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BELIEVERS and sceptics both care whether there is sufficient evidence to support the claim that aliens are visiting our planet. For the purposes of Aliens, however, The Sunday Times writer Bryan Appleyard has decided that it doesn鈥檛 matter whether aliens are real; what matters is why we see them.

Speaking grumpily as a sceptic, it鈥檚 hard to see how you can ignore the reality question, but鈥�willing suspension of disbelief and all that.

It鈥檚 easier to say what this book isn鈥檛 than what it is. It isn鈥檛 a study of the psychology of belief. It isn鈥檛 a review of the evidence for or against the alien hypothesis. It isn鈥檛 a guide to humans鈥� ideas about extraterrestrials. Appleyard discusses scientifically verifiable phenomena such as sleep paralysis only briefly.

He begins his study of alien sightings in 1947, when pilot and salesman Kenneth Arnold reported a squadron of spaceships over Washington state. So many other 鈥淯nidentified Flying Object鈥� reports followed in short order 鈥� including that from Roswell, New Mexico 鈥� that a year later the US air force established Project Sign to track them. That was also the year in which the National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency, as if to become 鈥渁 focus of all paranoia鈥�. But all this works only if you鈥檙e happy to forget the craze of airship sightings in the 1890s.

Appleyard rambles through the annals of the UFOs, then takes a stroll through science fiction, finishing up with philosophy and the familiar notion that reality exists only in our minds. That is philosophical scepticism; this realist sceptic finds plenty to argue with. He seems to have studied science fiction by watching movies rather than reading books. He refers to The Stepford Wives鈥� full-length flowery dresses, for example, apparently unaware that these arose from the director鈥檚 choice of his 41-year-old wife for the lead role. In Ira Levin鈥檚 novel the wives were scantily-clad, perfectly-formed sex objects.

Sceptic Robert Schaeffer has found every element of the contemporary alien abduction stories that Appleyard reviews in fiction since the 1930s. And contrary to Appleyard鈥檚 assertion, fictional aliens have often resembled neither humans nor other terrestrial animals 鈥� at least not in books, where casting is not an issue.

Appleyard says he moved from scepticism to belief to acceptance in the course of writing his book. Yet he dislikes science throughout, saying it aims to 鈥渋magine a world of emotionless self-awareness鈥�. I鈥檇 still rather be a sceptic. At least for us science is a source of wonder.