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We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters
Why has the UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) problem never gone away, despite repeated efforts by science, the military, and the state to explain or dismiss it?
For most of the twentieth century, reports of unidentified flying objects were treated as cultural cranks, hoaxes, late-night radio. Then, abruptly, the posture changed. The Pentagon released videos it could not explain. Navy pilots testified under oath about encounters that defied known technology. Intelligence agencies acknowledged that something unfamiliar appears to move through the skies.
In We Want to Believe, Adam Kirsch, one of our most searching literary critics, traces the intellectual history behind this reversal. Moving from Cold War skeptics such as physicists Edward Condon and Carl Sagan—who helped define the boundaries of legitimate inquiry—to figures like Air Force officer Edward Ruppelt and astronomer J. Allen Hynek, who encountered anomalies from within official institutions, Kirsch follows how UAPs migrated from dismissed error to unresolved problem. Tracing how figures such as Pentagon official Luis Elizondo and astrophysicist Avi Loeb have reopened the question under radically different conditions, Kirsch draws on declassified documents, military encounters, and a wide literature of belief and skepticism to examine UAPs not as fantasies or threats, but as a mystery closer to why some questions endure, and what it means for modern societies when certainty fails and curiosity persists.
For most of the twentieth century, reports of unidentified flying objects were treated as cultural cranks, hoaxes, late-night radio. Then, abruptly, the posture changed. The Pentagon released videos it could not explain. Navy pilots testified under oath about encounters that defied known technology. Intelligence agencies acknowledged that something unfamiliar appears to move through the skies.
In We Want to Believe, Adam Kirsch, one of our most searching literary critics, traces the intellectual history behind this reversal. Moving from Cold War skeptics such as physicists Edward Condon and Carl Sagan—who helped define the boundaries of legitimate inquiry—to figures like Air Force officer Edward Ruppelt and astronomer J. Allen Hynek, who encountered anomalies from within official institutions, Kirsch follows how UAPs migrated from dismissed error to unresolved problem. Tracing how figures such as Pentagon official Luis Elizondo and astrophysicist Avi Loeb have reopened the question under radically different conditions, Kirsch draws on declassified documents, military encounters, and a wide literature of belief and skepticism to examine UAPs not as fantasies or threats, but as a mystery closer to why some questions endure, and what it means for modern societies when certainty fails and curiosity persists.
- GenresScience
128 pages, Paperback
Published August 25, 2026
About the author
Adam Kirsch
39 books85 followersAdam Kirsch is the author of two collections of poems and several books of poetry criticism. A senior editor at the New Republic and a columnist for Tablet, he also writes for The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 20, 2026
Perfect little primer for amateur philosophers, fans of Fermi’s Paradox, Mulders and Scullies alike.
August 31, 2026
As someone who lives in the liminal space between UFO believers and materialistic deniers, I am always on the lookout for the rare presentation of a genuinely skeptical viewpoint. There aren't enough rational voices in the space, and the more emotional 'experiencer' aspects are threatening to overrun the discussion. For this reason, I was very excited to read this 'book ' (which is a bit of a misnomer - it's really more of an extended article in physical book form spanning only 121 very short pages).
The first 50-60% of the book stayed true to addressing its titular premise and I was so engaged with what the author was saying, that I didn't even realize how fast I was turning pages (a hallmark of a great writer effectively handling his/her chosen topic, and any other flaws aside, Mr. Kirsch is clearly a gifted writer).
The second half of the narrative, however, quickly fell apart. The author began to drift into politics and loosely tangential rants about sciences and philosophies more broadly. His own lack of a genuine scientific background became more clear as he stepped outside his own philosophy/literature background to attack legitimate scientists he disagreed with (Avi Loeb, as an example).
Scientific materialism is really struggling socioculturally right now. As discussed in this book, that's partly explainable by a larger distrust of authority, but perhaps part of that larger distrust of authority is people claiming authority on a topic that they do not actually possess, and/or doing so with an arrogance and lack of humility that people find off-putting.
The more that scientists and their affiliated humanities-leaning friends present themselves in this patronizing, holier-than-thou light, the more they are feeding our societies straight into the waiting jaws of the irrational. When we collectively and entirely lose the ability for rational thought and an appreciation for the natural world and its laws, I will blame the superiority complex of intellectuals at least as much as I will blame the ignorance, emotionality and irrationality of the credulous side.
To finish my tangent, this book started strong for those who are skeptical and/or middle of the road. It quickly devolved into distracted rambling, however, and became unfocused and uninteresting.
Believers will be irritated from page one and angered by the end. Which, I suspect was the intent all along, as nothing in here signalled to me a genuine attempt to reach across the aisle to those people and bring them to the rational side using persuasive arguments and logic (rather, just more of the talking-down-to-others, self-indulgent narcissism that academia has become so hated and distrusted for).
Such a shame, I really wanted to love it.
The first 50-60% of the book stayed true to addressing its titular premise and I was so engaged with what the author was saying, that I didn't even realize how fast I was turning pages (a hallmark of a great writer effectively handling his/her chosen topic, and any other flaws aside, Mr. Kirsch is clearly a gifted writer).
The second half of the narrative, however, quickly fell apart. The author began to drift into politics and loosely tangential rants about sciences and philosophies more broadly. His own lack of a genuine scientific background became more clear as he stepped outside his own philosophy/literature background to attack legitimate scientists he disagreed with (Avi Loeb, as an example).
Scientific materialism is really struggling socioculturally right now. As discussed in this book, that's partly explainable by a larger distrust of authority, but perhaps part of that larger distrust of authority is people claiming authority on a topic that they do not actually possess, and/or doing so with an arrogance and lack of humility that people find off-putting.
The more that scientists and their affiliated humanities-leaning friends present themselves in this patronizing, holier-than-thou light, the more they are feeding our societies straight into the waiting jaws of the irrational. When we collectively and entirely lose the ability for rational thought and an appreciation for the natural world and its laws, I will blame the superiority complex of intellectuals at least as much as I will blame the ignorance, emotionality and irrationality of the credulous side.
To finish my tangent, this book started strong for those who are skeptical and/or middle of the road. It quickly devolved into distracted rambling, however, and became unfocused and uninteresting.
Believers will be irritated from page one and angered by the end. Which, I suspect was the intent all along, as nothing in here signalled to me a genuine attempt to reach across the aisle to those people and bring them to the rational side using persuasive arguments and logic (rather, just more of the talking-down-to-others, self-indulgent narcissism that academia has become so hated and distrusted for).
Such a shame, I really wanted to love it.
September 24, 2026
A well-written summary of the evidence (or lack there of!) of extraterrestrial life. If you are familiar with the hits (the Fermi paradox, the Drake Equation, the Great Filter, the Wow! signal, Oumuamua, etc.) there is not a lot here that you couldn't learn from the Wikipedia pages on those topics.
October 13, 2026
This is an excellent, well-written and brief overview of UFOs and much more. Kirsch is a skeptic and disposes of Harvard academics who wrote nonsense with ease. He also makes a strong case linking the recent surge of interest in UFOs to the rise of authoritarian, anti-science movements like Trump's. A good introduction to the subject.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Adam Kirsch usually writes about Jewish religious topics so when I saw this ARC on extraterrestrials, I snapped it up. It’s very well written and it made laugh out loud.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews