'We Want to Believe' book explores the reality of UFOs: 'It's always going to be more likely that someone is wrong about what they saw' (interview)

After all these years, we still want to believe.

Whether you're a bona fide believer or a staunch skeptic, we can all agree that UFO legends and lore is a fascinating subject that continues to fuel endless debate.

And with pop culture feeding our lizard brains lurid tales of flying saucers and alien invasions , it’s no wonder humanity is always up for a good story of inexplicable aerial sightings or various uncanny encounters of the third kind.

In " We Want To Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream And Why It Matters " (Aug.

25, Columbia Global Reports), acclaimed literary critic and Senior Editor at The Atlantic Adam Kirsch explores this insatiable drive to wonder at unidentified phenomena.

For Kirsch, the topic asks many of the same questions that human religions do.

"For me, humanity's way into the subject is that UFOs are a way of thinking about a lot of the same questions we might also think about in religious or philosophical terms," Kirsch told Space in an interview.

"Questions like what is unique about humanity, are we alone in the universe, are there other minds, what's our destiny as a species?" Kirsch says the recent wave of alleged whistleblowers helped push him towards studying UFOs, or UAP, as they're now known.

"The real start of my interest in the subject was in 2017 when there was this sudden reporting in the mainstream media about the Pentagon UFO videos and the so-called secret program to collect UFO reports.

For the first time, it seemed like maybe there was some legitimate news or evidence." "We Want To Believe" touches down in bookstores on Aug.

25, 2026. (Image credit: Columbia Global Reports) Kirsch recognized that monumental occasion as a pivotal moment that truly altered the way that American culture and media talked about the titillating topic.

"I got more into the history and the lore of UFOs and partly out of just that basic idea that it would be really cool if there were other minds in the universe.

It would be amazing if we could find proof of that.

Over the years it's happened repeatedly in this history of UFOs.