This thrilling story of science, the Cold War, Nazi research, atomic anxieties, secret spy planes and the space race draws on original archival research, declassified documents and interviews to present a narrative history of humanity's hunt for alien life, including the military and CIA's secret, decades-long quest to study UFOs.

The war of the worlds -- Flying saucers -- The foo fighters -- The rocket age -- Project Sign -- The classics -- Project Grudge -- Captain Ruppelt arrives -- The mysterious death of Captain Mantell -- The Washington merry-go-round -- The Robertson panel -- Saucer-mania -- Frost's flying saucer -- The contactees -- The men in black -- Sputnik -- Briefing Capitol Hill -- Fermi's paradox -- Project Ozma -- Phantom signal -- The Drake equation -- The search expands -- The Socorro incident -- Exploring Mars -- Swamp gas -- The UFO gap -- The Condon report -- The Byurakan conference -- The Arecibo message -- Close encounters of the third kind -- The Dick Cavett duel -- The Tehran incident -- The wow signal -- Situation red -- Exploring the cosmos -- The alone theory -- Voodoo warrior -- MJ-12 -- Crop circles -- The Belgian wave -- Interrupted journey -- Sex with aliens -- Roswell revisited -- "Who killed JFK?" -- The Mars rock -- The Phoenix lights -- Cometa -- Skinwalker Ranch -- StarChips -- The Tic Tac incident -- Life science -- Breakthrough listen -- The truth is out there.