Since it was first published in 1985, Douglas Curran's photographic exploration of the strange world of UFO "true believers" has established itself as a classic work not only within the New Age/UFO community, but among sociologists, psychologists, and in the art and photography communities. This new edition, with an expanded text revisiting the Roswell, New Mexico, incident of 1947, brings back this essential work in a handsome new edition. As Tom Wolfe explains in his foreword: "Douglas Curran is not only a photographer but also a reporter, and an extremely gifted one. I am tempted to suggest that he also qualifies as an anthropologist, but I think I will leave it at 'reporter.' To be a reporter of Douglas Curran's caliber is a lofty enough achievement. He has discovered an exotic world, and for eight years he has traveled remote terrains throughout the United States and Canada exploring it. This book is the culmination of a quest that, by terrestrial standards, is as extraordinary as that of the people he brings to life."
In the course of that long quest, Curran recorded-in sympathetic words and perceptive photographs-the ideas and experiences of individuals whose obsession with outer space inspired them to create elaborate homemade spaceships and even more elaborate belief systems. Now updated with several new photographs and an expanded text-and more relevant than ever, given the popularity of The X-Files and other investigations of alien life-In Advance of the Landing remains the definitive probe of a singularly fascinating subculture.
