The OOBE File

The OOBE File, Harry Highstreet, PublishAmerica, 2004

Hubert Wright is an American Army private serving on a missile base in England. One day, he falls asleep while on duty, and suddenly finds himself outside his body; he is having an out-of-body experience. In his astral travels, he meets a man who calls himself Roger Matthews, who asks for a tour of the base, including the secret parts.

Meantime, Wright's body has been found. Sleeping on duty is a serious offense, and he doesn't have anything like a good explanation, so Wright stays out of his body. Because no one knows what to do with it, his body is moved to the base hospital. Wright's spirit meets that of a young woman named Cora, the other patient at the hospital.

The ability of two of the base officers, Captain Razig and Doc Thomlin, to be permanently transferred off the base depends on an inspector coming for a visit. Everything is perfect, except for Private Wright. While the inspector is in Wright's room, he returns to his body and tells everything to the inspector. Immediately, the inspector swears to secrecy everyone with any knowledge of the situation. They now find themselves in a Top Secret project. Paul Villeant, an intelligence agent who has been tracking Matthews for years, is called in. Matthews has experience on the wrong side of Middle East terrorism, so his wish to see the secret parts of the missile base does not bode well. The story moves to the Persian Gulf, where it becomes an old-fashioned thriller, half in the "real world," and half in the astral world.

This is not a complicated novel, possibly a young adult novel, but it is a very good novel about weird things going on all around us. It is easy to read, and the reader will not go wrong with this story.