In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts of Outer Space (Updated and Expanded). By Douglas Curran, Forward by Tom Wolfe
Over the course of eight years Douglas Curran traveled across the North American Continent and recorded—in sympathetic words and perceptive photographs—the ideas and experiences of individuals whose obsessions with outer space inspired them to create elaborate homemade spaceships and even more elaborate belief systems. In the words of Tom Wolfe: “This book is the culmination of a quest that, by terrestrial standards, is as extraordinary as that of the people he brings to life.”

Since it was first published in 1985, this photographic exploration of the world of UFO true believers has established itself as a classic not only within the New Age/UFO community, but among sociologists, psychologists, and in the art and photography communities. With new photographs and an expanded text discussing the Roswell incident of 1947 and the Raelian movement, it remains the definitive exploration of man’s yearning for contact with life beyond Earth.

''In Advance of the Landing is a fascinating book that shows with compassionate insight how deeply man's longing for extraplanetary contact is felt. If this is the Space Age, as I have written, and we are ''here to go,'' these eccentric individuals may be tuning in, with faulty radios, to a universal message: we must be ready at any time to make the leap into Space.''--William S. Burroughs. ''Douglas Curran has rediscovered the New World--with its own religion and a tribe of credulous believers no less brave than the Cree or the Wampanoag. A not-ready-for-prime-time cult that makes up in fervor what it lacks in style. One that seems to worship equally Ray Walston and Stephen Hawking.''--Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files
About the Author and Photographer: For more than 20 years, Vancouver-based photographer Douglas Curran has documented various beliefs and cultures, from tent preachers to a secret spirit mask society in Central Africa. When not pursuing his own projects, Curran is a still photographer for the motion picture industry. More about Curran and his work can be found at dougcurranphotos.com.

Right, from top to bottom: Drawing by Keith Haring in the Fifty-first Street station of the Lexington IRT subway line, New York, New York; Mechanix Illustrated, March 1956; Weekly World News, November 30, 1982; Diorama at the Roswell UFO Enigma Museum depicting the crashed flying saucer and dead aliens supposedly discovered in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico. 		Cover Image By Douglas Curran
Foreword by Tom Wolfe
62 illustrations, 28 in full color
144 pages • 10 x 9" • Cloth
ISBN 0-7892-0708-7 • $35.00
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