Hilary Evans
Illustration — Hilary & Mary Evans Hilary Agard Evans (6 March 1929 – 27 July 2011) was a British pictorial archivist, author, and researcher into UFOs and other paranormal phenomena.
Also recorded as Hilary Agard Evans
Hilary Evans
- Born
- 1929 · Shrewsbury.
- Died
- 2011 · London.
- Nationality
- United Kingdom
- Occupation
- art historian · social historian · ufologist · journalist · archivist · writer · parapsychologist
- Fields
- supernatural
- Education
- University of Birmingham · King's College · St George's School
- Languages
- English
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Illustration — Hilary & Mary Evans Hilary Agard Evans (6 March 1929 – 27 July 2011) was a British pictorial archivist, author, and researcher into UFOs and other paranormal phenomena.
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Educated At · outgoing
King's College
Organisation

Died In · outgoing
London
Place
Pencil sketch by George Henry Harlow, 1814, http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/largerimage.php?mkey=mw05495
Born In · outgoing
Shrewsbury
Place
Citizen Of · outgoing
United Kingdom
Place

Educated At · outgoing
University of Birmingham
Organisation
Own work by the original uploader
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q3785604 · wikipedia · Hilary Evans
In this article
Biography
Biography
Evans was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, United Kingdom and educated at St George's School at Harpenden. Following national service in Palestine, he went up to King's College, Cambridge, to read English, followed by a Master's at Birmingham University. He then spent some time as a private tutor before joining Mather & Crowther advertising agency as a copywriter in 1953. In 1964, he and his wife Mary Evans (1936–2010) founded the Mary Evans Picture Library, an archive of historical illustrations. In 1981, he co-founded the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena. Evans was an exponent of the Psychosocial Hypothesis of UFOs as culturally shaped visionary experiences.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Shrewsbury.
Birth place
London.
Death place
Books published
• Harlots, Whores & Hookers: A History of Prostitution. Taplinger, 1979. • Intrusions: Society and the Paranormal. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. • The Evidence for UFOs. Wellingborough, Northampton, England: Aquarian Press, 1983. • Visions, Apparitions, Alien Visitors. Wellingborough, Northampton, England: Aquarian Press, 1984. • Gods, Spirits, Cosmic Guardians. Wellingborough, Northampton: Aquarian Press, 1987. • Evans, Hilary, and Spencer, John, eds. UFOs, 1947–1987: The 40-year Search for an Explanation, Fortean Times, 1987. • Alternate States of Consciousness: Unself, Other-self, and Superself. Wellingborough, Northampton: Aquarian Press, 1989. • Frontiers of Reality, Aquarian Press, 1989. • Evans, Hilary, and Spencer, John, eds. Phenomena: Forty Years of Flying Saucers, New York: Avon Books, 1989. • Evans, Hilary, and Stacy, Dennis, eds. UFO 1947–1997: Fifty Years of Flying Saucers, London: John Brown, 1997. • Evans, Hilary, and Bartholomew, Robert, eds. Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behaviour, San Antonio, Texas: Anomalist Books, 2009. • Evans, Hilary SLIders: The Enigma of Streetlight Interference, San Antonio, Texas: Anomalist Books, 2010.
Reception
Evan's Harlots, Whores & Hookers: A History of Prostitution (1979), was criticized by historian Vern Bullough as an "anecdotal collection of incidents, some true, some not so true, with little analysis of the sources from which they came and even less understanding of the historical forces." Sceptical researcher Philip J. Klass described Evans one of the "best informed and more sensible of the pro-UFOlogists." Klass however, found it "regrettable" that Evans was the editor of the anthology UFOs, 1947–1987 published by the Fortean Times. According to Klass the book is unreliable and filled with pseudoscientific claims. Christopher Scott in the New Scientist criticized Evans for his lack of scientific understanding. Scott noted that Evans was heavily biased and credulous for accepting reports of paranormal phenomena at face value. Evans in Intrusions (1982) had presented a photograph of the medium Eusapia Palladino allegedly levitating a table "without trickery", but her hands or feet were not visible, nor two of the legs of the table. Scott concluded that Evans' description of the photograph was "sheer fantasy". Further book reviews: • Gillian Bennett, 'Seeing Ghosts: Experiences of the Paranormal by Hilary Evans', Folklore, Vol. 115, No. 3 (Dec. 2004), pp. 373–374 (JSTOR). • Steve Rybicki, 'The Picture Researcher's Handbook by Hilary Evans, Mary Evans, Andra Nelki', RQ, Vol. 15, No. 2 (WINTER 1975), p. 174 (JSTOR). • Christina Bostick, 'Picture Sources by Ann Novotny, Rosemary Eakins; The Picture Researcher's Handbook; An International Guide to Picture Sources—And How to Use Them by Hilary Evans, Mary Evans, Andra Nelki', ARLIS/NA Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 6 (October 1975), pp. S8-S9 (JSTOR). • Nina Auerbach, 'Ghosts of Ghosts', Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2004), pp. 277–284 (JSTOR). • George Guffey, 'Science Fiction: History-Science-Vision by Robert Scholes, Eric S. Rabkin; Beyond the Gaslight: Science in Popular Fiction, 1895–1905, by Hilary Evans, Dik Evans; H. G. Wells and Modern Science Fiction. by Darko Suvin, Robert M. Philmus', Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 34, No. 1 (June 1979), pp. 112–117 (JSTOR). • Williams, David R., 'Beyond the Gaslight (book review)', Library Journal 6/1/1977, Vol. 102 Issue 11, p1278 (EBSCO Masterfile). • Lombardi, Robert, 'Visions Apparitions Alien Visitors (book review)', School Library Journal, Feb 1985, Vol. 31 Issue 6, p92 (EBSCO Masterfile). • Fraser, Robert S., 'The Picture Researcher's Handbook (Book Review)', Library Journal, 10/1/1975, Vol. 100 Issue 17, p1809 (EBSCO Masterfile). • Karlin, Daniel, 'It isn't believing', Times Literary Supplement, 6/14/2002, Issue 5176, p36, book review, Seeing Ghosts (EBSCO Masterfile). • 'Intrusions (book review)', Atlantic (02769077), March 1982, Vol. 249 Issue 3, p89 (EBSCO Masterfile). • "Harlots, Whores and Hookers", Kirkus Reviews, 15 November 1979.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Grossman, Wendy M. Hilary Evans obituary. The Guardian. 16 August 2011.
- 2.Ernest Kay The International authors and writers who's who, Volumes 2001–2002, Cambridge, 7th ed., 1976 p. 180
- 3.Mary Evans Picture Library FAQs.
- 4.Lydia Thornley & Valentine Evans, Mary Evans Picture Library: visual documentation of the past, London : The Beacon Press, 1995
- 5.Evans, Hilary, and John Spencer, eds. Phenomena: Forty Years of Flying Saucers. New York: Avon Books, 1989, p.409
- 6.David Morrow, Close encounters of the street lamp kind, The Independent Life & Style, Thursday, 31 August 1995
- 7.Clark, Jerome. Encyclopedia of strange and unexplained physical phenomena. Thomson Gale Press. 329. 1993. 978-0810388437.
- 8.Bullough, Vern. (1982). Hilary Evans. Harlots, Whores & Hookers: A History of Prostitution. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 18 (2): 181–184.
- 9.Klass, Philip J. (1987). The Development of a Pseudoscience. New Scientist. 22 October. p. 63
- 10.Scott, Christopher. (1982). Intrusions by Hilary Evans. New Scientist. 27 May. p. 595
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