Rating: 
Summary: Advance praise for DREAMLAND:
Review: "A mind-opening tale of trespass and revelation, of road adventures, technothriller hardware, saucer folks and aerospace outlaws-as well as a daring account of the haunting of our history through the Cold War and beyond by what we have seen, and often wish we had not seen, in the hazardous dreamscape of the American sky." -Thomas Pynchon"This eloquent and frequently astounding book takes readers along on an audacious, circuitous exploration of the desert landscape in an around the most secret military bases in the American West, and of the psychological landscape of fantasy, lore, and suspicion that surrounds them. ...Phil Patton has produced the definitive account of this strange corner of the world and of an even stranger corner of the national psyche." -Hal Espen, Outside magazine "Phil Patton's DREAMLAND illuminates the unconscious American id through an unexpected opening: the obsessive passions of UFO believers,the builders of top-secret military jets, and atomic bomb makers-three tribes whose actions remarkably converge at one ground zero on the map: Area 51 in Nevada. DREAMLAND is a psychic probe into the inner nerd of America." -Kevin Kelly, Wired magazine "What Phil Patton brings...is a brilliant book in which nothing is as it seems, while everything has a rational explanation, and yet, even so, the 'rational' is its own sort of Dracula."-John Leonard, The Nation "A fascinating meditation on delusion and desire, [DREAMLAND] is an American tale." -Kirkus Reviews (starred)
Rating: 
Summary: Good for the "Youfers"
Review: But lacking when it comes to "black" aircraft. A good introduction on the subject, but like all books on Area 51, for the armchair explorer. Much more detailed info can be found on various web sites and in newsgroups.
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Summary: Dreamland is a MUST! You should have gotten it yesterday!
Review: Dreamland, by Phil Patton, is a MUST for any serious UFOlogy, Conspiracy, or Ameritech enthusiast. I have to say that my hopes have been met in his latest work. A work of this direction, specifically geared toward the growing sub (or counter?) culture of those profiled, as well as their obsessions or research subjects, is long overdue. I will, in the future, recommend it with intense zeal to everyone who is in search of an introductory overview of ufology and other related issues, as well as to the old-timers who may not be very familiar with the roots of their obsessions. This well researched book can be take seriously by both sides of the political/social conflict. Acquire a copy immediately!
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Summary: Dreamland FAQs
Review: Even before publication, I've received many queries about Dreamland. Here is a FAQ list that may be useful: Does Area 51 really exist? Yes. It is in Nevada and was first used in the mid-50s to test the U-2 spy plane. Area 51 has been known by a series of names since then: Watertown, Paradise Ranch, Groom Lake, and Dreamland, the call name of the control tower at the air base. It lies right between the Nevada nuclear test site and the fighter base at Nellis. Its where the stealth fighter was tested. How did you learn about DREAMLAND? I surprised by how much I was able to find out. I talked to everyone, from Cold Warriors who designed spy planes in the Fifties to Code Warriors, Silicon Valley programmers who became fascinated with secret budgets in the Nineties. They hid Area 51 inside the software of the Apple Newton, for instance, and imagined it as a video game. Information seeps out after years. More will undoubtedly come out in the next few decades. What is DREAMLAND about? DREAMLAND is about the most secret place in America, where strange bat- and manta-shaped aircraft have flownand been taken for flying saucers. My argument is that most of the flying saucer sightings have been of secret planesmany of the sightings can be explained as those of U-2s or secret UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles. And since the government wanted to keep those planes secret, it did not discourage, and may have actively encouraged, the UFO buffs. But DREAMLAND is also about the people who are fascinated with Area 51. People like Norio Hayakawa, the Japanese-American funeral home director and country-and-western musician, who believes that the flying saucers are a front by the New World Order; Kathleen Ford, who takes pictures of mysterious blobby entities along the perimeter; Joe Bacco, who worked at the nuclear test site and paved the road to Area 51; test pilot Bob Gilliland, who flew the CIA Blackbird spy plane from the dry lake inside Dreamland; Glenn Campbell, a.k.a. Psychospy, the self-appointed w! atchdog who created the Area 51 research center; and Paul McGinniss, who traced the funding of projects at Dreamland through the so-called black budget. How did you get interested in DREAMLAND? I became fascinated by the planes produced by the Lockheed Skunkworks, the U-2 I grew up hearing about. I remember the day President Johnson announced the SR71 Blackbird on television. I dont think I would have become so obsessed had I not grown up on a strategic air command base in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War. I learned that Dreamland was a kind of monument of the Cold War. But once I got there, I became interested in all of the other people who were fascinated, even obsessed. Its a place that seems to breed obsessions of all sorts. All kinds of people see all kinds of things in it. Its a Mecca for UFO buffs. Its the subject of scrutiny by those fighting what they see as excessive government secrecy. These are fascinating people. So I spent a lot of time watching the watchers. Many of the people I talked to were fringe characters. But its the people on the fringe who do the wild dreaming for the rest of us. They resemble the fringe thoughts that one has in ones own dreams. I tried to take them on their own terms. I tried to move beyond the cliches to the way the folklore and pop culture of Area 51 reflected the real technology and the wider culturethe cold war, alienation, fear, and hope. Could there really be flying saucers hidden there? The point is, if there were, it would be entirely possible for the government to keep us from knowing. With such high levels of secrecy, we can never know for sure. How can you tell what is true with so many different stories being told? Thats what made it interestingthat one place could be the focus of so many different perspectives and cultures. Looking at Area 51 was an opportunity to see a new kind of folklore taking shape. I found that I had to move away from the place to understand it. Its part of a wider culture ! and I drove thousands of miles and talked to hundreds of people. So the book is sort of a quest in reverse: it begins with a view of Area 51 and finds that you have to go to all kinds of distant placesnot to mention distant eras of historyto understand it. What is really flying there? What have people been seeing? My guess is that people have been seeing stealth planes, stolen MiGs, cruise missiles, helicopters, airliners, flares, reflections. And quite likely, a new generation of UAVsunmanned aerial vehicles, robot planesshaped like triangles and bats, like ones later made public, and maybe saucers. Some of the governments designs have worked, and we will learn about these in a few years, and some havent. We may never learn about some of the failures.
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Summary: Informative, Factual, and Entertaining
Review: Everything that you've ever wanted to know about Area 51. Well researched, objective, and full of interested facts but written in a light, entertaining style that made the book difficult to put down.
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Summary: The Truth? Yeah, It's Out There...
Review: I agree with a previous reviewer. This book blows open the lid on all those conspiracy theorists, and answers for the most part, the true origin of Area 51 and it's actual intended purpose. Many of the so-called UFO sightings were types of secret military aircraft, being tested and being seen by the general public. Of course the government would deny their existence. A very interesting look at the world of military secrecy and those who make it their life catching the military off guard.. But the question does remain: how did they get the idea for this type of technology in the first place? The truth is somewhere out there.
Rating:
Summary: The Truth? Yeah, It's Out There...
Review: I agree with a previous reviewer. This book blows open the lid on all those conspiracy theorists, and answers for the most part, the true origin of Area 51 and it's actual intended purpose. Many of the so-called UFO sightings were types of secret military aircraft, being tested and being seen by the general public. Of course the government would deny their existence. A very interesting look at the world of military secrecy and those who make it their life catching the military off guard.. But the question does remain: how did they get the idea for this type of technology in the first place? The truth is somewhere out there.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: I also recommend Robert Doherty's books AREA 51 and AREA 51 THE REPLY if you are interested in Area 51 and many of the things that are now called paranormal.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, not great; informative, not objective
Review: I began this book hoping for an objective look at the UFO phenomenon; but it quickly became apparent that Patton had no such intention. For him, the whole thing is nonsense, a modern-day mythology fit only for cultists and fanatics. Ho-hum. On the other hand, the background material he provides on aircraft research and developement is fascinating and worth the ride itself. (I wonder if Patton has read, or is aware of, Colonel Philip Corso's book, The Day After Roswell? How would he place Corso's revelations in his r-&-d timeline?) The book is well-written but strangely organized: it jumps about seemingly at random from topic to topic and from place to place, often within the same chapter. But after reading it, you will feel that you spent a few days driving around Nevada and California with him; and if he doesn't always stop off where you'd like, you do still get to see some beautiful country and hear some pretty good stories.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Read!
Review: I read this book straight through one weekend hardly able to put it down. Patton provides, in "Wired" style, a balanced history of "Area 51."
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