to American journalism as it evolved over two decades. Both journalism and the UFO inhabit unstable worlds; magazines, newspapers and staff are shown as being in an almost constant state of change. Editors, private financiers, policies, all can change within a matter of months... Thus his UFO reporting is against a professional background of varying levels of ever-changing technology, the whims of rich proprietors, and a rapidly changing print and media culture, changing again in turn as regards content and style, taste, fashion, and evolving social history. We see in Swamp Gas Times the UFO as a live cryptozoological animal, grazing on information flow as it moves through many different dimensions and interpretations of media, opinion, and changing forms of fashionable taste and expression... These stories are of a world full of hairline cracks and fissures, a world constantly crumbling at the edges of the discursive investigational eye like an M.C. Escher drawing of possible impossibilities... In the face of such things, [Huyghe] manages to combine a vigorous analytic logic with a brave ability to face the utterly absurd elements in many of the experiences he describes... Here is great insight, as well as the irresistible thrill of UFOlogy... - Colin Bennett, Phenomena Magazine

"""The feeling of deja vu was a constant companion during a recent reading of Swamp Gas Times, a collection of Patrick Huyghe's UFO-related work from the waning years of the 20th century. In fact, the book had us double-checking the copyright page more than once, since many of the topics covered parallel the UFO situation as it stands today...Swamp Gas Times amounts to more than a portfolio of UFO articles. The book contains snapshots documenting moments in time that add important context to current events. The same challenges and storylines surrounding the phenomenon 40 years ago are still around today."" - The Observer, August 2022 ""The UFO Beat, as Huyghe calls it, is a drama of many scenes based upon a puzzling complex of physical, physiological, and psychological phenomena...The personalities involved are fascinating; and Huyghe has confronted many of them in his many articles...His interviews and oversight give him an unrivaled vantage point from which to sketch out one of the most fascinating social phenomena of our time...It's an insider's view well told."" - William Corliss, Science Frontiers ""Having removed himself from the 'gutter-roots' of UFO group controversy, Huyghe is able to combine an outsider's objectivity - being in thrall to no group or partisan publication - with an insider's knowledge of the complexities of the subject and of the politics and personalities involved...each of the pieces in this book is a model of literate UFO journalism...An essential book for anyone who wants a rational guide through the UFO jungle..."" - John Rimmer, Fortean Times ""H.G. Wells once wrote An Experiment in Autobiography, and this title is a good description of Swamp Gas Times by Patrick Huyghe. There are very few books about UFOs that put the phenomenon in a setting of the character and atmosphere of a workaday journalistic world...[Huyghe's] vision raises the sheer thrill of our dawning realization that we are indeed living within domains of high strangeness...What makes this remarkable book special is that it relates all these matters to American journalism as it evolved over two decades. Both journalism and the UFO inhabit unstable worlds; magazines, newspapers and staff are shown as being in an almost constant state of change. Editors, private financiers, policies, all can change within a matter of months... Thus his UFO reporting is against a professional background of varying levels of ever-changing technology, the whims of rich proprietors, and a rapidly changing print and media culture, changing again in turn as regards content and style, taste, fashion, and evolving social history. We see in Swamp Gas Times the UFO as a live cryptozoological animal, grazing on information flow as it moves through many different dimensions and interpretations of media, opinion, and changing forms of fashionable taste and expression... These stories are of a world full of hairline cracks and fissures, a world constantly crumbling at the edges of the discursive investigational eye like an M.C. Escher drawing of possible impossibilities... In the face of such things, [Huyghe] manages to combine a vigorous analytic logic with a brave ability to face the utterly absurd elements in many of the experiences he describes... Here is great insight, as well as the irresistible thrill of UFOlogy..."" - Colin Bennett, Phenomena Magazine"

Author Information

PATRICK HUYGHE was a freelance science journalist for more than two decades. During this time he wrote articles on UFOs for such publications as The New York Times, Science Digest, Newsweek, and Omni, many of which are reprinted in this book along with commentaries and updates. Today he is the editor of Anomalist Books.

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