Dear Sir/ Ma'am,
I hope this e-mail has reached the right person/ department; if not I would be grateful if you could forward it as appropriate.
Century have recently published the book
Not for Disclosure, Jonathan Caplan, ISBN 9781529979961, published 11 June 2026. It is marketed as non-fiction.
On your website,
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/477763/not-for-disclosure-by-caplan-jonathan/9781529979961
The author includes a photograph with the caption,
"An original photo of a saucer with chairs in the foreground. Possibly the only available photo of a recovered craft in the possession of the US forces. Copyright (C) Wood and Wood Enterprises and Jonathan Caplan."
This photograph has been discussed on a Reddit thread
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=ht...bp&s=418338f8beb64b10d67c9ba964c691365310fe38,
and on the "debunking" website Metabunk
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ca...-the-earth-stood-still-1951.15061/post-375009; I do not know the relevant page number in
Not For Disclosure.
It is very, very clearly a photograph from the set of the well-known 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still. It will be recognisable to many.
The initial Metabunk post (link above) by senior member jarlmai includes the same image but less cropped at the edges. There is a small blackboard in the centre foreground with the text
" SET STILL
WISE A-634
Ext. Space Ship"
While the inclusion of this photo and its accompanying text in a Century non-fiction book is amusing, it raises questions.
Stories about UFOs can be interesting, but claims that governments/ government agencies (usually in the US) possess captured or retrieved alien spacecraft do not appear to be evidence-based and are, at the very least, contentious. Century has published an image very obviously from the set of a well-known SF film as evidence of such a claim.
(1) Century/ Cornerstone/ Penguin Random House is marketing the book as non-fiction.
(2) Despite the extraordinary (and serious) claim connected with this photo, presumably no-one involved in the book's publishing did a basic reverse image search.
(3) It must be very unlikely that Jonathan Caplan (or Wood and Wood Enterprises) possess copyright of this image.
You will be aware of the controversy surrounding
The Salt Path, Raynor Winn, pub. Michael Joseph 2018, in paperback by Penguin 2019.
There have been other troubling instances of almost certainly untrue claims being uncritically published as non-fiction in recent years.
The Penguin website has a webpage "Social Impact"
https://www.penguin.co.uk/about/social-impact; I suspect many people might think the uncritical publishing of an
obviously incorrect claim alluding to major government cover-ups and the existence of aliens visiting Earth in a non-fiction book is not socially responsible.
It blurs the lines between fact and fiction. In this instance, the Century book presents a photo from a film set as evidence for the author's extraordinary claims. It might be funny, but it is also troubling.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter; I would be interested to hear your views.
Many regards, John.
