INTERVIEW 1: Colin Dickey

I am the author of The Unidentified Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters and Our Obsession with the Unexplained. So how did you come to write this book? Like what one interest led you to to do in the research and then

in the writing. Um. I think I've always been interested in the way in which a set of beliefs to ideas which you could maybe call sort of like fringe beliefs, um, you know, for for lack of a better term, the stuff that's not taken seriously by by mainstream science or journalism or religion or or kind of you know, the usual kind of authorities, and and thus gets sort of shunted into the side in terms of you know, superstition

and that kind of stuff. Um. But but I found that that those kind of beliefs often really whether or not one beliefs that they're true or not, they have a pretty enormous effect on culture and and and the way you know, the world works, and you know, they

have sort of material effects. And I've found that it seems necessary to talk about these things again, not necessarily in terms of are they real or all they are they you know, fake, although you know, that's an interesting question, but but more so like what do these beliefs do in in the world and how do they affect the world around us? Um, you know, even for those of

us who don't necessarily believe in these things. And I you know, my my previous book, ghost Land in American History and Haunted Places was similarly based around this question of you know, I think whether or not you believe that ghosts exists, it's sort of undeniable that the sort of language of of ghosts and haunted places are are things that sort of drive American culture and sort of

say a great deal about our history. So I think that's kind of how I gradually sort of got more and more interested in these kind of you know again quote unquote fringe topics for lack of a better word, did you have sort of a central thesis for this book, which, for people who haven't read it is, you know it um it encompasses sort of a variety of different you know,

quote unquote fringe topics, including cryptids and UFOs. Is there some sort of central organizing thesis you have, Well, it's funny. It's started out so so this this book in particular, in the wake of the election. UM. You know, there was a lot of discussion about the ways in which social media companies like Facebook had had been responsible directly or indirectly for pushing a lot of conspiracy theories into

the mainstream. And you know, at the time, I thought, well, you know, that's that's undeniably true, and I think that these companies have a real obligation that they aren't taken seriously. But at the same time, I wanted to push back on the idea that the rising conspiracy theories was somehow unique to a social media era and UM, and what I wanted to do was to do a kind of genealogical history in some sense of UM you know, a set of French beliefs and or you know, conspiracy theories.

And in the beginning I cast a pretty wide net. So, you know, my the first draft of the book, UM, you know, had everything from you know, anti submitted conspiracy theories like the Protocols of the Elders Desigon to um, you know, flat Earth spiracy theories, as well as UM cryptids and UFOs and and as I worked through the material and kind of you know, worked on the book, I I've found that I kind of didn't want to

go that wide. I wanted to kind of narrow it down, and so, you know, so I started to kind of pair back my my list of subjects. But I couldn't quite get away from the fact that that the three topics that ended up being sort of the driving force of this book, UM, you know, not just cryptis and aliens, but also the lost continents of Atlantis and Lamaria UM

all were kind of interrelated in some form historically. You know that that you know, the the rise of the modern UFO movement comes out of um, you know, uh, Ray Palmer's magazine Fate, and Ray Palmer before that had introduced the world to the Shaver mysteries and um, you know, the Shave of the with these sort of kind of sci fi but maybe supposedly true things about these sort of weird underground races that controlled, you know, our mind

and thoughts and that sort of thing. And and Palmer had had titled the first installment of the Shaber Mysteries. I remember Lamuria, so sort of I couldn't get two UFOs without first talking about Lamiria, this sort of fabled lost continent sort of the Pacific Ocean version of Atlantis that you know, has a long history in and of itself. So this is a long answer to your question, but it, you know, I mean, it did start with a kind

of wide net. And I found these kind of three topics intertwining in such a way that I wanted to try and figure out a way to account for them, a kind of you know, a kind of hypothesis that would that will encompass these kind of three areas and why they seem to be so interrelated to one another. So while you're talking it, you know, there there are certain figures in the book who seemed to drive, um,

certain of these ideas. Do you have any sense about like why certain ideas like make it into sort of

wider fringe belief while others kind of die on the vine. Yeah, and I think that that again, I mean I that was one of the questions that really drove me to try and sort of figure out why, you know, you know, how this book was going to work, and sort of figure out like why does you know, for example, one of the things I talked about in the book, that the Gloucester Sea Serpent was this extremely well documented cryptic siting um in the the eighteen teens, I think eighteen

seventeen um that has been more or less ignored by you know, a lot of kind of you know, mainstream understandings of cryptics in favor of the Lockniff Monster and Bigfoot and um, you know a couple of others. So, you know, partly I was just like, you know, why was this thing, which which by any objective standards is much more well documented than than Bigfoot or the Yeti or whatever. Nonetheless, um kind of get you know, place

second fiddle. So yeah, so I really wanted to kind of try and understand in those and I think what I found, um was that in a lot of cases, these beliefs are you know, these Um, these beings, these objects, whatever you want to call them, light up a kind of central kind of narrative that works for the person who believes in them, you know, I mean I think that's that's a kind of abstract way of saying that. I mean, they they do, they do something for people.

They they explain the world in a way, you know. I mean, I think for for everyone who actually has you know, has had a UFO sighting in some form

and another. Um, there are a bunch of other people who haven't, but who you know, and to to quote the X files want to believe because the idea of you know, UFOs will uh, it's it's pleasing, you know, I mean, you know, the possibility is exciting, or you know, what it says about our relationship to the government sort of checks out in their belief, you know, I mean like it it does something for them in a way that goes beyond I think just you know, the question

of of documentary evidence. So you've got you've got a long narrative section on UFOs. Since can you talk a little bit about sort of your take on that you know, history and timeline. Yeah, I mean, the idea that there are unidentified objects in the sky. I mean those that that belief goes back you know, millennia, you know, I mean you can find it in you know, ancient Greek

and Roman writing. So it's it's it's not as though when Kenneth Arnold sees, um, you know, seven bat wing shaped silver objects flying over Mount Rainier, that that's the beginning of um, you know, UFO sightings by any means. So so to start there is in some sense a little bit arbitrary, but it also is the moment at which those strange objects in the sky become crystallized as

a certain kind of thing, you know. But prior to that, um, you know, I mean again you can go back millennia and you you have objects in the sky which are you know, omens or their signs from God's or whomever you know, And and that's sort of one stable narrative trajectory, right, um you know, or they are you know, sort of magical in some sense or another. And what happens in is that suddenly these things are no longer considered to be I guess, supernatural. They're they're sort of they're sort

of paranormal while also being sort of scientifically plausible. And I think that sort of changes how we start to see, you know, what a UFO is or what a thing in the sky might be in a way that's that's sort of new and different. So there's this sort of progression of I don't know, sort of sort of conceptualizing what the UFOs are like. You kind of start off with the contact e these who you know, by modern standards,

I kind of feel like, seem a little quaint. Um, But there's you know, past that or beyond that, there's this sense that, um, that that people's ideas about UFOs and how the government's dealing with them are um, reflective of sort of what's going on in government in non sort of fringe things and people's perceptions of that. And I think you brought up in the book, you know, Vietnam, uh CO, Intel, pro Watergate, Um. You know, there are lots of examples. Um, So what what was your what's

your sense of that? Yeah, I mean one of the things that that became really early on, you know, clear to me really early on, is I think that in a lot of ways, you know, belief in encryptids parallels belief in you know, parallels of belief in UFOs, and you see that again in terms of just you know, who believes what and that kind of stuff. But but very early on it also was made clear to me that there's there's one really specific way in which they're different.

Is that, you know, you either believe in the Lockness sponsor you don't. But what you you don't believe that the Lockness monster is the existence of the Locknes sponsors being covered up by the government, Whereas if you believe in UFOs, almost by default you believe that the government knows more than they're letting on and it's being um,

you know, hidden from us in some some fashion. And I found that to be again, you know, considering that both of these ideas you know, prior to World War Two, we're pretty synchronous, you know, in terms of the shape of of of the narrative that a company of these beliefs suddenly in the wake of World War two, and and for me, I think really in the wake of the Manhattan Project, which was this incredibly successful attempt to keep a completely unknown and unknowable and world changing technological

weapon entirely out of the public eye until it was used, right, you know, I mean, like you know, the the amount of secrecy required to keep the Manhattan Projects secret, and the success that they had, you know, sort of gave the world a sense that, um, you know, and specifically Americans, well you know that that the American government was capable

of doing absolutely unheard of things in utter secrecy. And you know, and again, I don't think it's a coincidence that, you know, so much of the modern UFO lore is about, you know, the deserts of New Mexico and Nevada and Arizona. You know, precisely where you know, the Manhattan Project was located outside of Santa Fe, Right, So, um, so I think that that the Manhattan Project suddenly makes the the the idea that the government is capable of of covering

up something beyond belief quite plausible. And so the arrival of of you know, the kind of modern UFO myth really becomes to reflect that idea that it is absolutely within the realm of plausibility that the government has uh these sort of secret, supernatural, paranormal things going on at all times, and and it's only a matter of time

before we all know about them. You know. One of the things that that you cover in your book is the story of Paul Benowitz and William Moore and and Richard Doughty, And what what's your sense of how that fits into what you were just talking about the story of Paul Bennowit's again, I mean, you know, so so what I was just talking about, you know, is is I think UH sort of a credulity among people about what the government is capable of doing, you know, the

lengths of UH secrecy that that it can sustain, which which frankly, I myself have difficulty going there a lot of the times because you know, I mean I look at actual conspiracies, like something like Watergate. You know, Watergate. As soon as you know, Woodward and Bernstein and the New York Times started asking questions about Watergate, the whole thing fell apart. You know, it was, you know, barely

two years later before Nixon resigns. Right. So It's like, once you actually start asking around about government secrets, it's usually the case that if they are big enough, UM, and they are momentous enough, you'll find people who can talk. You know, I mean, you know, you you you can find secretaries, you can find janitors, you can find bookkeepers. You know, somebody knows something that you know, it is

willing to talk. So that's why I've always been somewhat skeptical about, you know, some of this sort of more outlandish government conspiracy theories. And then I came across the story of Paul Benowitz, and I was frankly flabbergasted by the depths of cynicism and um uh sort of disdain with which a you know, a government operation would treat um not just an American citizen, but a a veteran and someone who you know worked for the government and

deeply loved his government. And this idea that you know, as Paul Benowitz began, you know, living on the edge of Curtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, began to see things above the skies of Curtland Air Force Base and photographing them and distributing them to you know, his UFO believer,

you know networks the government. It seems to me, I mean, you know, what I presume is the most sort of Okam's Razor example, you know, explanation is that there was some sort of you know, top secret craft of some kind being you know, um, I don't know tested out there, you know, but that that the Air Force could have Paul called in Paul Benewitz and said, you know, look what you saw was classified, and you, being a good patriot, we're just going to ask you to just you know,

stop sending out those those images. You know. And I have no reason to think that Paul Benowitz, who's who's not only was a patriot, but his livelihood. His company was a Air Force contractor, so there's no reason he

would have sacrificed his livelihood. Um, But they don't do that. Instead, they say, we are going to pump this guy with an elaborate campaign of disinformation to the point where, you know, they gave him a computer that they said was receiving extraterrestrial communications of unknown origin and could he help them, you know, decode any of it and so and then they just bombarded this computer with just gibberish that they were broadcasting from across the street to make him think

that he was getting alien signals, you know. And so you know, things like that, where it's just this very bizarre and elaborate, sustained campaign to take a you know, a law abiding and patriotic American citizen and basically, yeah, more or less drive him crazy, you know, like to to like push him to the point where nobody would take him seriously because he was advancing these wild and unverifiable um theories about aliens, and that just seems to me.

I mean it's a it's a really sad and tragic story. I mean, there's there's so much like pathos involved in there. And also I think it does speak to a kind of weird cynicism that that seems to drive some levels of the U. S. Government. Yeah, you know, it just seems so unnecessary. Like you were saying, I was struck by that too. It's like, this seems like a lot of effort two do something that's completely unnecessary, and you know,

with malintent. I guess you know my take in some sense, as they were testing out to see what they could get away with, you know that that again it was not only was it unnecessary, but I think that there was some elements um, you know among um you know, the Air Force intelligence officers involved of like you know, like, uh, you know what happens if we do this, you know, like it was it was a little sort of guinea pig experiment that they carried out on this this unwitting

uh you know, a guy who ended up, you know, really really suffering through what seems like, you know, sort of a lot of the hallmarks of of you know, clinical psychosis as a result. So, and I'm just gonna read like a brief part and this is actually um is in the context of cryptid hoaxes, but I thought it was sort of widely applicable. It's a you're you're talking about Kevin Young's maxim quote hoax has proved that

believing is seeing end quote. Whatever is in those documents is what you choose to put into them, whatever you need them to be. And you pick up the quote again. The hoax is rather a kind of coded confession, revealing not only a deep seated cultural wish, but also a common set of themes or faints or strategies that add up to a ritual that that seems to me to be fairly certainly widely applicable to almost all the stuff

that you're talking about in here. Oh yeah, and and definitely, I mean, and you know, Kevin Kevin Young's book for for those of you who don't know it, Bunk is absolutely fantastic. What Young is interested in is is particularly hoaxes that that reflect American ambivalence about race. So you know, various white authors who of you know, published fake memoirs as you know, uh, you know, black or Native American writers or something like that, and then have been sort

of found out and that kind of stuff. And so so what Young is sort of tracing, which I think is is really valuable and important, is the way in which as that Coaches sort of implies, you know that that the idea that a hoax is a kind of

attempt to make a myth into reality. You know that if you have a kind of and again this is sort of you know, his argument, not not so much mine, but I'm paraphrasing his argument, which I agree with that you know, if you have a sort of narrative about up inner city crime or urban poverty or whatever, and then a white person comes along and writes a memoir as a black person sort of burying out these these myths and these sort of misconceptions, then you know, that's

that's what the hoax is there to do. The hoax is there to sort of make the false thing look true. And and so with my book, you know, when I'm moving into you know, things like cryptos and UFOs, I mean there's a lot that I talked about where I don't I don't have any evidence to to believe that, you know, a given story as a hoax. I don't have a I don't have a good explanation. I think there's a lot that remains unexplained, and so I, by no means want to assert that the you know, the

whole field is full of hoaxes. But you know, we do have a number of very obvious documented hoaxes. And in fact, um, you know, one of the again, one of more tragically you know, weird stories is this guy and Calsco Montana who buys a gilly suit, which is a you know, sort of extreme camouflage where you know, the suit is supposed to make you look like a pile of leaves, you know, so you can sort of

lie prone and you know, be a sniper or whatever. Um, and he wears the suit and he wanders out onto the freeway at night, hoping that a motorist will catch just a glimpse of him and um and believe it to be a big foot you know. So it's a it's a bigfoot hoax thing. But um, he uh he gets hit by uh not one but two cars actually ends up dead, you know, it ends up you know, killed.

And so there's this this really strange sort of story about, you know, an attempt to create a hoax, to kind of gin up a belief in a thing which this person knows to be false that ends up backfiring in

this horrible way. And so I think that when you catalog a lot of the history of of hoaxes, you know, um UFO photos where where it's sort of clearly a hub cap or side view mirror or something like that, and you you sort of aggregate all of them in this kind of kind of compendium, which you get is again and again a sort of aching desire to make a thing true at all costs, even to the point of sort of you know, inventing the whole the thing

from whole cloth. That's interesting going back to the whole Doughty in Benewits. You know, one of the big differences that although it's a big hoax, is that he you know, it's not coming from this sort of sincere hope to make something that you wish was real, have other people also believe it's real. It's just this absolutely cynical exercise. Yeah,

that's that's a good point. And yeah, and at the same time it makes me think just you know, what you're saying just makes me think it's But it's also an attempt to see, like how I guess I guess the thing is, the more people desire something to be true, the easier it is to to feed them lies. Right, you know that, you know, the people buy things because

they they want to believe that they're true. And so I feel, like with with Doughty trying to sort of spread these these hoaxes throughout the UFO community, is also a sense to see, like, you know, how deep is you know, quote the Beachies, how deep is this love? You know, like how um, how easy will it be to get people to believe this? Because that becomes an index of how strong the belief is. And it turns out that, you know, until Bill Moore kind of you know,

gave his maya culpa, the belief was really strong. People were were desperate even to the point to you know, accepting things that that didn't hold up under any scrutiny whatsoever, but they accepted them to be true because you know, that strong desire to to have the thing be real. Another thing that you bring up that I thought would be would be interesting to the people who are listening.

Is this idea of stigmatized knowledge. I realize I'm kind of pulling a term out of the book, but do you yeah, I mean this again, this is a really this is this is difficult for me to kind of part because I find myself often on both sides of

this in some ways. And you know, again, when I was when I was trying to sort of make sense of the genealogy of some of these believes, I kept coming back to this period at the end of the nineteenth century when um, you know, scientific sort of uh methodology and thought becomes kind of institutionalized, right, So you have the rise of PhD programs, which don't exist in America before the eighteen seventies. You have the rise of professional organizations, so you know, you can't just be can't

just be a country doctor anymore. Now you have to belong to the you know, American Physicians Association or whatever it is, you know, and so so things sort of get ossified in these these institutions. And I think in some ways I think that's good, you know, prevents you know, I don't know, quacks from you know, taking people's money

for you know, dubious medical practices. It it allows you to make scientific discoveries that you know at scale, which you know are are are much easier to do in a kind of you know university with you know, grant funding or in you know whatever. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Um, But it also then creates this kind of a group of outsiders who who rightly or wrongly feel that they are not going to be taken seriously because they're not part of this institution and um, and

that their contributions should be considered just as valid. And so through through what I found is sort of um.

You know, this period of kind of the institutionalization of science is when you first get the rise of uh, you know what I what I call in the book and what you know as they were known then cranks, you know, these these people like ignacious Donnelly, who was not an archaeologist or an anthropologist or or did he do any field work, but he he writes the book you know, on Atlantis, the first sort of modern book on Atlantis, arguing that is a real place that you

know it existed, and that it's sunking to sea and and you know, he has no scientific basis for this, but um, he's not daunted by this, and it turns out to be you know, pretty popular. And so this institutionalization of science also gets the rise of cranks, who are people on the outside of science arguing for scientific knowledge and fact and so, you know, so stigmatized knowledge I think sort of sort of comes out of that

that divide. I mean, you know, what do you do with this stuff which is sort of outside of the bounds of acceptable science and and thus not going to be taken seriously in a kind of mainstream scientific discourse. Like on the one hand, I think that's that seems good,

that seems right. Um, you know. Um, on the other hand, science is only as ever as good as the scientists who who do the science right, so that you know, I mean, you know, science gets it wrong all the time, and we depend on a kind of external system of

checks and balances to make sure that. You know, that kind of institutionalized science is in itself making you know, dangerous airs a fact and judgment, which it is often capable of doing everything from you know, I don't know eugenics to uh, you know, you name it, and so so I think that it's On the one hand, I find myself often sort of skeptical of a lot of

stuff that falls under that category of stigmatized knowledge. I also find it a really vital and valuable sort of arena, precisely because it offers one of the few kind of you know, checks we have against you know, an institutionization of science that might be, uh, you know, prone to

its own problems. It's interesting you quote um Don Donderie in the book, and I had a fairly long conversation with him for the first season of Strange Arrivals, and a fair amount of it was about sort of the frustrations of trying to do scientific research on UFOs and how there's just there's it's just not part of science, right, There's there's no grants you can get, there's no place

that's gonna peer review papers about UFOs. That it just sort of exists in this in this place, and you know, he was sort of expressing his frustration and trying to get anybody to take it seriously for those reasons. On the one hand, I think that's a valid you know, that's a that's a valid complain And you know, I saw also saw that a lot with um luckness monster believers, right, you know that you know, uh, it's not it's not cheap to trawl the bottom of lockness with you know,

a sonar array looking for unidentified large creatures. Right, you know, it takes takes funding, you know, and and mainstream science is not going to pay for that funding, and thus it you know, it doesn't get done and becomes a sort of circular argument where you know, people say, well, we have no scientific evidence, but we're also not going to pay for the scientific inquiry that might turn up that evidence. And I get that that is sort of frustrating.

The flip side is, um the cost of doing that kind of of research has actually plummeted with the you know, it's just the increases in sort of technological cheatment and you know what you can accomplish and document with a freaking iPhone, you know, to say nothing of ten dollars or whatever worth of high tech equipment when we get you quite far. And so we we both see on the one hand the sort of sense of like, well, we're not we're not sort of putting enough money into

you know, possibly finding these discoveries. But at the same time, We're also at a point, I think, technologically where these discoveries actually don't take that much money anymore, and when we're still not finding them. So all right, well, uh, I really appreciate your time. This is awesome. Yeah, a lot of fun. Yeah, thanks for reaching out. Thanks, have a good uh rest of your day. Yeah, youtuo, thanks

a lot. Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D Audio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. This episode was written and hosted by Toby Ball and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Josh Same, with executive producers Alex Williams, Matt Frederick, and Aaron Mankey. Learn more about Strange Rivals over at Grimm and Mild dot com, and find more podcasts from my heart Radio by visiting the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.