Scientist and other experts agree, the best documented most compelling UFO case ever! Including extraordinary Color Photographs!

This is the story of an initially skeptical group of American investigators who spent several years studying case of Eduard Meier. Meier was a one-armed Swiss farmer who claimed to have been visited by extraterrestials over a period of years. These researchers made numerous trips to the Meier farm in Switzerland during the period when contacts were allegedly taking place. It describes the reactions of senior scientists at IBM, NASA, the US Navy and elsewhere to the hundreds of photographs, physical evidence and advanced scientific knowledge presented by the minimally educated Meier. Though often dismissed as hoax, the Meier case leaves a great deal which is unexplainable in any ordinary way. These visitations may well be more significant than the Betty & Barney Hill case in impacting our understanding of the place of humanity in the universe. The book left me wanting to know more.

One of the best true crime I've read. You feel as though you become a member of the family. If you are not in favor of the death penalty you probably will be after reading this book. I guarantee you will not be able to put it down. It brings out all of your emotions, good and bad. Must read!!

Gary Kinder is definitely a practitioner of the old saying "don't tell them, show them." A former prosecutor, Kinder tries his hand at writing a true crime book about a boy with his whole life ahead of him who blunders into a horrific store heist, is seriously disfigured and left for dead by the robbers. His mother comes looking for him and is similarly tortured (in her case, fatally). Kinder reconstructs the ordeal of the victim (hence the title) almost minute by minute. He then takes you through the police investigation and trial of the criminals. But all the while, he keeps the spotlight on the victim, which sets this apart from most true crime books. He never editorializes or preaches. He lays out the facts in a clear yet compelling prose style and he lets them speak for themselves. Kinder teaches a Continuing Legal Education course on legal brief writing (I'd love to be a fly on that wall). And if you think this is a good book, you will also want to read his "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea."

While a Psychology student in 1993, I was required to read this book. Not being one to enjoy reading, I was amazed. I could not put this book down. I stayed up till 4 am to finish with classes the next morning. Very well written. You really feel you know what these people experienced. No detail was left out. So many books read in Psychology classes are from the criminals point of view. This was not.

"Ship of Gold" is a wonderful read. What I most appreciated was its approach to adventure and science on the same intense level. This is a book that will inspire you- not to go searching for sunken treasure, but to set your mind on a goal and do whatever it takes to reach it. Tommy Thompson had to ask himself a huge question. How can a 150 year old ship of gold be found in 8,000 feet of water, and how can its treasure possibly be salvaged safely and effectivly from that depth? The answer lies in robotics and engineering. Thompson, a trained engineer, had to pull together a team of dedicated workers and invent the technology no one had sucsessfully been able to make before. Throw in a rival treasure hunting team following them at sea looking for the same wreck, and you have a story of unparalelled adventure and wonder, every bit as exciting and page-turning as it is informative and facsinating. On top of that, Kinder has a written a fantastic account of the ships final days and moments, which he splits up and weaves in between chapters on Thompson and his growing ideas for finding the wreck. The paralel stories grow together as the book progresses, placing us inside Thompsons head to understand his desire and iron will for finding the Ship of Gold. This is a book that should not be missed- please do yourself a favor and read it.

Ship of Gold may be the ultimate Horatio Alger story. Kinder's account of the bizarre Tommy Thompson's quest to locate a 19th Century shipwreck is a delightful rags to riches story. Kinder weaves historical and contemporary events together seamlessly. He takes us back and forth in time, showing how a clear modern knowledge of each stage of the shipwreck led to the S.S. Central America's location at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Kinder is adept at the difficult task of maintaining two story lines in one book. The loss of the Central America is clearly a fascinating story in its own right. Its cargo, millions of dollars worth of gold bullion would have had significant impact on the nascent American economy. Kinder has performed a major feat in tracking the course of the journey and presenting the passenger accounts of the storm and sinking. He shows us the terror, the struggles to preserve the ship and the attempts by other vessels to rescue the survivors. His descriptive powers are excellent - the reader is kept enthralled as the tragedy unfolds.

Thompson's career is just as finely detailed as the historical account. Kinder shows us the workings of a firmly focussed mind. Thompson has the capacity to irritate and captivate those he deals with, whether on technical or economic levels. Clearly, he is infectious when presenting ideas or encouraging his followers. The results were almost foreordained that he would succeed in locating the wreck.

The finding, however, was anything but inevitable. Finding any sunken vessel at such depths, let alone the correct one, Kinder shows is a nearly insurmountable problem. Yet, in his account, success is achieved. It took ingenuity, persistence and insight, with some help from technology. Deep sea exploration devices, while not exactly in their infancy at this time, had serious limitations. Kinder recounts many of the issues Thompson and his team faced, but is reticent about their solutions. He presumably laboured under some form of non-disclosure agreement with Thompson. Even without explicit details, Thompson's ingenuity and persistence is clearly manifest. Kinder portrays him in the clearest possible light just as he illuminates the history of the Central America. The combination is an action-packed epic, in both historical and modern perspectives.

Undersea adventure, good old American 'know how' and undaunted spirit are three things that come to mind when trying to explain what this book is about. I have read quite a few books on undersea treasure hunting and often found the stories to be filled with excentric swashbuckling modern day pirates in search of gold based upon shear luck and happenstance. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, much to it's credit is a well constructed re-telling of the 1857 tragic sinking of a passenger sidewheeler and the modern day efforts of a dedicated team of scientists, engineers and researchers to categorically succeed in deep water exploration and retrieval on a wreck 8000 feet below sea level. The author is to be especially commended for his solid and compassionate portrayal of the entire cast of characters from the original captain, crew and passengers through the modern day entrepreneurs who worked through numerous adversities to achieve success where few if any experts thought such efforts could succeed. Not only does the exploration succeed handsomely but so too does this book in bringing the reader into a suspensefully well told tale. I recommend this book to readers who enjoyed The Perfect Storm. We need to see a lot more of Gary Kinder's work if this is what he's capable of doing.

The book descriprion on this page is good and I enjoyed this edition of the book with the help of the glossary provided in this edition which contains definitions of sailing terms and and few archaic usages that are in this book. It made it much more enjoyable and understandable.

I liked the grueling portarit of life at sea, reading some first written observations of early California, a fine and admiring description of a very able-bodied seaman that Dana encountered and many other points.

I think to that this challenging adventure for Mr. Dana restulted in restored vision for his failing eyes after he removed himself from life perhaps largely behind a desk. Could the neccessity of challenge and needed to see have contributed?

There are many facets and admirable points in this book. I think you would enjoy it.

I'm a Californian who has seen the entire coast described by Dana. He has painted a remarkably true picture of that coast still recognizable. Jackson was president when Dana sailed in 1833. It was also the age of the Mountain Men some of whom were seen in CA while Dana was there. In San Diego Dana met professor Nuttal who taught at Cambridge and was known to Dana. Nuttal crossed the continent the hard way, as a naturalist, then made his way to CA, and eventually returned on the same ship with Dana to Boston. Both Dana and Nuttal, and their respective pursuits, were precursors to Manifest Destiny. Their trips also were descriptive of the times. Two years after his leaving Boston, Dana returned as an accepted 'foc'sle' sailor, a man cured of whatever ailed him when he left home. His exploits are remarkable for their daring. He never shirked his duty as a shipmate. His is a remarkable tale which could only have been told by one of his character. If read in conjunction with the landed history of the time, 'Across the Wide Missouri,' by DeVoto, it becomes a historical masterpiece significant for its truth, sadness, and moments of supreme beauty of expression.

I really enjoyed his perspective on this voyage - the things he notices and comments upon to us, his readers. He offers us a marvelous view of a land that no longer exists. An intimate view of a sailor's life in its exciting - and mundane - details. I read it as an adult and/but I think this is the book they should give kids to read in high school literature classes. A book that shows life for the adventure that it can be. Not always easy, of course, but always an adventure. I recommend that you relax with it, take you time, go there. You can trust Richard Henry Dana. He tells a good story.

I picked up this book after reading Kinder's "Ship of Gold". This book was writen a few years before when captain William Lewis Herndon, who went down with the Central America in Kinder's book, was sent on a journey across the continent of South America via the Amazon river by the US government. He extensively records all his findings and observations, from elevation and river depth numbers, to the exotic wildlife of the river basin. Gary Kinder has done a great job editing down the origional manuscript, and has made a 150 year old book a very readible one today. That's quite an accomplishment, and it helps that Herdon was also a very good writer! What I found most interesting were Herndons personal ideas and oppinions he recorded. 150 years has drastically changed the way we think, and the gap in time is very evident. This book was writen before the abolition of slavery and the events of the 20th century. Herdon states the potential he sees at every turn on his journey to make profitable trades for the natural resources of the the land, and considers it a shame that such resources should go squandered or unnoticed by indians when they could fetch a huge sum in other parts of the world. Of course, we now cherish the rainforests of brazil as a vanishing wilderness on earth. I feel the book is almost more important as a study of 19th century thought than a study of the amazon. I'd like to se a updated edition with footnotes. There were many times when I'd read one of Herndon's observations and wonder how modern science and understanding would explain what he saw and experienced. Read this book expecting to learn more about Herndon than the Amazon.

If you read and loved Gary Kinder's "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" then you will find "Amazon" to be quite interesting. The book was actually writen over 150 years ago by Herndon, the famed captain of the Central America, the subject of "Ship of Gold" which sank in a hurricane a few years after Herndon crossed South america along the Amazon from Puru to the Atlantic ocean. He was sent on the journey by the US government to extensively record his findings on the continent. Kinder does a wonderful job in both his introduction and editing of the book. It is quite a feat to make a 150 year old book readible. (Kinder has removed irrelivant information recorded extensively by Herndon on the expedition.) What I found most interesting are his personal ideas and visions for the land, and the gap in time that brings such a unique style to his writing. For Example, being that the book was writen before the civil war and the abolition of slavery, Herndon often is critical of savage indian natives. He also has a vision for colonization and considers it a shame that the vast plant, animal and mineral resourses of the amazon are not taped by the US government or any government in trade routes. Of course now, in a world threatened by polution and over populated cities we see the amazon as one of the last areas of untamed wilderness on the earth. I found his comments fascinating and was intrigued at how different the world is today. The one thing I absent from book are footnotes- There were many times when Herdon would describe something and, knowing the changes in scientific discovery over 150 years, I would wonder what he really observed and why. I finished the book with a lot of questions and few answers, but I did have an inderstanding of American thought and vision from the 1850's, and I can't say I've ever read another book that shows that so well.

... but told in a much more stylish and readable manner. I bought this book on the strength of reading about Capt. Herndon's sacrifice in Gary Kinder's "Ship of Gold...". He seemed to epitomise the old-style captain, caring about his passengers, crew and above all his ship, and I was interested to read more about the man.

I was not disappointed; what could have been a dusty tome full of only facts and figures, emerges as a rivetting account of the trials endured during the trip, and vivid descriptions of a land that was as yet virtually unknown to the 'civilised' world, told as a very readable narrative. This easy style is what captured the hearts and minds of the Anmerican (and European) public in a book which went into several reprints of 10,000s (as opposed to the usual Congress print run of 100+!).

It also captured the imagination of a certain Samuel Clemens, who, after reading the book, immediately took steamer from St.Louis to New Orleans to get a boat to the Amazon. Imagine his disappointment when he found no passage ... sitting, bemoaning his ill luck, he hears the cries of the steamers "Mark twain!" - the rest is history.

I have one reservation (hence only ****); during his editing & research for the book, Mr.Kinder deletes a lot of sections that I personally would have found very interesting, such as crops grown, goods & minerals available and costs of trade items. If these had been included as an appendix, I think it would have added to the charm of the book.

Nevertheless, one of the best pieces of historical travel writing I have ever read.