CATASTROPHIC DISCLOSURE

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.