"The Believer": a tale of 2 books & me

Its unusual when 2 books come out about the same time, each with the same title, particularly when, in part, they share similar themes.
In this case, we have:
"The Believer - Encounters with love, death & faith" by Sarah Krasnostein (Scribe, Melbourne, Australia, 2021)

"The Believer - Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the passion of John Mack" by Ralph Blumenthal (High Road Books, an imprint of the University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, USA, 2021)

In each book, friends I know appear, and  I even have brief cameos in both books. What follows are preliminary comments.

The back cover blurb on Sarah Krasnostein's book states, "This book is about ghosts and gods and flying saucers and certainty in the absence of knowledge ... an exploration of the power of belief. Weaving together the stories of six extraordinary people, (looking) at the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as its is, and the world as we'd like it to be.  How they can stunt us - or save us. Some of the people you will meet believe in things most people don't. Ghosts. UFOs. Heaven and the Devil.  The literal creation of the universe in six days.  Others believe in things most people would like to.  Dying with autonomy.  Facing one's own transgressions with an open heart. In this intensely personal and gorgeously written new book Krasnostein talks with her characteristic compassion and empathy to these believers - and finds out what happens when their beliefs crash into her own."

In her previous book, "The Trauma Cleaner", a best seller, we encounter a person who forensically cleans up after trauma, and I mean pretty bad trauma. Its a striking read.

In Sarah Krasnostein's "The Believer" I know in "The Paranormal" section: Dr. Vladimir Dubaj (current head of the AIPR (Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research), and Robb Tilley (spelt Rob throughout the book) - is the public officer of AIPR, the managing editor of its journal "Australian Journal of Parapsychology" and a friend of mine. 

In fairness to Sarah, even I got Robb wrong, in my book "The OZ files - the Australian UFO story" (1996), but managed to stay the course in my book "Hair of Alien" (2005). Balancing out, Sarah later has Robb referring to me as "Chalky"- Robb Rob and Chalky can sort this out over a brew or two 👍 )

Robb has had "decades of experience 'clearing homes and people of psychic distress." Both Vlad and Robb are into ghosts, hauntings, and poltergeist, and they feature in the first half of the book: "Part 1: BELOW" in the "Paranormal" sections.  Sarah describes Robb as having "the wild white hair, rosy cheeks and jovial laugh of a muscular Santa." 

Hmm ... in the interests of transparency, at the only "house clearing" I joined Robb on, I was impressed how the heavy, bleak atmosphere of the place lifted after he did his "thing." What intrigued me more was the following. I'm sitting in the lounge room with the teenage daughter.  The others (including her mother who seemed most affected by the events) are elsewhere in the house. I had been thinking, while impressed with the change of energy in the house, I still hadn't experienced anything that impressed the scientist in me. What followed didn't either, but it sure had me puzzled me at a personal level. The only "company of a sort" in the lounge room was a large inflatable Santa.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw an arm of "Santa" rise up and go down again.  Huh, I thought.  I immediately jumped up, and went over to "Santa". His arm was heavy enough that it required me to lift it up. It did not move with me moving around it, jumping up and down.  There was no string attached, no air currents. This did not repeat, but I told Robb about it later. He said it was probably intended just for me - Thanks Santa.  Or was Sarah's "Rob" channeling "muscular Santa." 😎

In Sarah's book Part 2 is called "Above" and here, UFO narratives dominate the other interspersed stories.  I lived the 1978 Valentich controversy, through research and investigation.  The "Fred & Rhonda" of Sarah's "Theories of Flight" segments are Frederick Valentich and Rhonda Rushton. Much later I met Rhonda - a lovely lady. Some friends, acquaintances and associates appear in Sarah's "Theories of Flight" arc, particularly after she embraces the other UFO case covered in some detail in the book - the daylight Westall school encounter of 1966 - Keith Basterfield, Colin Kelly, Shane Ryan, George Simpson