Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Operation Roswell

It is the troubled period just after World War II, and America has asserted its power across the globe, but problems still remain. With the ever-present threat of atomic weapons in enemy hands, the country has begun a race for military supremacy. Every inch of sky is monitored by radar, and every eye is open.

The face of America's enemy seemed very clear, until reports of an unidentified aircraft flying over the New Mexico desert arrived in Washington. The reports state that the ship is impossibly light, with the ability to hover in place, then speed away at more than one thousand miles an hour-and it looks like no other aircraft the country has ever seen. As far as the American military is concerned, the UFOs perform operations light years ahead of anything the US Air Force can execute such as almost instant acceleration and deceleration and on a dime curve manoeuvres.

While President Truman does his best to maintain plausible denials, the situation is placed in the hands of Major General Curtis LeMay, a military zealot whose only concern is securing America's dominance in the arms race. When his men shoot the craft down, it becomes obvious that this was no Russian vessel-and that it may not be from this planet at all. An examination of the crew proves this to be all too true . . . and one of them has survived.

Truman orders a full cover-up to prevent a public panic even as the craft and its occupants are taken to Nevada where LeMay insures a nuclear weapon remains on stand by alert, planning to destroy the craft if the you-know-what hits the fan.

Kevin Randle joins Nick Pope and Timothy Good in turning his real-life UFO investigations into a novel. The book is quite good, although it does not include an international element – which made WorldWar and ‘Operation Thunder Child’ so good – and there are insufficient glances into the workings of the US government as the crisis deepens. I also question the viability of the alien race that Randle describes, I suspect that their would have real problems existing in the manner described and in attacking the US personnel.

Finally, It doesn't answer how the creatures were killed. The hero watched the underground detonation of the a-bomb from a mile away, and is inside a tunnel that is connected to the complex that got blown? But if the hero lived, and the creatures were in the tunnel ahead of them all the way, as described, then the aliens must have survived too, they were quite well adapted to extreme pressures.

Something that I’ve toyed with from time to time is the effect of the Roswell crash being blown open as soon as the craft crashed. What might happen if proof was discovered that there had indeed been a crash-landing and the general populace believed it? Further, what if the USSR believed it?

Consider it from their point of view. They are already behind the US in several critical areas, such as atomic weapons, and now the US has got its hands on an advanced craft that might give it a decisive advantage? What would Stalin do under such circumstance? He might consider launched an attack on Europe at once, or blackmail the Europeans into convincing the US into sharing the crafts details with the USSR.

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