To link the UFO sightings in post-WW2 US with captured German technology is nothing new, but I like the antigravity and zero-point energy focus that Nick Cook has in his book. Mainly because I share his interest in this technology. But this focus disguises the downright global scope of the connection between the Nazis and the US even during WW2. Step by step a big secret becomes apparent through declassified documents and investigative journalism here and there: Even though there were indeed a range of aerospace technologies and industrial capabilities that made their way from defeated Germany to the US, another potato was much hotter: The deal between some top Nazis and some US spies was about the thing that made the cold war: the nuclear bomb. No later than 1943, Admiral Canaris and his spies started to negotiate separate surrender deals with the OSS (William Donovan and Allen Dulles) and MI6 (Stuart Menzies). FDR opposed it, but the SS (Hans Kammler, Karl Wolff) joined in. By the end of 1944, they had agreed to transfer not only the V2 missiles, but also the nuclear bomb technology from Germany to the US in exchange for some deals that remain classified to this day. These bombs had been tested successfully in Germany by then, including but not limited to a test on the Baltic island of Ruegen in October 1944. Part of that technology was the production of weapon-grade uranium and plutonium. The device that became known as "The Bell" was apparently a neutron source and as such a vital component in that process. How could the Manhattan project shift so quickly from the unsuccessful "Thin Man" design to the spherical implosion concept that was demonstrated in the Trinity test and in Nagasaki? The spherical implosion concept was at a state of high maturity in Germany at that time, and tests with different atomic charges started in 1943 (see publications by Todd Rider and Rainer Karlsch). The concept was only discussed in papers in the US in spring 1943 (Seth Neddermeyer) and development was undertaken during 1944, but it appeared to be too complex a problem to solve. Internal friction held up the development activities, and during summer 1944, the gun-type implosion concept was found to be impractical following laboratory tests of the first samples of Plutonium produced by Oak Ridge. At that time, Germany was already past the design challenge and went into maturity phase and production of nuclear bombs. The fact that three mature nuclear bombs were ready for testing and deployment (suddenly) in July and August 1945 raises questions: Where and when were they built? Were there any proof-of-concepts, demonstrators, prototypes with smaller charges etc., test measurements, design optimizations, versions development cycles, such as in Germany? What was the shortcut the Manhattan Project was able to take? Using captured bombs from Germany? The nuclear deal between the Nazis (Hans Kammler, SS) and the United States (Allen Dulles, OSS) is the true "big secret" of that time in terms of technology. Probably no UFO and no antigravity were ever there. But who knows. Even though I like Nick Cook's book very much, I did not like that he cites a British Aerospace employee with the claim that The Bell had been the Nazis' attempt to build "a ... time machine". That lowers my rating to 4 stars.

This book is absolutely recommended reading for anyone that is interested in the unseen portion of the US military. It also makes a very strong case that many new technologies and events are happening outside the view of the public in the name of national security. This guy is a terrific author and journalist, no doubt about it. His ability to architect the facts into a compelling story is just icing on the cake. Frankly, his research is compelling enough and the chronology of events he uses to make his case are very well mapped out. He makes some very complex events and theories easily comprehensive to a science novice. You really need to read the book if you are interested in new technology, old technology, the evolution of technology or want to understand where our society may have recieved many abstract ideas for high tech. The vast military complex is abstract and secretive, Nick Cook does a stellar job of piecing together history and current events. This is not some nutjob UFO book. He doesn't ramble (as many UFO books do) and doesn't pursue huge conspiracy theories. He does watch the facts and makes me want to go out and do research on my own. I wish more journalists did work like this guy.... This book is consistently interesting, I couldn't put it down.

This is a very interesting book because the author is an editor for Jane's Defense Weekly which is a main stream defense industry publication. He has a lot of contacts in the defense industry which gives him access to people and places which are not available to most people. He postulates that perhaps entire industries exist in the world which are trying to solve technical problems that were in reality solved decades ago. These "white" industries serve as the utlimate smoke screen to hide the secrets that only the elite know. As he delves deeper and deeper in his quest to discover the truth about the "black" projects he begins to feel that the bad guys are beginning to watch him. That's when the nightmares start. It appears that around the time of World War 2 a race began to discover secrets which, although they seem new to us, were known in very ancient times on Atlantis and in Egypt. Nuclear energy was one of these rediscovered "technologies" but there are others which (if this can even be imagined) are infinitely more powerful and potentially more dangerous than nuclear. According to the Edgar Cayce material it was the abuse of some sort of crystal based technology that led to the various destructions of Atlantis which now rests in its watery grave. One of the main ideas is that there is an infinite source of clean, free, energy available to the world in what Plato and the ancients called the "aether". As people continue to delve into the sub atomic world they are perhaps seeing God's infinite creative powers. A force which can become anything and which can do anything. It is only recently that people have begun to fathom to true nature of the mysterious Great Pyramid in Egypt. The pyramid was a machine and it used an aether based physics similar to what Nick talks about in this book. Towards the end of the book Nick talks about a very mysterious Canadian guy named John Hutchison. Hutchison was at one time able to repeatedly create strange anti gravity and alchemical effects in his laboratory. The problem was even he didn't know how it worked or what the "Hutchison Effect" was going to do. During one test the concrete floor started to catch on fire. For whatever reasons the information in this book has not made it into the main stream yet. Perhaps this is just as well for now. Nick did a lot of travelling and research for this book. He includes a lot of background information about Nazi Germany which is where quantum mechanics started. There's a typo on page 271: "A thousand kilowatts are a megawatt and a thousand megawatts are a gigawatt. A thousand terawatts, Markus told me, were a terawatt." The mysterious "Dr. Dan Marckus" is one of the people in the book who was not identified by their real names. I feel like I can sort of relate to or identify with the Dan Marckus character for some reason. Perhaps subconsiously I would like to become one of these mad scientist types like Nikola Tesla. Jeff Marzano