They Are Already Here

by Sarah Scoles

Overview

More than fifty years since Roswell, UFOs have been making headlines once again. But the UFO community—those who had been thinking about, seeing, and analyzing supposed flying saucers (or triangles or chevrons)—has been surprisingly skeptical. The people most invested in UFO reality were filled with incredulity and doubt. As Scoles did her own digging, she ventured to dark, conspiracy-filled corners of the internet, to a former paranormal research center in Utah, and to the hallways of the Pentagon.Scoles meets the scrappy upstarts, the field investigators, the rational people, and the unhinged kooks of this sprawling community. How do they interact with each other? How do they interact with “anomalous phenomena”? And how do they (as any group must) reflect the world around them? We will travel along the Extraterrestrial Highway (next to Area 51) and visit the Watchtower, where watching for lights in the sky is more of a spiritual quest than a “gotcha” one. We meet someone who believes they’ve been abducted. Where do these "encounters" stem from? What are the emotional effects on the experiencers? Funny and colorful, and told in a way that doesn’t require one to believe, Scoles brings humanity to an often derided and misunderstood community. After all, the truth is out there..

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643133904
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	03/03/2020
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	793,792
File size:	578 KB

About the Author

Sarah Scoles is a science writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, Smithsonian, the Washington Post, Scientific American, Popular Science, Discover, New Scientist, Aeon, and Wired. A former editor at Astronomy magazine, Scoles worked at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the location of the first-ever SETI project. She lives in Denver, Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

12/23/2019

Inspired by the U.S. government’s acknowledgment of a program to investigate UFO encounters, science writer Scoles (Making Contact) delivers a nonjudgmental, level-headed look at a long-lasting societal phenomenon. Tracing it all back to 1947, when Kenneth Arnold of Yakima, Wash., reported seeing nine flying (though not saucer-shaped) objects, Scoles discusses previously classified government records (some with entire chapters still redacted) and visits two sites pivotal to UFO lore: Area 51 in the Nevada desert, a highly guarded Air Force facility known for its secrecy and testing of new military technology; and Roswell, N.Mex., alleged site of a UFO crash. In interviewing self-appointed UFO investigators, Scoles encounters her share of “unhinged conspiracy theorists” but also meets “logical, dedicated, skeptical” people not unlike journalists such as herself. She also concludes that the government’s inconsistent and murky answers to questions about UFOs haven’t done it any favors. More general insights into the mercurial quality of memory and belief add considerable heft to this take on an admittedly well-worn topic. Through it all, Scoles remains an open-minded skeptic, and it’s this objectivity that makes her buoyant survey so delightful to read. Agent: Zoe Sandler, ICM (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Scoles—who has clear affection for her subject—highlights Tarter’s tenacity. A detailed portrait of how the science sausage gets made.

Science News (Praise for Making Contact)

Tarter emerges as both heroic and all too human. To paraphrase the poet Robert Browning, humanity’s reach must exceed its grasp, or what are the heavens for?

Nature (Praise for Making Contact)

Sarah Scoles has gone to some pretty far-out places and talked to a lot of extraordinary people. She wants to understand not just the people who believe in UFOs, but why they believe. Scoles deftly explores the human need to believe in something; something beyond us.

Jill Tarter

Scoles’s biography deftly and entertainingly tells the story of groundbreaking scientist Jill Tarter, whose work has been pivotal to SETI. Making Contact astutely highlights the nuances and challenges of being a female scientist at the time, a heroic achievement in itself. Tarter's story reminds us to keep pursuing answers to pivotal scientific questions, regardless of the ideological barriers.

Physics Today