Episode 124 - Greg Eghigian - After the Flying Saucers Came

My guest for this episode is Greg Eghigian, who joined me to talk about his new book After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon.

Greg is a Professor of History and Bioethics at Pennsylvania State University. An expert on the history of the abnormal and the paranormal in the modern world, his research has been supported by NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. 

After the Flying Saucers Came begins with the 1947 Kenneth Arnold incident near Mount Rainier in Washington State and traces how that incident sparked an international drama involving shady figures, questionable evidence, suspicions of conspiracy, hoaxes, new religions, scandals, unsettling alien encounters, debunkers, and celebrities. It examines how descriptions, theories, and debates about unidentified flying objects and alien abduction changed over time and how they appeared in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Russia. It also explores the impact UFOs have had on our understanding of space, science, technology, and ourselves up through the present day.

In the interview I start off by talking with Greg about his background and what drew him to write a book on the subject of UFOs. We talk about Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, and the remarkable way that the term ‘Flying Saucer’ helped launch Ufology as the latest incarnation of humanity’s fascincation with visitors from the stars. Later on we discuss the way the book looks at the subject matter from a cultural context and talk further about how that viewpoint can help us to understand the human experience and meaning of encounters not just with UFO’s, but otherworldly, strange phenomenon in general.

Further information about After the Flying Saucers Came can be found at the Oxford University Press website here and to find Greg on X go to https://x.com/GEghigian.

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