Today, we continue our week of special coverage with a show focused on belief, and how we react when we experience things that we think should be impossible.

A few years ago, Diana Walsh Pasulka published American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, which looked at the mechanism of belief in extraterrestrial life, finding that this is becoming a new American religion. Now, she has a new book out, Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences, which looks at our experiences with non-human life forms, including UFOs, dreams, angels, and AI, and how these encounters challenge our assumptions about life. This hour, we talk with Diana Walsh Pasulka about her work.

Plus, Yale Professor Carlos Eire joins us to talk about the history of the impossible, including discussions of levitation and bilocation, and how beliefs form.

GUESTS:

Diana Walsh Pasulka: Professor of Religion at University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. Her new book is Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences.
Carlos Eire: Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University. His new book is They Flew: A History of The Impossible.

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From flying saucers to flying saints: Belief and how we react to the “impossible”