Culture Wars/Current Controversies

How We Lost Our Minds About UFOs

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UFOs can’t seem to stay out of the news these days, a story kept alive by no-joke developments: congressional hearings, classified briefings, a Harvard initiative to monitor the skies for alien spacecraft. I read all the coverage and still didn’t know what to think. No one seemed to have any real evidence, yet all this official fuss had to point to something real, right? Nicholson Baker, a most scrupulous investigator of conventional wisdom, took on the challenge of unraveling this mystery. His feature produced eye-opening revelations about the ufologists pushing the narrative of alien visitations, as well as the secret government programs (including a biological weapon with a payload of contaminated turkey feathers) that have fed the UFO mania all along. Read this if you want an answer to the question about whistleblowers and mysterious aircraft that has been buzzing around the back of your head.

—Christopher Cox, features editor, New York   

No, Aliens Haven’t Visited the Earth Why are so many smart people insisting otherwise?

Photo: Hugo Yu
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