Dear Reader,

So, UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) are back in the news. As you may recall, December's Newsletter picked up on this very subject. We might have been done with it then, but the declassified data dumps (aka Tranches) on the Department of War website at: https://www.war.gov/ufo/ maybe demand a more in depth take on this whole thing. First off, the government explicitly states that the archived materials are unresolved cases with records of observations going back to 1944.

Many view the government's file releases as a vindication of long-held beliefs, while others are underwhelmed and that maybe the "good stuff" will never see the light of day. Has the topic finally gained the scientific and political legitimacy it deserves?

​Avi Loeb, a scientist with a long list of credentials, argues that these releases are primarily psychological and procedural, normalizing the study of anomalies as valid scientific pursuit. Fair enough! He even suggests that maybe the oceans would be a good place to look for extraterrestrials. Hey, the "last frontier!" Why not? And why wouldn't extraterrestrials want to be in their accustomed environment...having come from an ocean planet with no terra firma? Click the link to find Avi's book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.

The preeminent SETI Institute, focusing on "technosignatures," or signs of alien technology in deep space, and "biosignatures," atmospheric chemicals on exoplanets, distinguishes these established scientific goals from UAP sightings. But of course there are the cynics who add the political dimension, and others who view it all through a religious or metaphysical lens, some even as a uniquely American preoccupation, reflecting the nation's anxieties about power and secrecy. So, whether a conspiracy or not, or just staring into a void, it looks like there's enough for just about everyone.

Stepping back in time though, to 1752, we find Voltaire’s Le Micromégas, where he uses extraterrestrials to critique human folly. Hmm...sound familiar? Voltaire, who endorses the work of Isaac Newton, takes the reader on a journey from a planet orbiting Sirius, to our own Saturn, on to Jupiter and Mars...and finally Earth, where he examines humanity and the philosophies of the time. There's Jules Verne (1828 - 1905), another Frenchman, sometimes called the father of science fiction , who took the reader "From the Earth to the Moon," and on a "Journey to the Center of the Earth," and presages the coming of the atomic submarine. H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1866 - 1946), a pivotal shift toward the concept of the alien as technologically superior, gave us one of the earliest alien invasion stories. The Martians have their own imperialist designs on Earth, an allegory for a time when "the sun never set on the British Empire." As contemporaries, of different generations, Verne and Wells never met, but did read each others books and disagreed on how science should be portrayed in fiction. Even so, Wells was a great admirer of Verne, but Verne, who took immense pride in his meticulous research and scientific plausibility, referred to Wells' books as, "very curious" and "very English," and was highly critical of Wells' speculative methods.

Traveling on to the era where "pulp" meets the "Bug-Eyed Monster" (1920s - 1960s), a tongue-in-cheek phrase or trope for mindless aliens often threatening scantilly clad women. Strange to say, the "aliens" don't seem to have a very high regard for humans, and no wonder. This was an era when a traumatized humanity tried to process the unimaginable scale of what they were capable of inflicting on themselves. Though the era was defined by sensationalist and action-oriented sci-fi, it can also be characterized as the "Golden Age" of speculative fiction. Authors such as Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992), Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988), and Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008), who got their start in the pulps, would evolve into exegesis writers of philosophical depth, futurist worlds, hard science, technology and space travel. There's a lot more to this era, but I can't help thinking that Verne and Wells might have felt some kinship with these authors, and vindication in their own work, but who can say!

Escaping from cold war paranoia and existential anxiety following World War II, the genre matured, into the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the era of philosophical and sociological inquiry. Could humanity even comprehend an intelligence that did not share our psychological and evolutionary history. Authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 - 2018), and Stanisław Lem (1921 - 2006), broke new ground in cultural observation, social and political themes, the nature of intelligence, and a future world of virtual reality and AI. As an aside, of interest is "Ishi in Two Worlds," an account of the last known member of the Yahi people of California, written by Theodora Kroeber, Le Guin's mother, and published in 1961. While heart rending biography, it's not hard to see the profound influence it had on Le Guin and by extension, the science fiction of the era, a time of introspection and questioning.

Which brings us up to the present time, where alien invasion remains a persistent theme and fear of being colonized, all too real! Where science and existence in an ever expanding technological universe challenges the perception of who we are and where we might be going. Oh, and now "tranches" of data on UAPs, those elusive things that we can't quite get a handle on!

All for now, but more to come.

For the books of The THING Trilogy, and excerpts, go to: https://kendallwilliamsauthor.com/ and join us on a journey through the fabric of time.

And if you are new to the Newsletter, check out the Newsletter Archive at: https://kendall-williams-author.kit.com/posts

Quote from Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction author: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Until next time, be well and safe journeys.

Sincerely,

Kendall Williams, Author

​kendallwilliamsauthor.com​

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