Chasing Aliens: Faith and Conspiracy in the UFO Heartlands

by Daniel Lavelle

From Orwell Prize-winning Daniel Lavelle comes a wild road trip chasing aliens through the UFO heartlands

'Hilarious, humane and quietly devastating, a road trip that becomes a deeper reckoning with belief, loneliness and the stories we tell to make the cosmos feel less empty' ELIOT HIGGINS

'A hugely entertaining, gonzo-style examination of UFOs, ufology and ufologists' NICK POPE

The US government has been investigating unidentified aerial phenomena in a secret division of the Department of Defence. A former intelligence official urged the US to disclose evidence of UFOs after saying the government possesses ‘intact and partially intact’ alien vehicles. And what about those sightings of Tic Tac, Gimbal, Go Fast and the infamous Oumuamua?

Danny Lavelle, our charming, borderline-bewildered investigator, sets out on a road trip through America’s UFO heartlands to get some answers (thankfully 41% of Americans believe aliens have made contact so he has plenty of sources to choose from). Talking to those in the know in government and the UFO scene – often the same thing – Danny follows Lue Elizondo, Jeremy Corbell, attends sky watches (sometimes falling asleep in the desert), listens to alien abductees and has coffee with Starseeds (human beings who claim to be actual aliens).

Whether he’s smoking weed whilst holding dumortierite crystals to access his interdimensional past, or discussing ‘space beads’ with the Harvard astrophysicist who’s convinced he’s found evidence of alien life, Danny’s journey becomes a deeper story about our unshakeable fascination with little green men – and our deepest wishes not to be alone in the universe.

Encountering a fair amount of religiosity, conspiratorial thinking and magical thinking, Chasing Aliens is a wild journey into the soul of America – where aliens are as American as George Washington and warm apple pie. This is a book for anyone interested in our (possible) neighbours in the universe, and our ongoing search for meaning and answers to life’s great mysteries, trapped as we are in the uncertainty of our short, mortal lives.

'Enthusiasm, deft writing and an attention to the strange, fascinating details of ordinary lives' THE TELEGRAPH, BOOKS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2026

311 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication April 30, 2026

About the author

Daniel Lavelle is a freelance feature writer from Manchester. He left care at 19 and experienced homelessness for the first time not long after. He graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BA in History. He has covered topics such as mental health, homelessness, and culture for the Guardian (for whom he co-authored the series ‘The Empty Doorway’), New Statesman and the Independent. He has an MA in Journalism from Goldsmiths and in 2017 he received the Guardian’s Hugo Young award for an opinion piece on his experience of homelessness. ‘The Empty Doorway’ won Feature of the Year at the British Journalism Awards 2019 and has been nominated for the same award at the National Press Awards 2020. His first book Down and Out will be published by Wildfire in 2022. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Max Gwynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tremendous dive into the typically American world of ‘Ufology’; with all the rationality and humour of a British journalist. A superb read!

Lavelle guides us through a loose history of our public fascination with alien life and also provides a good review, and contextualisation, of several key UFO events through history such as the Roswell incident in 1947, the Gimbal incident captured by US Navy FLIR in 2017, and the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1980.

Throughout the book we are given interesting, quirky and informal insight into the spectrum of belief of key figures the author encountered in his journeying through America; from eyewitnesses to abductees, to government insiders to optimistic astrophysicists and to those ‘star children’ who truly believe they are descended from alien ancestors.

Lavelle is consistently open to wanting to believe but time and time again reigns in his imagination by seeking that ultimate ‘smoking gun proof’ needed to convert ever growing ‘faith’, and it really is just that, into substantiated fact. We would all do well to be as scientifically minded and self-aware here, alas most align themselves with the legendary X Files investigator Fox Mulder: they simply want to believe.

And this is what I took the most away from reading this book, the incredible and surprising willingness to believe in alien life and a real hope for extraterrestrial intervention. In an age where we are seeing increases in younger generations returning to religion, turning to philosophy to better understand themselves and the world around them, adopting alternative ways of living and thinking an increase in those blindly believing will undoubtedly rise exponentially; for better or worse.

Of course, like everything, there are those that will seek to exploit those in their faith. The con artists and snake oil salesmen and Lavelle does not shy away from discussing them and the gross exploitation on their part either. It is these people that consistently muddy the waters for all and make mockery of those at SETI attempting to professionally and scientifically search for answers.

I thought this a fantastic read and one I hope to highlight as much as possible going forward.

Bonus points awarded for quoting the great Christopher Hitchens too! “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”.