I’m pretty certain that the unprecedented surge of UFO reports was not evidence of extraterrestrials’ increasing presence but a symptom of Americans’ credulity and magical thinking suddenly unloosed. We wanted to believe in extraterrestrials, so we did. What makes the UFO mania that started in the 1960s historically significant rather than just amusing, however, was the web of elaborate stories that were now being spun, not just sightings and landings but abductions and government cover-ups and secret alliances with interplanetary beings. Those earnest beliefs planted more seeds for the
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