Curtis Peebles
Curtis Peebles is an aerospace historian for the Smithsonian Institution and the author of several books dealing with aviation and aerial phenomena.
He is probably best known as a leading skeptic of UFO sightings and incidents, and he has been interviewed in several documentaries dealing with UFOs. He has appeared in the A&E Network's 1997 documentary "Where Are All the UFOs?", and on the History Channel documentaries "Unsolved History: Area 51" and "Roswell: The Final Declassification". In his 1994 book Watch the Skies!, a critical history of the UFO phenomenon, Peebles writes that: "I am a skeptic. I believe flying saucer reports are misinterpretations of conventional objects, phenomena, and experiences. I do not believe the evidence indicates the Earth is under massive surveillance by disk-shaped alien spaceships." However, Peebles also writes that "these [UFO] conclusions are those of the author; readers [of this book] are encouraged to make up their own minds." Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries wrote in its review of Watch the Skies! that "this chronicle of the flying saucer myth is well written and provides fair balance to a very controversial topic," while Library Journal wrote that "Peebles has compiled a splendid history of this modern myth...He gives a history of practically every major UFO case since 1947, along with a discussion of the investigation and the probable correct explanation."[1]
In addition to his UFO research, he has also written numerous books and magazine articles dealing with declassified (formerly secret) Air Force secret weapons projects, and he is a frequent lecturer at conferences and symposiums on aviation history.
Books by Peebles
- Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth, 1994. Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-343-4
- Asteroids: a History, 2001, Smithsonian Institution Press, ISBN 1-56098-982-3 (or 2000, ISBN 1-56098-389-2).
- Twilight Warriors: Covert Air Operations Against the USSR, 2005, Naval Institute Press, ISBN 1-59114-660-7
- The Moby Dick Project: Reconnaissance Balloons over Russia, 1991, Smithsonian Books, ISBN 1-56098-025-7
- Dark Eagles: A History of Top Secret U.S. Aircraft Programs, 1997. ISBN 0-89141-623-4
- Shadow Flights ISBN 0-89141-700-1
- Guardians: Strategic Reconnaissance Satellites ISBN 0-89141-284-0
- Battle for Space ISBN 0-8253-0160-2
- High Frontier: The U.S. Air Force and the Military Space Program, 1997. ISBN 0-16-048945-8
- The Corona Project: America's First Spy Satellites, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-688-4.
- Flying Without Wings: NASA Lifting Bodies and the Birth of the Space Shuttle (Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight) (with Milton O. Thompson), 1999 ISBN 0-947554-78-5
References
External links
- Memoirs Of Retired Dryden Chief Scientist Ken Iliff Published
- Curtis Peebles at the Internet Movie Database