From Garrett M. Graff New York Times bestselling author of Raven Rock The Only Plane in the
Sky and Pulitzer Prize finalist for history Watergate comes the first comprehensive and
eye-opening exploration of our government's decades-long quest to solve one of humanity's
greatest mysteries: Are we alone in the universe? For as long as we have looked to the skies
the question of whether life on Earth is the only life to exist has been at the core of the
human experience driving scientific debate and discovery shaping spiritual belief and
prompting existential thought across borders and generations. And yet the idea of
extraterrestrial intelligence has been largely seen as a joke banished to the realm of fantasy
and conspiracy. Now for the first time the full story of our national obsession with UFOs-and
the covert decades-long search by scientists the United States military and the CIA for
proof of alien life-is told by bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff
in a deeply reported and researched history. It begins in 1947 when two headline-making
sightings of strange flying objects-the first near Mount Rainier Washington involving a pilot
named Kenneth Arnold and the second a ranch on the outskirts of a New Mexico town called
Roswell-prompt the US Air Force's newly formed Department of Defense to create a series of
secret programs to determine how unidentified phenomena may pose a threat to national security.
Over the next half-century as the atomic age gives way to the space race and the Cold War the
search continues bringing together an unexpected group of astronomers military officials
civilian contactees and true believers who bring us closer then further then closer again
to answering one of our most enduring questions: What exactly is out there? Drawing from
original archival research declassified documents and interviews with senior intelligence and
military officials Graff brings every moment of this extraordinary quest to life transporting
readers from secret military meetings and congressional hearings where the validity of the
search is debated to the cluttered offices of UFOlogists and hoaxers determined to see the
truth revealed remote observatories where astronomers monitor the stars and even the halls of
the White House where staffers and presidents alike eagerly await answers. Filled with twists
and turns and populated by an unforgettable cast of characters UFO is a thrilling story of
science national security the secrets of space and the enduring mysteries of the universe.
