An often engaging and readable account of UFO lore, but one that won’t convince skeptics.
In their debut collaboration, UFO enthusiasts Heckenlively and Mazzola offer an account of aliens and government coverups.
The author’s story begins in the same place it ends—during U.S. congressional hearings on unidentified flying objects (aka unidentified arial phenomena) in July 2023. At these hearings, former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch made headlines when he testified that alien corpses existed on U.S. military bases and that this state of affairs was common knowledge in the intelligence community. In the remainder of the book, the authors discuss a highly detailed series of scenarios that will be familiar to readers who know about the standard UFO narrative: that alien spacecraft have crash-landed on Earth many times, that other aliens continue to visit the planet, and that their existence is known to a secret cabal of world leaders (the “deep state” of the book’s subtitle) who’ve suppressed that knowledge for decades while “reverse-engineering” alien technology from crash sites. They review a number of familiar events, including the alleged alien-spaceship crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and the claimed alien abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in New Hampshire in 1961, among others. Throughout, they frequently reference other UFO enthusiasts, such as Steven Greer (who hosts a podcast with Mazzola). They also ask broader questions related to UFO theories, such as “would the reality of alien intervention in human development destroy our faith in both God and science?”
Over the course of 300 pages, Heckenlively and Mazzola write with energy and intelligence, and it makes for a work that newcomers to the topic may find engaging. They even periodically broaden the conversation to epistemic dimensions: “Does it genuinely matter whether one is a skeptic or a believer in UFOs?” they ask at one point. “What seems clear to both sides is that something important is being kept from us.” In general, the work is likely to appeal most to fellow UFO aficionados who may already agree with many of its assertions. However, the book presents theories without convincing evidence. For example, it tells of Peruvian mummies “with three toes and three fingers, who appear to be genetic hybrids using the DNA of humans, chimpanzees, and something else,” but leaps to a conclusion, without proof, that they must have genetically engineered by aliens. At another point, the book states that President Bill Clinton was “consistently denied access” to intelligence agency information about UFOs, but the president never said this, which the authors note earlier on: “Perhaps we’re reading between the lines but Clinton appears to be saying that nobody definitively told him there were no alien bodies or technology in our possession.” The authors’ theories about humanity’s past also seem based on assumptions, as when they ask, “When we look at the horrors of human history, might we blame at least some of it on the aliens—who, after giving us intelligence, quickly took us into bondage and slavery?”
An often engaging and readable account of UFO lore, but one that won’t convince skeptics.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798895651186
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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