PLANET OF THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBILITIES

Granada / Mayflower paperback, 1980 reprint. Cover illustration
by Justin Todd.

NOT OF THIS WORLD

Sphere paperback, reprint, February 1974.

"The 'astronauts' of ancient Japan, Mexico and the Sahara...the mysterious Great Wall of Peru...the legends of Mu and Atlantis...the astronomical clock at Stonehenge...the extra-terrestrial giants described in the Popol Vuh, ancient bible of the Maya Indians. 

NOT OF THIS WORLD is a revolutionary survey of the evidence that a highly advanced technological people from another solar system had contact with our planet in the prehistoric past. The author backs his argument with an impressive array of fact drawn from history, myth and archaeology, and a unique collection of drawings and photographs."

I've always found the notion of ancient astronauts appealing, and there's some fascinating stuff in this book, especially in terms of mythology and legends. True or not, it's nice to ponder 'what if' occasionally. Kolosimo comes off as more informed and genuine than (contemporary?) Erich von Däniken, whose theories seem to centre around the statement 'This looks like X, therefore, it is...' For me, the excerpts from the Popol Vuh in particular, are worth keeping the book, so is the cover actually.

GODS AND SPACEMEN THROUGHOUT HISTORY

Sphere paperback, 1977. Cover artist uncredited.

"From pre-history Flying Saucers in one guise or another have been seen in our skies. Where have they come from? What are they here for? 

As Earthmen land on the Moon, we ask ourselves Has all this happened before? Could Extraterrestrials from the stars have landed on Earth centuries ago? 

Our ancestors believed they were inspired by the Gods, all-powerful visitors from beyond Earth. How much influence have these Space-Gods had on Man's evolution? Can we hope for some guidance from the past for our own sadly troubled times? 

In this revelatory book, W. Raymond Drake examines the role of Extraterrestrials in Man's development and assures us that in times to come Man will again be visited by Gods and Spacemen from other worlds."

ON THE SHORES OF ENDLESS WORLDS

Sphere paperback, 1975. Cover painting by Tony Roberts.

"Now - more than any other time in his history - man has the ability to look back into his origins and, at the same time, look out to the rim of space to...his future? 

Andrew Tomas dares to escape our earthbound views, assimilating biology, archaeology, geology, history and astronomy to make a new assessment of man's destiny in time and space, set in an infinite past and boundless future: on the shores of endless worlds. He finds a continuity between the inorganic and the organic, the human and the 'superman', the legends of the past and the possibilities of the future. Blending knowledge and speculation, liberating the imagination of the reader, Andrew Tomas has produced a book as fascinating as his bestselling WE ARE NOT THE FIRST."

BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER

Sphere paperback, 1974. Cover artist uncredited.

"In his new book the author of We Are Not The First and Atlantis turns his attention to the nature and enigmas of time. Time, he argues, is not an abstraction: yesterday and tomorrow are as real as today. To illustrate his thesis, he quotes a number of temporal anomalies and poses some highly provocative questions. 

Is it true that astronauts in an interstellar rocket will travel straight into the future? How is it that when an empty parking lot was photographed with a special infra-red camera, the developed film showed cars which had been there before, thus photographing the past? 

Did ancient Egyptian sages leave a coded forecast of all future events from 100 BC to 2100 AD? How in modern times have prophets from Nostradamus to Jeane Dixon predicted future events with such uncanny accuracy? 

Can the Time Barrier be broken? Is time television a scientific possibility? These and many other equally fascinating problems are answered in this book, written on that thin borderline which separates science from science fiction, fact from fantasy."

WE ARE NOT THE FIRST

Sphere paperback, 1972. Cover artist uncredited.

"The development of modern science during the course of the past 400 years is merely the rediscovery of ancient knowledge. 

ATOMIC THEORY 

was worked out by Democritus 2500 years before Rutherford. 

PENICILLIN 

was used by the ancient Egyptians 4000 years before Fleming. 

ELECTRIC BATTERIES 

were used by the Babylonians 2000 years before König's cells. 

SPACE TRAVEL 

was described by the prehistoric Chinese 4000 years before the Apollo flights."