Aliens In America

Discusses the social and political implications of widespread belief in unidentified flying objects, extraterrestrials, and government cover-ups, and considers what they reveal in a culture of mass media and conflicting evidence.

"You don't have to be an avid hunter to enjoy the many UFO hotspots in the United States. Nor do you have to have any special clearance to pull your car up along the "Alien Highway" outside of Area 51 to watch the UFOs dance in the nighttime sky. Enthusiasts and vacationers looking for out-of-the-ordinary excursions just need this unique user's guide to the most historic UFO hotspots around. Inside is classified information from across the nation, such as: The Hudson Valley Triangle—New York The Kokomo Lights—Indiana The Great Lakes UFOs—Michigan The Maury Island Incident—Washington The Gulf Breeze Sightings—Florida Whether they're driving, camping, or flying, this book is the only guide readers will need to learn the story behind the hotspot, find the best hotel or campsite—and catch a glimpse of our friends in the sky."

In 1878 in Denison, Texas, a man named John Martin looked up into the sky and saw something he could not explain. Americans have been hooked on the possibility of beings from space visiting Earth ever since. A sense of wonder, and reality, are brought to some popular legends of alien encounters and sightings in this volume. The final chapter explores how these legends have become even more popular thanks to movies, television, and literature.

From the bestselling author of Depth Takes a Holiday: a comic monologue for sons and daughters everywhere who feel that their parents must have been beamed down from another planet.

This "compellingly hard-hitting" bestseller from a Pulitzer Prize finalist gives readers the complete untold story of the top-secret military base for the first time (New York Times). It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government — but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror. This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.

More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions. Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, D.W. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens is due to a number of factors including their ubiquity in modern media like The X-Files, which can influence memory, and the believability lent to that media by the search for planets that might support life. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences, and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life.

Sardar (postcolonial studies, City U., UK) and Cubitt (screen and media, U. of Waikato, New Zealand) present nine pieces of cultural criticism that explore the meanings projected and assimilated by science fiction movies and television in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Hong Kong. Concerned with the construction of the "other" in the broadest philosophical sense (comprising political, cultural, ethnic, and gendered "others", as well as the "other" of the natural world), the essays explore meaning in Delicatessen, Star Trek, Japanimation, Space: Above and Beyond, The Matrix, and Independence Day, among others. Distributed by Stylus. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Examining hardboiled fiction through Flaubert, New Yorker cartoons through modernist painting, and Bette Davis through Hegel and Marx, Transatlantic Aliens challenges and changes the way we understand modernism's place in midcentury American culture.