Alien Rock by Michael Luckman Book Review

'Alien Rock'

"Alien Rock" by Michael C. Luckman

"The Rock 'n' Roll Extraterrestrial Connection"

$13.95

ISBN 0-7434-6673-X

Pocket Books

'Alien Rock' combines the two passions of its author Michael C. Luckman, a man who will be well-known to the UFO fraternity on America's east coast. He is passionate about UFOs and alien contact. He is also passionate about rock music. His book seeks to find a connection between the two seemingly disparate subjects. Perhaps surprisingly, he succeeds.

I have always had a sneaking suspicion that there is a link between paranormal experience and creativity. Certainly, it is my experience that people who have been subject to paranormal encounters are unusually creative. Perhaps something in the mind is opened by such an encounter. Perhaps there becomes a need to effectively communicate the profundity of an encounter with the unknown, and that this requires a step-up of consciousness. One expresses oneself through language, art, music, dance. Perhaps it is not surprising that people who have seen something beyond the normal feel the need to express themselves creatively in these fields.

It is rather a shame that Michael does not seek to analyse this connection, to psycho-analyse his celebrity subjects. Although I am quite sure he has a deeply intellectual side to him, he seems to have purposely kept the tone of 'Alien Rock' on the light side. His biographies of his musical stars are designed to be entertaining, even amusing. That's not to say that Michael doesn't show immense respect for the rock stars whose extra-terrestrial encounters he describes. He clearly holds them in high esteem. But he is addressing a subject that ill inevitably create more mirth than serious debate, and I think he rightly has kept the tone light to prevent the whole thing sounding a little too crazy.

I found the book rather eye-opening. Rock stars like Elvis, David Bowie, John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix had real-life encounters with UFOs, or were obsessed with the subject. Some described a sense of not being from this planet (a strange revelation I myself first experienced as a teenager), and that their music seemed to sometimes originate from beyond themselves, as if presented to them as a spiritual gift through dreams. Do we tune into other frequencies whose medium is pure music? It seems so. Perhaps that would explain Mozart's extraordinary gifts. Perhaps he was an experiencer too. He may have channelled his wonderful and beautiful music from a higher spiritual source.

As well as pulling together the UFO experiences of various rock stars, Michael also describes how the E.T. sub-culture has embedded itself into music scene. He highlights alien-themed songs, album covers and perhaps more importantly concerts and festivals. In this way he also indicates how the UFO subject has affected the music scene. Such a situation reflects one of the paradoxes of the UFO subject; that there seems to be a symbiotic relationship between the nature of the phenomenon and how it is portrayed in our culture. The music scene seems similarly jumbled; some artists having been strongly influenced by their own encounters, other influenced by the somewhat dissident nature of Ufology. To make Rock is to rebel, after all, and perhaps there is a natural connection between this and other aspects of our culture that ask questions of received authority. Ufology may simply be a symbol of rebellion against mainstream thinking, which is generally conservative in its mentality.

Michael Luckman does not explore these possibilities himself in his book. But he is clearly a knowledgeable man within the UFO community. He litters the book with various bits of UFO and alien trivia, some of which I had not come across before. He offers an excellent bibliography and index, which one might not have expected for a book whose general feel is one of entertainment. It seems to me that Michael is hiding a serious message within the leaves of a book designed to be attractive to people more interested in their favourite rock stars than UFOs and aliens. Perhaps he aims to gently persuade them that there is more to their hero's interest in UFOs than they thought. It is an effort that I applaud.

Book review by Andy Lloyd, 22nd October 2006

andy3751@hotmail.com

Books for review can be sent to Andy Lloyd at the author/publisher's own risk. (I reserve the right to fail to produce a review if a submitted book turns out to be complete pants). Please contact me by e-mail for a postal address.