Named a Finalist in the Miscellaneous Category for the National Indie Excellence Award .    UFO Symphonic-Journeys into Sound  explores the language of music and its relationship to the mystery of existence. A collection of many voices, UFO Symphonic sings like a choral symphony. UFO Symphonic suggests that music is a form of highly complex communication, a contact modality. Contact with whom? Or what? There are no final answers, the author submits. Is music one way in which the past, present and future are attempting to communicate with and through us? More than a vehicle for time travel, music can transport us to another realm. UFO Symphonic investigates how the symbolic language of music, of sound, interfaces with the collective unconscious. And with the symbolism of dreams, leading us, at times, into the realm of high strangeness. Through a series of personal accounts and experiencer stories, UFO Symphonic takes the reader on a journey into the impossible. Joshua Cutchin, author of Ecology of Souls How does one articulate that which cannot be put into words? How does one quantify the infinite? It seems like an impossible mandate. I would argue that such expressions are exceedingly rare, perhaps solely restricted to two domains. The first is the numinous, those anomalous moments verging on the divine, the transcendent, the supernatural, the Other. The second—much more common, but no less miraculous—is in art. Mike Fiorito realizes this, and the concept has never been presented more thoughtfully than in UFO Symphonic—Journeys into Sound. While all art touches us in personal, ineffable ways, music holds a special spot for many of us. "Music is a language," Mike writes. But it often seems like so much more than that. Music isn't just a language...it might be the language, the music of the spheres, the motor of existence. Noise represents the natural state of our existence on Earth, of our reality. Even the most remote locales on the planet, places relatively devoid of flora and fauna like Antarctica, are subject to the incessant drone of the wind, the thunderous fortissimo of calving glaciers. To order sound into coherence harnesses what may perhaps be the greatest mysteries known to humankind. To that end, as Mike suggests, music may also represent our oldest art. The implication is clear: being a musician places one on a continuum of humanity, stretching back before we were even Homo sapiens. We cannot escape this impulse if we try; we are all inherently musical. As Henry Van Dyke observed, "The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those who sang best, or, more pragmatically, as Diane Porter, one of the contributing writers in this book, says, Music matters even if mum can't sing." Contradictorily, by taking our place within this human continuum, we gain insight into what it means to be more than human. It holds the potential to bring us into contact with our second expression of the inexpressible: the supernatural. This is the recurring refrain of UFO Symphonic. Reading Mike's intimate look at the interplay of music and the unknown—not only in his own life, but also in the lives of others—is akin to attending the premiere of a grand opus. Think of it as a duet between two aspects of existence, seemingly unrelated but both fundamental to the human condition, intertwining in a contrapuntal dance, a reciprocal dialogue where music nurtures the Other, and vice versa. Although UFOs constitute the central leitmotif, Mike regularly modulates to the closely related tonalities of other inexplicable phenomena: synchronicities, spiritual revelation, psychic abilities, and more, all using music as a unifying framework. Like any artfully executed performance, Mike seems to have pulled off the impossible. In the interest of full disclosure, I once thought about writing a book on anomalous music myself, or music and the Phenomenon writ large. I would have written something grand, something academic, full of endnotes and music theory and endless scholarly commentary. But it wouldn't have meant as much as Mike's work. It wouldn't have included an ounce of who I am or what music means to me. Thankfully, Mike realizes that while there's value to be gleaned from an academic line of thought—he includes just the right amount in UFO Symphonic—music demands a much more personal touch. It's not solely, or even mostly, about sweeping statements. It's about our own individual connections, those small, meaningful moments juxtaposed against our greatest mysteries. Review published by Alternate Perceptions 12/3/2024 (written by Brent Raynes) A unique contribution to the ufological literature. UFO Symphonic: Journeys into Sound, has already received advanced praises from various luminaries in the UFO field. Greg Bishop, author of "It Defies Language!" describes how the book "reveals fresh methods to perceive and understand the UFO issue with the heart and intuition, rather than endless processions of da