Ufo, p.62
UFO, page 62
As the Bigelow team’s: Axelrod, “Executive Summary,” 1.
“In order to support”: Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers, 91.
“After a while the consensus”: Bryan Bender, “The Pentagon’s Secret Search for UFOs,” Politico, December 16, 2017, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111/.
Meanwhile, a special team: Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers, 81.
His program, known as: Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously,” New Yorker, May 10, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously.
In a showing of: “Aliens Exist,” Genius, https://genius.com/Blink-182-aliens-exist-lyrics.
Over the years, he’d taken: Patrick Doyle, “Tom DeLonge on ‘Scary’ UFO Footage, Angels and Airwaves and Blink-182’s Future,” Rolling Stone, June 4, 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tom-delonge-interview-ufo-footage-angels-airwaves-blink-182-843812/.
“I have 10 people that”: Ibid.
It seemed like an unlikely claim: Bryan Bender, “How Harry Reid, a Terrorist Interrogator and the Singer from Blink-182 Took UFOs Mainstream,” Politico, May 28, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/28/ufos-secret-history-government-washington-dc-487900.
Podesta, for his part: Al Kamen, “Obama Aide John Podesta Says ‘Biggest Failure’ Was Not Securing the Disclosure of UFO Files,” Washington Post, February 13, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2015/02/13/obama-aide-john-podesta-says-biggest-failure-was-not-securing-the-disclosure-of-ufo-files/.
“There is sufficient credible evidence”: Bender, “The Pentagon’s Secret Search.”
Right away, Blumenthal emailed: Ralph Blumenthal, “On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program,” New York Times, December 18, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html.
“Internationally, we are the most backward”: Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” New York Times, December 16, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html.
Midway through the article: Ibid.
The Times article also contained: Ibid.
On the video, the flight crews: Christopher Mellon, “The Military Keeps Encountering UFOS. Why Doesn’t the Pentagon Care?,” Washington Post, video, March 9, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-encountering-ufos-why-doesnt-the-pentagon-care/2018/03/09/242c125c-22ee-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html.
“As with Sputnik, the national”: Ibid., article text.
CHAPTER 50: LIFE SCIENCE
But as science writer Daniel Stone: Daniel Stone, Sinkable: Obsession, the Deep Sea, and the Shipwreck of the Titanic (New York: Dutton, 2022), p. 46.
Plus, there’s evidence that water: Alvin Powell, “How Earth Was Watered,” Harvard Gazette, February 27, 2014, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/02/how-earth-was-watered/.
She proposed that the tiny: Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, “Formation of Early Water Oceans on Rocky Planets,” Astrophysics and Space Science 332 (2011): 359–64.
“All of our planetary water”: Stone, Sinkable, 47.
“If water oceans were present”: Bruce Dorminey, “Earth Oceans Were Homegrown,” Science, November 29, 2010, https://www.science.org/content/article/earth-oceans-were-homegrown.
“It is very possible”: Powell, “How Earth Was Watered.”
Recent experiments conducted: Eric Hand, “Old Rocks Drown Dry Moon Theory,” Nature 464, no. 7286 (March 11, 2010): 150.
Elkins-Tanton called: Ibid.
“They are finding a lot more water”: Andrew Fazekas, “Moon Has a Hundred Times More Water Than Thought,” National Geographic, June 15, 2010, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100614-moon-water-hundred-lunar-proceedings-science.
“That shallowness, though”: Stone, Sinkable, 48.
“If life arose so shortly”: Seth Shostak, Confessions of an Alien Hunter (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2009), 96.
Mega volcanoes and meteors: Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us (New York: Mariner, 2022), 42–43.
For several hundred thousand years: Ibid., 45.
That extinction gave space: Ibid., 68.
“The dinosaurs had 150 million years”: Shostak, Confessions, 100.
“Mammals almost died out”: Brusatte, The Rise and Reign, 169.
Just 7 percent: Ibid., 175.
We are all their descendants: Ibid., 6.
“All modern-day mammals”: Ibid., xviii.
Humans, in turn: Ibid., 259.
“Initially humans were an endemic group”: Ibid., 382.
As Brusatte says, “Our single”: Ibid., 383.
Even this history: Ibid., 390.
“In my view, once you”: Keith Cooper, The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Dublin: Bloomsbury, 2021), 58.
ALH84001 was hardly anomalous: Ibid., 170.
Calculations showed that billions: Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), 169–72.
As one astronomer would write: Ibid., 171.
Scientists reported, too: Meilan Solly, “Ancient Roundworms Allegedly Resurrected from Russian Permafrost,” Smithsonian, July 30, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-roundworms-allegedly-resurrected-russian-permafrost-180969782/.
CHAPTER 51: BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN
In one fell swoop: Seth Shostak, Confessions of an Alien Hunter (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2009), 6.
Astronomers now were able: Ibid., 75.
“Today we may be”: Ibid., 77.
He’d been fascinated by extraterrestrial: Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), 54.
“I am fully committed”: Lee Billings, “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Nets Historic Cash Infusion,” Scientific American, July 20, 2015, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-nets-historic-cash-infusion/.
“We are the beginners”: Ibid.
There was always the question: Shostak, Confessions, 284–85.
Beyond simply listening: “Gravity Assist: If They Call, Will We Listen? The Search for Technosignatures,” NASA, June 26, 2020, https://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/gravity-assist-if-they-call-will-we-listen-the-search-for-technosignatures.
The researchers found precisely zero: Paul Gilster, “G-HAT: Searching for Kadashev Type III,” Centauri Dreams, April 16, 2015, https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2015/04/16/g-hat-searching-for-kardashev-type-iii/.
“Looking for alien cities”: “City Lights Could Reveal E.T. Civilization,” Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, November 3, 2011, https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/city-lights-could-reveal-et-civilization.
As Starshot unfolded: “Proxima Centauri b,” NASA, https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7167/proxima-centauri-b/.
Loeb and others came up: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 57.
Milner calculated it would take: Dennis Overbye, “Reaching for the Stars, Across 4.37 Light Years,” New York Times, April 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html.
As Loeb wrote, “This scout”: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 4.
Finally, on November 14: “The IAU Approves New Type of Designation for Interstellar Objects,” International Astronomical Union, November 14, 2017, https://www.iau.org/news/announcements/detail/ann17045/.
“We determined that Oumuamua needed to be”: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 65.
“Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain”: Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb, “Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ‘Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?,” Astrophysical Journal Letters 868, no. 1 (2018): 1–5.
“Do you believe there are alien civilizations”: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 67.
“It’s possible that the civilization is not alive”: Isaac Chotiner, “Have Aliens Found Us? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua,” New Yorker, January 16, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/have-aliens-found-us-a-harvard-astronomer-on-the-mysterious-interstellar-object-oumuamua.
The object, he suspected: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 177.
That same year, two Arizona State: Dennis Overbye, “Why Oumuamua, the Interstellar Visitor, Looks Eerily Familiar,” New York Times, March 23, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/science/astronomy-oumuamua-comet.html.
The object, whatever it was: Mike Sullivan, “Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes he’s found fragments of alien technology,” CBS News Boston, July 7, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/avi-loeb-harvard-professor-alien-technology-fragments/.
EPILOGUE: THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
“That was always out there”: Dennis Overbye, Kenneth Chang, and Joshua Sokol, “Webb Telescope Reveals a New Vision of an Ancient Universe,” New York Times, July 12, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/science/james-webb-telescope-images-nasa.html.
As Seth Shostak, one of the leading: Ibid., 139.
As Shostak calculated: Ibid., 66.
“Humans are woefully ill prepared”: Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), xii.
“Human science still needs to mature”: Ibid., 94.
“Bet that Oumuamua was an exotic rock”: Ibid., 162.
“Mainstream theoretical physicists now widely accept”: Ibid., 50.
“Today, a young theoretical astrophysicist”: Ibid., 97.
The general state of support: Daniel Alarcón, “The Collapse of Puerto Rico’s Iconic Telescope,” New Yorker, April 5, 2021: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/05/the-collapse-of-puerto-ricos-iconic-telescope.
As the New Yorker wrote: Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously,” New Yorker, May 10, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously.
The Senate Intelligence Committee: Ryan Browne, “Pentagon to Launch Task Force to Investigate UFO Sightings,” CNN, August 13, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/politics/pentagon-ufo-task-force/index.html.
“I’ve seen some of those videos”: John O. Brennan, interview by Tyler Cowen, Conversations with Tyler, December 16, 2020, https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/john-o-brennan/.
The next year, former president Obama: Duncan Phenix, “Barack Obama Talks About UFOs Again on Late Night Television,” WGN 9, May 18, 2021, https://wgntv.com/news/barack-obama-talks-about-ufos-again-on-late-night-television/.
Many have admitted suspecting: Tim McMillan, “ ‘Fast Movers’ and Transmedium Vehicles—The Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force,” The Debrief, December 2, 2020, https://thedebrief.org/fast-movers-and-transmedium-vehicles-the-pentagons-uap-task-force/.
“I was told for decades that Lockheed”: Ibid.
After prodding by Congress: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, June 25, 2021, 5, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf.
As Christopher Mellon wrote: Christopher Mellon, “Key Takeaways from 2023 ODNI UAP Report,” January 12, 2023, https://www.christophermellon.net/post/key-takeaways-from-2023-odni-uap-report.
That same year, the House Intelligence Committee: Alex Rogers, “House Panel Will Hold First Public Hearing on UFOs in Decades,” CNN, May 10, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/politics/ufo-hearing-house-intelligence-committee/index.html.
“When it comes to material that we have”: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, transcript of a meeting of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, May 17, 2022, 34, https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114761/documents/HHRG-117-IG05-Transcript-20220517.pdf.
As it was, swarms of mysterious: Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Multiple Destroyers Were Swarmed by Mysterious ‘Drones’ Off California Over Numerous Nights,” War Zone, May 23, 2021, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39913/multiple-destroyers-were-swarmed-by-mysterious-drones-off-california-over-numerous-nights.
“We do not want potential adversaries”: Julian E. Barnes, “Many Military U.F.O. Reports Are Just Foreign Spying or Airborne Trash,” New York Times, October 28, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/us/politics/ufo-military-reports.html.
Days of strange official silence: Libby Cathey, “White House Says ‘No Indication of Aliens’ as Questions Swirl about Objects Shot Down,” ABC News, February 13, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-indication-aliens-questions-swirl-objects-shot/story?id=97090516.
At least one of the US shootdowns appeared: Matt Berg and Lee Hudson, “A Hobby Group May Have the Answer to What the U.S. Shot Down Over Canada Last Week,” Politico, February 16, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/16/mystery-object-balloon-illinois-biden-00083355.
The military’s new engagement: “NASA Announces Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Study Team Members,” NASA, October 21, 2022, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-announces-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-study-team-members/.
As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson: Whitelaw Reid, “Space Jam: Former Senator Talks Aliens, Asteroids and ‘Star Trek’ with Larry Sabato,” UVAToday, October 20, 2021, https://news.virginia.edu/content/space-jam-former-senator-talks-aliens-asteroids-and-star-trek-larry-sabato.
As Kean told an interviewer: Soo Youn, “The Woman Who Forced the US Government to Take UFOs Seriously,” Guardian, June 14, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/leslie-kean-ufo-reporter-us-government-report.
In 2022, Jacques Vallée: Chantel Tattoli, “Jacques Vallée Still Doesn’t Know What UFOs Are,” WIRED, April 2022: https://www.wired.com/story/jacques-Vallée-still-doesnt-know-what-ufos-are/.
The truly “unexplained” cases: Paul Scott Anderson, “Has the Ball Lightning Mystery Been Solved?” EarthSky, June 14, 2019, https://earthsky.org/earth/ball-lightning-lightning-atmosphere-earth-optik/.
(3) weird terrestrial stuff: London’s Roll of Fame (London: Cassell & Company, 1884), 305, https://books.google.com/books?id=ne6yXTyC61wC.
The life span of the average species: Ronald D. Ekers et al., eds., SETI 2020: A Roadmap for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Mountain View: SETI Press, 2002), xxx.
As British biologist J. B. S. Haldane: J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Essays (London: Chatto and Windus, 1937), 286.
“I think they enjoy the anticipation”: George, “ ‘Normalizing’ UFOs.”
Index
A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.
A-12 Oxcart, 278
AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program), 410
AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program), 392, 404–5, 408–9, 430n
Abduction (Mack), 340, 344
abductions, see alien abductions
Abduction Syndrome, The (Mack), 335
Aboard a Flying Saucer (Bethurum), 110
Achenbach, Joel, xx, 355, 368, 377n
Adamski, George, 108–10, 114, 118–19
“adjacent possible” concept, 176
Advanced Theoretical Physics Project, 305–9
Aerial Phenomena Group, 74
Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, see APRO
Air Force Aeromedical Laboratory of, 40, 47, 52, 59
Berlin airlift as test of, 46n
creation of, 12, 26, 29
Letter 200-5 of, 77
Regulation 200-2 of, 100
Scientific Advisory Board of, 56
UFOB Reporting Manual of, 104
UFO investigations ended by, 225
air raids and fallout shelters, 80, 96
airships, 16–17, 21, 97
Air Technical Intelligence Center, see ATIC
Aldrin, Buzz, 227
Alexander, John, 304–9, 387
ALH84001 meteorite, 367–71, 373, 420
alien abductions, 246, 250, 253, 256, 320, 328–37, 338–45, 355n of Barney and Betty Hill, 253–56, 328, 330, 333, 335
conference on, 338–40, 386
in Pascagoula, 257–58, 259
sexual experiences in, 331, 338–41, 343, 354n
of Walton, 328–29, 354n
Alien Autopsy (Fact or Fiction?), 353–54
aliens, xv, xxi contactees and, 106, 107–13, 114–15, 203, 330, 331
dummy-recovery operations and, 357
in human history, 246n, 260, 342, 356
Nordics and Grays, 323, 339
in popular culture, 94–96, 203, 276–77, 300, 321, 354n
see also extraterrestrial life; UFOs
Allen, Jane, 242
Allen, Paul, 373, 399
Allen Telescope Array, 399–401
Almár, Iván, 401, 403n
“alone” theory, 155–56, 298–301, 426
Alpha Centauri, 423–24, 429–30
al-Sufi, Abd al-Rahman, xvii
Alvarez, Luis, 89
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 213
American Astronomical Society, 85, 241, 271
Ames Research Center, 235, 289–90
Anatomy of a Phenomenon (Vallee), 204n
Anderson, Jack, 81, 305
Andrews Air Force Base, 79, 81
Andromeda Galaxy, xviii
Andromeda Strain, The (Crichton), 227
Angelucci, Orfeo, 111–12, 113n
“In order to support”: Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers, 91.
“After a while the consensus”: Bryan Bender, “The Pentagon’s Secret Search for UFOs,” Politico, December 16, 2017, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111/.
Meanwhile, a special team: Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers, 81.
His program, known as: Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously,” New Yorker, May 10, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously.
In a showing of: “Aliens Exist,” Genius, https://genius.com/Blink-182-aliens-exist-lyrics.
Over the years, he’d taken: Patrick Doyle, “Tom DeLonge on ‘Scary’ UFO Footage, Angels and Airwaves and Blink-182’s Future,” Rolling Stone, June 4, 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tom-delonge-interview-ufo-footage-angels-airwaves-blink-182-843812/.
“I have 10 people that”: Ibid.
It seemed like an unlikely claim: Bryan Bender, “How Harry Reid, a Terrorist Interrogator and the Singer from Blink-182 Took UFOs Mainstream,” Politico, May 28, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/28/ufos-secret-history-government-washington-dc-487900.
Podesta, for his part: Al Kamen, “Obama Aide John Podesta Says ‘Biggest Failure’ Was Not Securing the Disclosure of UFO Files,” Washington Post, February 13, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2015/02/13/obama-aide-john-podesta-says-biggest-failure-was-not-securing-the-disclosure-of-ufo-files/.
“There is sufficient credible evidence”: Bender, “The Pentagon’s Secret Search.”
Right away, Blumenthal emailed: Ralph Blumenthal, “On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program,” New York Times, December 18, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html.
“Internationally, we are the most backward”: Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” New York Times, December 16, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html.
Midway through the article: Ibid.
The Times article also contained: Ibid.
On the video, the flight crews: Christopher Mellon, “The Military Keeps Encountering UFOS. Why Doesn’t the Pentagon Care?,” Washington Post, video, March 9, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-encountering-ufos-why-doesnt-the-pentagon-care/2018/03/09/242c125c-22ee-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html.
“As with Sputnik, the national”: Ibid., article text.
CHAPTER 50: LIFE SCIENCE
But as science writer Daniel Stone: Daniel Stone, Sinkable: Obsession, the Deep Sea, and the Shipwreck of the Titanic (New York: Dutton, 2022), p. 46.
Plus, there’s evidence that water: Alvin Powell, “How Earth Was Watered,” Harvard Gazette, February 27, 2014, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/02/how-earth-was-watered/.
She proposed that the tiny: Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, “Formation of Early Water Oceans on Rocky Planets,” Astrophysics and Space Science 332 (2011): 359–64.
“All of our planetary water”: Stone, Sinkable, 47.
“If water oceans were present”: Bruce Dorminey, “Earth Oceans Were Homegrown,” Science, November 29, 2010, https://www.science.org/content/article/earth-oceans-were-homegrown.
“It is very possible”: Powell, “How Earth Was Watered.”
Recent experiments conducted: Eric Hand, “Old Rocks Drown Dry Moon Theory,” Nature 464, no. 7286 (March 11, 2010): 150.
Elkins-Tanton called: Ibid.
“They are finding a lot more water”: Andrew Fazekas, “Moon Has a Hundred Times More Water Than Thought,” National Geographic, June 15, 2010, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100614-moon-water-hundred-lunar-proceedings-science.
“That shallowness, though”: Stone, Sinkable, 48.
“If life arose so shortly”: Seth Shostak, Confessions of an Alien Hunter (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2009), 96.
Mega volcanoes and meteors: Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us (New York: Mariner, 2022), 42–43.
For several hundred thousand years: Ibid., 45.
That extinction gave space: Ibid., 68.
“The dinosaurs had 150 million years”: Shostak, Confessions, 100.
“Mammals almost died out”: Brusatte, The Rise and Reign, 169.
Just 7 percent: Ibid., 175.
We are all their descendants: Ibid., 6.
“All modern-day mammals”: Ibid., xviii.
Humans, in turn: Ibid., 259.
“Initially humans were an endemic group”: Ibid., 382.
As Brusatte says, “Our single”: Ibid., 383.
Even this history: Ibid., 390.
“In my view, once you”: Keith Cooper, The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Dublin: Bloomsbury, 2021), 58.
ALH84001 was hardly anomalous: Ibid., 170.
Calculations showed that billions: Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), 169–72.
As one astronomer would write: Ibid., 171.
Scientists reported, too: Meilan Solly, “Ancient Roundworms Allegedly Resurrected from Russian Permafrost,” Smithsonian, July 30, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-roundworms-allegedly-resurrected-russian-permafrost-180969782/.
CHAPTER 51: BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN
In one fell swoop: Seth Shostak, Confessions of an Alien Hunter (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2009), 6.
Astronomers now were able: Ibid., 75.
“Today we may be”: Ibid., 77.
He’d been fascinated by extraterrestrial: Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), 54.
“I am fully committed”: Lee Billings, “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Nets Historic Cash Infusion,” Scientific American, July 20, 2015, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-nets-historic-cash-infusion/.
“We are the beginners”: Ibid.
There was always the question: Shostak, Confessions, 284–85.
Beyond simply listening: “Gravity Assist: If They Call, Will We Listen? The Search for Technosignatures,” NASA, June 26, 2020, https://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/gravity-assist-if-they-call-will-we-listen-the-search-for-technosignatures.
The researchers found precisely zero: Paul Gilster, “G-HAT: Searching for Kadashev Type III,” Centauri Dreams, April 16, 2015, https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2015/04/16/g-hat-searching-for-kardashev-type-iii/.
“Looking for alien cities”: “City Lights Could Reveal E.T. Civilization,” Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, November 3, 2011, https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/city-lights-could-reveal-et-civilization.
As Starshot unfolded: “Proxima Centauri b,” NASA, https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7167/proxima-centauri-b/.
Loeb and others came up: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 57.
Milner calculated it would take: Dennis Overbye, “Reaching for the Stars, Across 4.37 Light Years,” New York Times, April 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html.
As Loeb wrote, “This scout”: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 4.
Finally, on November 14: “The IAU Approves New Type of Designation for Interstellar Objects,” International Astronomical Union, November 14, 2017, https://www.iau.org/news/announcements/detail/ann17045/.
“We determined that Oumuamua needed to be”: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 65.
“Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain”: Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb, “Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ‘Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?,” Astrophysical Journal Letters 868, no. 1 (2018): 1–5.
“Do you believe there are alien civilizations”: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 67.
“It’s possible that the civilization is not alive”: Isaac Chotiner, “Have Aliens Found Us? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua,” New Yorker, January 16, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/have-aliens-found-us-a-harvard-astronomer-on-the-mysterious-interstellar-object-oumuamua.
The object, he suspected: Loeb, Extraterrestrial, 177.
That same year, two Arizona State: Dennis Overbye, “Why Oumuamua, the Interstellar Visitor, Looks Eerily Familiar,” New York Times, March 23, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/science/astronomy-oumuamua-comet.html.
The object, whatever it was: Mike Sullivan, “Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes he’s found fragments of alien technology,” CBS News Boston, July 7, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/avi-loeb-harvard-professor-alien-technology-fragments/.
EPILOGUE: THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
“That was always out there”: Dennis Overbye, Kenneth Chang, and Joshua Sokol, “Webb Telescope Reveals a New Vision of an Ancient Universe,” New York Times, July 12, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/science/james-webb-telescope-images-nasa.html.
As Seth Shostak, one of the leading: Ibid., 139.
As Shostak calculated: Ibid., 66.
“Humans are woefully ill prepared”: Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), xii.
“Human science still needs to mature”: Ibid., 94.
“Bet that Oumuamua was an exotic rock”: Ibid., 162.
“Mainstream theoretical physicists now widely accept”: Ibid., 50.
“Today, a young theoretical astrophysicist”: Ibid., 97.
The general state of support: Daniel Alarcón, “The Collapse of Puerto Rico’s Iconic Telescope,” New Yorker, April 5, 2021: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/05/the-collapse-of-puerto-ricos-iconic-telescope.
As the New Yorker wrote: Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously,” New Yorker, May 10, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously.
The Senate Intelligence Committee: Ryan Browne, “Pentagon to Launch Task Force to Investigate UFO Sightings,” CNN, August 13, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/politics/pentagon-ufo-task-force/index.html.
“I’ve seen some of those videos”: John O. Brennan, interview by Tyler Cowen, Conversations with Tyler, December 16, 2020, https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/john-o-brennan/.
The next year, former president Obama: Duncan Phenix, “Barack Obama Talks About UFOs Again on Late Night Television,” WGN 9, May 18, 2021, https://wgntv.com/news/barack-obama-talks-about-ufos-again-on-late-night-television/.
Many have admitted suspecting: Tim McMillan, “ ‘Fast Movers’ and Transmedium Vehicles—The Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force,” The Debrief, December 2, 2020, https://thedebrief.org/fast-movers-and-transmedium-vehicles-the-pentagons-uap-task-force/.
“I was told for decades that Lockheed”: Ibid.
After prodding by Congress: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, June 25, 2021, 5, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf.
As Christopher Mellon wrote: Christopher Mellon, “Key Takeaways from 2023 ODNI UAP Report,” January 12, 2023, https://www.christophermellon.net/post/key-takeaways-from-2023-odni-uap-report.
That same year, the House Intelligence Committee: Alex Rogers, “House Panel Will Hold First Public Hearing on UFOs in Decades,” CNN, May 10, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/politics/ufo-hearing-house-intelligence-committee/index.html.
“When it comes to material that we have”: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, transcript of a meeting of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, May 17, 2022, 34, https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114761/documents/HHRG-117-IG05-Transcript-20220517.pdf.
As it was, swarms of mysterious: Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti, “Multiple Destroyers Were Swarmed by Mysterious ‘Drones’ Off California Over Numerous Nights,” War Zone, May 23, 2021, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39913/multiple-destroyers-were-swarmed-by-mysterious-drones-off-california-over-numerous-nights.
“We do not want potential adversaries”: Julian E. Barnes, “Many Military U.F.O. Reports Are Just Foreign Spying or Airborne Trash,” New York Times, October 28, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/us/politics/ufo-military-reports.html.
Days of strange official silence: Libby Cathey, “White House Says ‘No Indication of Aliens’ as Questions Swirl about Objects Shot Down,” ABC News, February 13, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-indication-aliens-questions-swirl-objects-shot/story?id=97090516.
At least one of the US shootdowns appeared: Matt Berg and Lee Hudson, “A Hobby Group May Have the Answer to What the U.S. Shot Down Over Canada Last Week,” Politico, February 16, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/16/mystery-object-balloon-illinois-biden-00083355.
The military’s new engagement: “NASA Announces Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Study Team Members,” NASA, October 21, 2022, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-announces-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-study-team-members/.
As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson: Whitelaw Reid, “Space Jam: Former Senator Talks Aliens, Asteroids and ‘Star Trek’ with Larry Sabato,” UVAToday, October 20, 2021, https://news.virginia.edu/content/space-jam-former-senator-talks-aliens-asteroids-and-star-trek-larry-sabato.
As Kean told an interviewer: Soo Youn, “The Woman Who Forced the US Government to Take UFOs Seriously,” Guardian, June 14, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/leslie-kean-ufo-reporter-us-government-report.
In 2022, Jacques Vallée: Chantel Tattoli, “Jacques Vallée Still Doesn’t Know What UFOs Are,” WIRED, April 2022: https://www.wired.com/story/jacques-Vallée-still-doesnt-know-what-ufos-are/.
The truly “unexplained” cases: Paul Scott Anderson, “Has the Ball Lightning Mystery Been Solved?” EarthSky, June 14, 2019, https://earthsky.org/earth/ball-lightning-lightning-atmosphere-earth-optik/.
(3) weird terrestrial stuff: London’s Roll of Fame (London: Cassell & Company, 1884), 305, https://books.google.com/books?id=ne6yXTyC61wC.
The life span of the average species: Ronald D. Ekers et al., eds., SETI 2020: A Roadmap for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Mountain View: SETI Press, 2002), xxx.
As British biologist J. B. S. Haldane: J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Essays (London: Chatto and Windus, 1937), 286.
“I think they enjoy the anticipation”: George, “ ‘Normalizing’ UFOs.”
Index
A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.
A-12 Oxcart, 278
AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program), 410
AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program), 392, 404–5, 408–9, 430n
Abduction (Mack), 340, 344
abductions, see alien abductions
Abduction Syndrome, The (Mack), 335
Aboard a Flying Saucer (Bethurum), 110
Achenbach, Joel, xx, 355, 368, 377n
Adamski, George, 108–10, 114, 118–19
“adjacent possible” concept, 176
Advanced Theoretical Physics Project, 305–9
Aerial Phenomena Group, 74
Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, see APRO
Air Force Aeromedical Laboratory of, 40, 47, 52, 59
Berlin airlift as test of, 46n
creation of, 12, 26, 29
Letter 200-5 of, 77
Regulation 200-2 of, 100
Scientific Advisory Board of, 56
UFOB Reporting Manual of, 104
UFO investigations ended by, 225
air raids and fallout shelters, 80, 96
airships, 16–17, 21, 97
Air Technical Intelligence Center, see ATIC
Aldrin, Buzz, 227
Alexander, John, 304–9, 387
ALH84001 meteorite, 367–71, 373, 420
alien abductions, 246, 250, 253, 256, 320, 328–37, 338–45, 355n of Barney and Betty Hill, 253–56, 328, 330, 333, 335
conference on, 338–40, 386
in Pascagoula, 257–58, 259
sexual experiences in, 331, 338–41, 343, 354n
of Walton, 328–29, 354n
Alien Autopsy (Fact or Fiction?), 353–54
aliens, xv, xxi contactees and, 106, 107–13, 114–15, 203, 330, 331
dummy-recovery operations and, 357
in human history, 246n, 260, 342, 356
Nordics and Grays, 323, 339
in popular culture, 94–96, 203, 276–77, 300, 321, 354n
see also extraterrestrial life; UFOs
Allen, Jane, 242
Allen, Paul, 373, 399
Allen Telescope Array, 399–401
Almár, Iván, 401, 403n
“alone” theory, 155–56, 298–301, 426
Alpha Centauri, 423–24, 429–30
al-Sufi, Abd al-Rahman, xvii
Alvarez, Luis, 89
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 213
American Astronomical Society, 85, 241, 271
Ames Research Center, 235, 289–90
Anatomy of a Phenomenon (Vallee), 204n
Anderson, Jack, 81, 305
Andrews Air Force Base, 79, 81
Andromeda Galaxy, xviii
Andromeda Strain, The (Crichton), 227
Angelucci, Orfeo, 111–12, 113n
