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Ed Ayers: You know somebody who knows about UFOs mainly through old science fiction movies that I watched saying in front of the TV on Saturday afternoon when it was raining, I have to admit that I learned a lot from this show. I always thought it was just really about science and the Cold War, but I’ve seen a lot of other perspectives as well.

Brian Balogh: Yeah, Ed. One of those classic skeptics that just buys into that scientific framework hoo-ha and throw in a heavy dose of secrecy and Cold War America and what else is there to explain except I was very taken by the racial perspective on UFOs. I mean always thought UFOs some kind of invasion from out there can’t end up in anything good, but that interview that Nathan did really taught me that if you take a racial perspective, if you frame this along racial lines, actually the reactions of African American musicians have given a very, very different spin to UFOs. It’s very different than that science-technology secrecy framework.

Nathan C.: Well, that’s the thing about even the African American reference. It’s really much about community as anything and it really connects in a powerful way to a spiritual frame or weighing which people imagined objects in the sky to be extensions of communities on the ground. I mean there are references in the Bible that people have long pointed to as being the existence of something beyond the human experience. We call the miracles in one era, UFOs in the next or even John Winthrop, the famous Puritan lawyer, writes in his journal in 1639 about seeing objects in the sky that we would basically call a UFO experience from colonial America, so it not surprised us that people are bringing a lens that is religious and spiritual and by its very nature a kind of communitarian vision to this idea of UFOs, the paranormal or possibly even folks from outer space.

Brian Balogh: To go back to your beloved Sacramento Bee, I mean you’re talking about all of these small towns, communities, the beginning of the 20th Century that kind of sense they’re no longer really mainstream America and a very eager to become a part of mainstream America.

Nathan C.: But what I love also about that story of even small town America is that people are also thinking about secrecy, they’re thinking about possibility in the future. I mean in that case it’s about folks who might be secretly inventing the next wave of technological innovation. It’s not government secrets, but the secret of that dentist down the road with that big barn and you don’t know what he’s building in there. I mean there’s a sense of mystery.

Brian Balogh: Did you say building or billing?

Ed Ayers: Something else that really struck me in those interviews was the convergence of spirituality and technology, things that we often think may be diametrically opposed actually seemed to be merging quite often in these interviews.

Brian Balogh: And two of those things merged in the century you’re so familiar with, Ed, the 19th Century. It wasn’t long after the invasion of the telegraph, with all of these words invisibly flying over the wires, that people began to connect that with a real spirituality quite literally getting in touch with spirits who had passed beyond, people who had died.

Ed Ayers: And you know Brian in our time that manifestation of that blurring between the spiritual and technological and extraterrestrial are in some of the most popular movies of a few decades ago, E.T. The Extraterrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In both of those, there’s a sort of an odd sense of worlds beyond our own that maybe have a spiritual dimension.

Nathan C.: I have to agree with you, Ed, that the first thing that comes to mind when I and most people tend to think about UFOs is science fiction, it’s a popular culture and one of the consequences of that is that almost by default we then frame anything that falls into that category as being fantastical or there one say fictitious, but I think it’s also very clear that regardless if our reference is pop culture or if it’s the history of UFOs by way of reading the Sacramento Bee, that UFOs have a history whether you believe in them or not and I think that fact really is a powerful reminder of one, that people constantly have frames at themselves and have limitations in whatever era that they live and that maybe perhaps our current frames in spite of all its science and certainty, certainly certainty that comes from a position of faith, may not be able to account for everything that exists out there or even between us.

Speaker 2: That’s going to do it for us today, but you can keep the conversation going online. Let us know what you thought of the episode or ask us your questions about history. You’ll find us at backstoryradio.org or send an email to backstory@virginia.edu. We’re also on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter at BackStory Radio. Whatever you do, don’t be a stranger.

Nathan C.: This episode of BackStory was produced by Brigid McCarthy, Nina Earnest, Emily Gadek and Ramona Martinez. Jamal Millner is our Technical Director. Diana Williams is our Digital Editor and Joey Thompson is our Researcher. Additional help came from Robin Blue, Angelique Bishash, Sequoia Carrillo, Emma Greg, Courtney Spagna and Aaron Thelie. Our theme song was written by Nick Thorburn. Other music in this episode came from Ketsa, Podington Bear, and Jahzzar. Special thanks this week to Andrew Parsons, Brandon Wolfe and as always the John Hopkins Studios in Baltimore.

Ed Ayers: Major supporter is provided by an anonymous donor, The National Endowment for the Humanities, the Provost office at the University of Virginia, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Tomato Fund, cultivating fresh ideas in the arts, the humanities and the environment.

Speaker 2: Brian Balogh is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Ed Ayers is Professor of the Humanities and President Emeritus at the University of Richmond. Joanne Freeman is Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Nathan Connolly is the Herbert Baxter Adams Associate Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins University. BackStory was created by Andrew Wyndham for the Virginia Humanities.