Jerome Clark


Jerome Clark is an American writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other paranormal subjects. He has appeared on ABC News Special Report, Unsolved Mysteries, Sightings and the A&E Network discussing UFOs and other oddities. Clark is also a country and folk music songwriter of note.

Biography

Clark was born and raised in Canby, Minnesota; he attended South Dakota State University and Minnesota State University. He has served as a writer, reporter, and editor for a number of magazines which cover UFOs and other paranormal subjects. He has been an editor of Fate magazine and International UFO Reporter, and a member of the board of directors for the Center for UFO Studies.
Clark authored the multi-volume The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon From The Beginning with the first edition being published in 1992. Library Journal stated in its review of The UFO Encyclopedia that "A respected UFO authority provides a much-needed update of the field with this new encyclopedia... is the most thorough treatment yet of this puzzling phenomenon...the should be considered by larger public and academic libraries." wrote that "the articles are factual and balanced, with neither a believer's nor a skeptic's viewpoint predominating", and that The UFO Encyclopedia is "recommended for public libraries and undergraduate collections." In 1997 an abridged, one-volume edition of The UFO Encyclopedia, entitled The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial, was published as a trade paperback. In 1998, The UFO Book won the Benjamin Franklin Award in the Science/Environment category sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association.
In its review of his 1999 book Cryptozoology A to Z, Salon commented that Clark and co-author Loren Coleman "show a touchingly supportive nature" for a subject often criticized for lack of scientific rigor.
Sunday Express combined its review of Clark's 2000 book, Extraordinary Encounters, An Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrials and Otherworldly Beings with another similar book entitled UFOs and Popular Culture by James R. Lewis, calling both books "inexplicably entertaining" and commenting that they "manage throughout to maintain a healthy rationality and openmindedness, neither over-sceptical nor too ready to believe the claims of the UFOmongers."
According to skeptical academic Paul Kurtz, "Clark attacks skeptics for being closed-minded and dogmatic, yet he is easily impressed by questionable evidence."

Songwriting and music reviews

Clark has written songs which have been recorded or performed by musicians such as Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Tom T. Hall and has collaborated with Robin and Linda Williams. He has also written a number of reviews of American folk music albums and CDs for Rambles magazine.

Works