The UFO Index[Trenchant Edges]
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 24 seconds. Contains 1280 words
Welcome to 2025!
This is the Trenchant Edges, a newsletter about weird people and ideas.
3.5 years ago I started writing about UFOs again. It’s been… odd. I like this subject less now than then, but there’s so many little stories that keep it compelling.
A sand trap.
I’ve spent a lot of the last couple weeks focused in on old episodes of Art Bell’s Coast 2 Coast AM program, mostly about Steven Greer’s disclosure movement, and I’ve got another batch of research to handle for that.
But that’s for later. This post is going to be an annotated index of my UFO writing.
Nothing In My Hands
I started writing about UFOS in May 2021 because I wanted to have something I didn’t need to research for.
[laugh track plays loudly]
Dozens and dozens of books later, I’m not really wiser about The Thing itself, but I know vastly more about the culture around it and the myriad military and state responses to it since the 1940s.
Feels a bit hollow, tbh.
But I knew that it would going in. And contrary to my fears, aside from a few real duds what I wrote is pretty good. It took me alot of time to get my feet on the subject’s details, but I think a lot of my “initial” reactions have largely proven true.
May 12th, 2021: Ok, so I Lied About There Not Being An Email Today
The premise of this is that UFOs would be an ideal subject to practice critical thinking on because of the abundance of information, presence of disinformation, and ambiguity of the data involved.
May 21, 2021: The Cosmic Rorschach Test
Here’s where I lay out my basic feelings about UFOs for the first time. TLDR: The UFO community is filled with liars, frauds, and spies. There does seem to be *something* happening. But how we react to those dubious and ambiguous facts is more a reflection of ourselves than the thing itself.
July 1st, 2021: Instutionalizing Weirdness
My first attempt at summarizing US natsec history and going over the 2021 Office of the Director of National Intelligence report on UAP, which I can handily summarize here as, “Maybe if you gave us the money to research these sightings we could tell you if they’re threats.”
July 5th, 2021: Terence McKenna and UFOs
A decent, if superficial, introduction to Terence McKenna’s thinking on UFOs which is mainly interesting because he suggested the postmodern approach of looking what UFO culture is doing to society: Spreading doubt in institutions. Things get weirder from there.
July 6th, 2021: Even More UFOs
Skip unless you want more of Terence’s views.
July 7th, 2021: UFOs, abductions, Demons, Angels, and Fairies
Ah, we finally explore the longevity of something like Alien abductions and bring up the real weird explanations. Good stuff, but shallow.
July 15th, 2021: Problem of sources and UFOs
Skip it. It’s just me free associating about the amazon bestsellers list. All you need to know is that most books on UFOs are fucking awful and you already know that.
July 20th, 2021: Rationalism Destroyed With Facts
OK so this one is half good but skip everything about the 37th parallel. It kinda sucks and Chuck is a nice enough guy from a few email exchanges we had that I regret being a dick to him here. Plus I’d only read a fraction of the book so I was only guessing, albeit correctly, that it sucks.
July 21st, 2021: Keeping the Saucer Faith
Probably skip this one if you don’t want my personal experience with UFO culture. It’s not even a good accounting of that because I hadn’t reconstructed lots of details I half remembered: Like Bill Moore’s 1989 MUFON “I’ve been informing on you” talk or David Jacobs’ hypnosis abduction books. Plus, it’s mostly about Chuck and the 37th parallel and that book sucks. And Chuck deserves more empathy than I showed here.
July 22nd, 2021: The Myth of Disclosure
Mid at best. It’s kind of important because it’s where I model a UFO disclosure on the mostly nonissue of the panama papers instead of what people imagined the Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast would be like. But Richard Dolan’s AD: After Disclosure kind of sucked and my possible disclosure scenarios weren’t much btter.
July 23rd, 2021: A Brief History of US Military Secrecy
The best thing I’ve written so far in this series. Context matters a lot when discussing the history of UFOs and this lays out a lot of the tensions that defined the discussion since the 1940s.
July 28th, 2021: Ooops, All UFOs
A follow up to my discussion of Dolan’s After Disclosure. The main thing you need to know is it rightly predicts that religion would be able to handle the revelation of alien life. Otherwise, skip it.
August 2nd, 2021: Politics, Parapolitics, and Conspiracy
A big picture piece about the nature of politics and conspiracy itself. I advocate being a conspiracy snob: You want only the very best speculation.
August 3rd, 2021: Practical Conspiracies
Another good one. This is about how to use a basic understanding of the limits of project management to get a better idea of what secret plots are likely.
August 11th, 2021: UFOs and Who This is For
Skip. Mainly a list of other links and a discussion of the audience for this newsletter.
August 25th, 2021: UFOs and dropping the MIC
I lay out my suspicions about popular natsec writer Annie Jacobsen, who’s written about Area 51 and was a producer on the monumentally propagandistic Jack Ryan show.
February 10th, 2022: Mothman Prophecies and Cognitive Treadmills
An exploration of John Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies and how even the act of looking into UFOs can fuck with the person doing it.
May 1st, 2022: The Wake of Bill Cooper
A solid introduction to the most important conspiracy theorist of the 1990s.
June 18th, 2023: Debunking Debunking
A bit loose even for me but a good enough critique of debunking as an intellectual and cultural practice.
August 12th, 2023: What To Say about UFOs
I try and lay out my big picture thoughts on the subject.
August 22nd, 2023: The UFO Whistleblower
An introduction to David Grusch, UFO whistleblower.
March 13th, 2023: Thank you
An unlocked paid post about how many fucking spies are around the subject of UFOs and isn’t that fucking weird huh?
March 16th, 2023: The Long History of Weird Skies
A spotty, but fun introduction to the deep past of UFO adjacent subjects.
September 3rd, 2023: Reading Entrails and the UFO Whistleblower
This is my deeper dive on Grusch and the problems with people like him.
March 8th, 2024: Unidentified Bureaucratic Phenomena
Skip. It’s mostly pitching a project I… haven’t yet done. Whoopsie.
March 18th, 2024: Mystery Babylon Exposed
This was a follow up to the Bill Cooper thing for a podcast I… wait for it… haven’t done yet. Still gonna.
September 3rd, 2024: Waiting for Nibiru
A dive into why nothing ever seems to go away, centered around the UFO cult Zetatalk.
September 23rd, 2024: On Bill Cooper and Zetatalk
A blend of, well, the last two essays. A teaser for the podcast.
November 28th, 2024: Is Disclosure Still A Myth?
Exactly what it says on the tin. Trying to update my thoughts after a few years. Highly worth reading.
Whew.
That was a lot.
One thing I am happy to say is, uh, it’s only about a third of the posts I’ve made. A major interest, but not an overwhelming one.
Too bad I’m making that ratio way worse this year.
Wrapping Up
This has been a fun and frustrating exercise in, well, my own disordered thinking.
There’s a lot of good stuff here, tbh. But much of it needs rebuilt and such.
I don’t know. I don’t feel anything particularly calling me to drone on here.
I hope you enjoyed whatever of the ride you took, lol.
See you soon.
-SF