Book Review: ‘They Are Already Here’ Examines UFO Culture

On May 16, 1999, Fox aired the sixth-season finale of The X-Files, Chris Carter’s TV show about a fictional FBI division investigating unexplained phenomena, including possible extraterrestrial life on Earth. The show regularly had around 15 million viewers per week, sometimes nearing twice that. Its most famous catchphrases, “The truth is out there” and “I want to believe,” permeated pop culture. Just a few weeks after the sixth-season finale, the pop-punk band Blink-182 released its album Enema of the State. With loud and catchy power chords, quick tempos, and playful yet moody lyrics about young adulthood, it quickly became a touchstone of the genre, selling millions and earning the band worldwide fame.

These paragons of late-’90s culture shared more than mere chronological proximity. One of the lesser-known songs on an album whose hits — “What’s My Age Again,” “Adam’s Song,” “All the Small Things” — quickly became the background music to summer pool visits, high-school dances, and late-night drives for teenagers nationwide was called “Aliens Exist.” It sure sounds like a Blink-182 song, if you just listen to the music. But the lyrics, as sung in a famously nasally tone by lead vocalist Tom DeLonge, aren’t exactly in keeping with the rest of the album. DeLonge frets about “the creatures from above,” wonders “What if people knew that these were real?” and says “I wish someone would tell me what was right.” The punks and skaters who played Enema of the State until their CDs started skipping may or may not have known it at the time, but DeLonge was already deep into the conspiratorial world that shows such as The X-Files also explored. In an interview around then, bandmate Mark Hoppus said that DeLonge was “pretty straightforward. . . . He hangs out with his girlfriend, and he believes in aliens.”

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Jack Butler

Jack Butler is a former submissions editor at National Review.

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On May 16, 1999, Fox aired the sixth-season finale of The X-Files, Chris Carter’s TV show about a fictional FBI division investigating unexplained phenomena, including possible extraterrestrial life on Earth. The show regularly had around 15 million viewers per week, sometimes nearing twice that. Its most famous catchphrases, “The truth is out there” and “I want to believe,” permeated pop culture. Just a few weeks after the sixth-season finale, the pop-punk band Blink-182 released its album Enema of the State. With loud and catchy power chords, quick tempos, and playful yet moody lyrics about young adulthood, it quickly became a touchstone of the genre, selling millions and earning the band worldwide fame.

These paragons of late-’90s culture shared more than mere chronological proximity. One of the lesser-known songs on an album whose hits — “What’s My Age Again,” “Adam’s Song,” “All the Small Things” — quickly became the background music to summer pool visits, high-school dances, and late-night drives for teenagers nationwide was called “Aliens Exist.” It sure sounds like a Blink-182 song, if you just listen to the music. But the lyrics, as sung in a famously nasally tone by lead vocalist Tom DeLonge, aren’t exactly in keeping with the rest of the album. DeLonge frets about “the creatures from above,” wonders “What if people knew that these were real?” and says “I wish someone would tell me what was right.” The punks and skaters who played Enema of the State until their CDs started skipping may or may not have known it at the time, but DeLonge was already deep into the conspiratorial world that shows such as The X-Files also explored. In an interview around then, bandmate Mark Hoppus said that DeLonge was “pretty straightforward. . . . He hangs out with his girlfriend, and he believes in aliens.”