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UFO by Garrett M. Graff

UFO

The Inside Story of the U.S. Government's Search for Alien Life Here and Out There

by Garrett M. Graff

Pub Date: Nov. 14th, 2023
ISBN: 9781982196776
Publisher: Avid Reader Press

A history of the decadeslong government involvement in reports of lights in the sky, odd flying shapes, and peculiar radar images.

Veteran journalist Graff, author of Watergate, The Only Plane in the Sky, and Raven Rock, tracks the popular obsession with UFOs, but his real interest is the way that various agencies of the U.S. government, mainly connected to the Air Force, have responded to sightings and other pieces of evidence. He readily admits that many UFO claims can be debunked, but notes that the Air Force seems to have taken a lot of them seriously. Graff recounts reports of officers turning up to interview people who said they had seen a UFO, often with a view to persuading them that they were mistaken. They were usually unsuccessful, and their attempts often backfired, feeding a growing network of conspiracy theories. Graff keeps his tongue in his cheek when discussing the range of books and articles claiming that the truth was out there but hidden away, and he notes that connecting disparate dots doesn’t necessarily add up to hard evidence. However, America in the 1970s, after Watergate and Vietnam, was fertile ground for conspiracy theories. There were even rumors that the government not only knew about UFOs, but also had alien ships in storage. Meanwhile, some respected scientists were taking the possibility of extraterrestrial life seriously, looking for radio signals and sending their own into space. Some exploratory spacecraft carried messages of friendship. Graff admires the open-mindedness and imagination of these researchers, although he concludes that their work has yet to produce substantial returns. He avoids taking a firm stand on the existence of UFOs but acknowledges that it is a big universe and there are plenty of inexplicable phenomena.

An entertaining tour through the world of flying saucers, aliens, and weird science.