Extraordinary Encounters

About the Author

This site's own Jerome Clark key-figures entry documents him as a prominent UFO historian whose multi-edition UFO Encyclopedia is one of the field's standard reference works, and credits him with judging the 1948 Gorman Dogfight "the most overrated UFO report in the early history of the phenomenon" and personally establishing rancher Alexander Hamilton's 1897 "cattle lasso" airship story as an invented tall-tale-contest entry rather than a genuine account.

Born in Canby, Minnesota in 1946, Clark has served as editor of both Fate magazine and CUFOS's International UFO Reporter, and studied the Heaven's Gate group before its 1997 mass suicide. Beyond the UFO Encyclopedia and this book, his other major reference works include Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America (ABC-CLIO, 2005) and Unexplained! Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena (Visible Ink Press, multiple editions), along with an abridged UFO reference, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial (1997), which won the 1998 Benjamin Franklin Award. In 2008 the Society for Scientific Exploration gave him its Dinsdale Award, citing work that brought "comprehensive and trustworthy information presented from a sophisticated perspective" to general audiences -- though this article also found that skeptic Paul Kurtz separately criticized him as "easily impressed by questionable evidence," a useful reminder that Clark's careful documentary approach has drawn a range of assessments rather than uniform praise from every corner of organized skepticism.

Historical Context & Origins

The book's entity-organized structure sets it apart within Clark's own body of reference work: rather than cataloguing cases and events the way The UFO Encyclopedia does, this book catalogues the beings themselves -- UFO contactee figures alongside angels, fairies, and channeled entities -- treating the full range of claimed extraterrestrial and otherworldly contact as a single body of modern folklore worth documenting on its own terms.

This article was not able to confirm an exact entry count or a precisely stated historical and geographic scope from Clark's own introduction, since the book's digitized text was not accessible for direct search during this research. Readers wanting that level of bibliographic precision should consult the book directly or a library holding.

Core Arguments & Key Concepts

The book's implicit argument treats claimed encounters with extraterrestrials and otherworldly beings as a coherent modern folkloric phenomenon warranting the same careful documentary treatment Clark applies to conventional UFO cases in his other reference works, regardless of whether any individual entity or tradition represents a physical encounter, a psychological experience, or a cultural narrative.

One professional review, found via a Gale academic database record whose specific originating journal this article could not confirm, described the book as "handsomely illustrated and carefully documented," addressing "a vast array of contemporary adventures with the bizarre in an easily accessible and well-organized fashion" -- a characterization consistent with Clark's documented reputation for methodical reference work.

Key Cases & Evidence Discussed

This site's own Long Prairie, 1965 case file documents the Minnesota "tin can aliens" humanoid encounter in far greater depth than a single encyclopedia entry allows, including its Project Blue Book disposition, its cataloguing in Jacques Vallee's Passport to Magonia, and its continued place in Minnesota UFO folklore through a 2015 fiftieth-anniversary conference where Clark himself was a featured speaker alongside Kevin Randle. Readers wanting that complete record should consult that case file directly.

This site's own Gorman Dogfight case file documents a separate instance of Clark's documentary rigor -- his willingness to call a case "the most overrated UFO report in the early history of the phenomenon" from within the UFO research community rather than as an outside critic -- consistent with the same careful, non-credulous approach this article's research found associated with his broader reference-work career.

Critical Reception & Controversies

As of this article's research (August 2026), the book holds a modest 3.82/5 aggregate rating on Goodreads from only 11 ratings and no written reviews, too small a sample to draw firm conclusions from. A professional review record located in the Gale academic database praised the book as carefully documented and accessible, though this article could not confirm which specific journal originally published that review.

This article found no Library Journal, Booklist, or Choice review despite these being common venues for ABC-CLIO reference titles, which may reflect limits in what is indexed and searchable online rather than a genuine absence of such coverage -- readers with academic library database access may find additional reviews this research could not surface.

Influence & Legacy

The book's legacy sits within Clark's broader career as one of ufology's most prolific and respected reference-work authors, complementing rather than competing with his much larger and more widely cited UFO Encyclopedia by covering entities and contact traditions that book's case-and-topic structure does not organize around directly.

Set alongside this site's own Long Prairie, 1965 case file, this book functions as one data point in Clark's decades-long project of documenting the full range of claimed contact experiences with methodical care, a project this site's own research repeatedly finds credited with genuine documentary rigor even when its subject matter -- from humanoid encounters to channeled spiritual entities -- ranges far beyond conventional physical-evidence ufology.

The Book

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