Making Contact is an informative book about one of the great mysteries of our time. Are we alone? It would be foolish to think so with the infinite universe that surrounds us, right? This book is a compilation of different experts and their perspectives. There’s government conspiracies, fact, and everything in between.

I found this book to be educational and easy to dive into. I didn’t know what to expect when I first requested Making Contact, but was not let down by these original writings. This would be absolutely perfect for the curious or open minded. It’s 4 stars from me.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Essentials, and the author for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

MAKING CONTACT is an enlightening and inspiring collection of essays by experts in the field of Anomalous Phenomena, including UFO's and potential alien encounters. Open your minds, allow for unlimited potentialities, awaken to possibilities.

I was particularly pleased to find the inclusion of a previously unpublished essay by the late Harvard professor John Mack, whose foundational work ABDUCTION: HUMAN ENCOUNTERS WITH ALIENS has always powerfully resonated with this reader, as well as his untimely early demise.

I would like to thank Sara Eslami, St. Martin’s Essentials and Netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC free for an honest review. This book of essays from a variety of people who have a history of researching close encounters and people who say they have made contact with non-terrestrial beings was very comprehensive and thought-provoking. I found the essays to be interesting and learned a few things from reading it. It was good to be able to read some current information on UFO phenomena. Many of these people are obviously on a totally different spiritual or vibrational level than I am, but I don’t doubt their abilities. I have had a hand full of experiences that were unexplainable, so I have no reason to doubt their realities. The more I read about encounters the more I get the sense that these people have been manipulated and used (by their visitors). I had never read about how humans may just be an experiment and how our DNA was manipulated by aliens. Like I said, some of these essays were eye-opening and thought-provoking.

Making Contact Preparing for the New Realities of Extraterrestrial Existence by Alan Steinfeld. Even though some parts are repetitive, it was still an original, entertaining read—a must-read for those interested in aliens or just looking for something different.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy of this book.

Making Contact by Alan Steinfeld tries to address the concept of first contact with an alien race from another world, but runs into the problems that somehow always seem to overshadow even the most serious of these kinds of books, the fringe that seems to cheapen all scientific methods and thoughts. Both are given equal time, and that tends to drag this book down, even while some of the essays tend to be sober and worthy of discussion.

Nick Pope's essay covering his history in the British bureaucracy and how and why a government might respond to alien contact is interesting. Other essays seem like the usual suspects peddling there same old tales without adding anything new or different. If the reader has in interest in this subject matter, or is new to this world, this is a good start as it covers the field quite well. But unfortunately there is not too much new information, or even ideas for experienced readers in the field.

I was offered an ARC of Making Contact from its publisher, and although it isn’t quite the sort of thing I might ordinarily pick up, I was interested enough to give it a read. Turns out, this is a collection of essays from various writers in the UFO community (curated by Alan Steinfeld) and that variety makes for a bit of a mixed bag. I found some of these essays to be quite compelling and some were...less so. I will say that these writers and their ideas don’t come across as dangerous or kooky conspiracy theories, and if this collection’s ultimate message is that there’s a higher consciousness out there waiting for humanity to treat the planet and each other better, and to then reclaim our birthright to enhanced love and understanding, then that’s a direction I can get behind. For another reader: I don’t know if “believers” will find much new here, and there wouldn’t be much to turn a “skeptic”, but for another open-minded general knowledge seeker such as myself, this is certainly interesting enough to engage the mind.