One might think that there are enough books about UFOs. But Garrett M. Graff’s UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There offers an essential and unique perspective, a page-turning pace, lots of great new (yes NEW) stories as well as delivering a grokkable, sensible, exciting vision. Whether or not you’re interested in the subject beforehand, rest assured this compelling work of non-fiction history will rivet your attention. Graff untangles complicated narratives and stories to answer a lot of questions in a thoroughly enjyoable manner.
The story here is in the title; UFO offers a pulse-pounding document of exactly what the US government was thinking when the most memorable words being spoken were “swamp gas.” While a majority of sightings were clearly astronomical phenomena (read: Venus), weather, or airplanes (some US top-secret tests), a certain percentage were clearly none of the above, even so far as the US government was concerned. While our leaders were not so worried about aliens, they were concerned that the sightings were of unknown terrestrial (read: Russian) origin. Graff brilliantly tells this story as historical suspense, and the narrative truly puts the pedal to the metal early on, when we meet the man who (to his eventual chagrin) uttered the famously non-explanatory words “swamp gas.”
That was Dr. J. Allen Hynek, and his story forms the backbone of the book. His long journey from utter skeptic to willing-to-admit-we-don’t-know proves to be a compelling character arc, one of many Graff explores with a great combination of factual clarity and authorial sympathy. Hynek’s story as an official UFO researcher telescopes into the story of Jill Tartar, an astronomer who founded SETI, looking for evidence of life in the cosmos. Carl Sagan, science fiction, and popular culture bring us up to a present where the conspiracies birthed in the backwash of Roswell have found new life in today’s political schisms. And yes, UFOs are sill with us, and no, we still don’t know what they are. Graff tells this story with a soupcon of joy. It’s clear that he had as much fun writing and researching it as you will reading his book. We may not ever know what UFOs are, but in UFO you’ll find the wholly satisfying story of what we know, and importantly, who we are.
Garrett Graff’s actual voice is every bit as clear and on-point as his writing voice. Whether or not you want to believe, you will want to listen, either via this downloadable link or immediately below, in person – assuming you are a person, that is human. If you’re not a human, give Garrett a call, he’ll turn your story into another, equally compelling book.
Narrative Species 