CBH Talk | Why We Want to Believe: UFOs, Aliens, and Us
“Join acclaimed poet & literary critic Adam Kirsch as he turns his attention to our enduring fascination with extraterrestrial life.”
For decades, UFOs belonged to the fringes: conspiracy theories, late-night radio, blurry photographs, and tales of alien abduction. Then something changed. The Pentagon released videos of objects it could not explain. Navy pilots testified before Congress about mysterious encounters. Intelligence agencies began
read more ▾
speaking publicly about “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” UFOs, once routinely dismissed, had gone mainstream. But after decades of searching, we still have no conclusive evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. So why do we want to believe? In his provocative new book, We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters, acclaimed poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch turns his attention to our enduring fascination with extraterrestrial life. Drawing on declassified documents, military encounters, scientific inquiry, and a long history of believers and skeptics, Kirsch traces the remarkable journey of UFOs from cultural punchline to subject of serious government investigation. And along the way, he asks a deeper question: What does our belief in aliens reveal about us? Led in conversation by former Harper ’s editor-in-chief Christopher Beha, author of Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer, the discussion takes up the wide-ranging topics of UFOs and science, belief and meaning, conspiracy and faith, and why, at a time of declining trust in traditional sources of authority, we may be looking to the skies for answers. Participants Adam Kirsch is a poet, literary critic, and author of several collections of poems and books of criticism and biography, including The Global Novel and The Revolt Against Humanity. His latest book is We Want To Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters. He lives in New York City, where he is a senior editor at The Atlantic. Christopher Beha is the author of five books, including Why I Am Not an Atheist and The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award. He was the editor-in-chief of Harper's Magazine from October 2019 to October 2023. He is now a senior editor on the audio team at The Atlantic and lives with his wife and two children in Brooklyn.