I know that some of you who are better versed than I am in Ufology may believe that I missed something huge and obvious. Or will be disappointed in my fictional explanations, feel they aren’t comprehensive enough, failed to take into account contradicting lore, or failed to address the questions of most interest to you. All I can say is that I did the best I could, and that my scramble to familiarize myself with the field would have been easier had I not been such a skeptic for so long.
In any event, here are the eight specific questions I set out to address, along with my fictional answers from the novel.
Are ETs here? Yes, they’ve had remote UAVs watching us for about fifteen thousand years, and arrived here in person, hanging out near Saturn, about five hundred years ago.
If ETs exist, why didn’t they spread throughout the galaxy long ago? Because those species with violent natures tend not to survive to reach the stars. Only those species who are docile and unambitious manage to avoid self-destruction. But these species are not expansionary.
Why are they here? To save humanity from itself so we can lead them, help conquer the universe, and drive all species forward through sheer will and tenacity (and also help them defeat an army-ant-like species coming this way).
How did they get here? Like their evolution, slowly and steadily.
Why are they letting us see their spacecraft but not coming out formally? They plan to gradually acclimate us to their existence so we’ll handle their true coming-out party better than we would have otherwise.
Do world governments know all about them? No, but the ETs are working with a secret group of humans to further their agenda.
Why have UFOs so often been seen near nuclear sites? The aliens want to warn us to be careful, and to make sure that we don’t destroy ourselves with these weapons.
What’s up with the numerous reports of alien abductions? Are they true? If so, what do the aliens hope to accomplish? The aliens have no interest in conducting weird, invasive experiments on us as though they were cruel children pulling the legs off of spiders. This being said, dreams/memories have been implanted in a large number of people during their sleep by a malevolent species, with the goal of making the Grays and others allied species seem cold and sinister.
As easy as these fictional answers were to write out just now, they were considerably harder to devise in the first place. Especially since I wasn’t only looking for answers that might work, but ones I could weave into a science-fiction thriller, with twists and turns, reveals, and so on.
I was also aware that the playing field was changing dramatically every day, as new reports came to light. For example, I began the novel before the UFO report was delivered to Congress by the Director of National Intelligence in June of 2021. Given that the government had been coming clean more and more, this report could have been a blockbuster, could have changed our understanding of the universe forever.
Which would have surely contradicted everything I was writing.
Still, I figured, what the hell? It was worth the risk. And to be honest, it was hard for me to imagine that the report would actually give us quality answers once and for all. I doubt the government even has these answers, so I was pretty sure the pending report would let me down.
And it did. More so even than I had expected.
Not that there weren’t other possible landmines. As I continued to spend almost fifty hours a week plotting, researching, and writing Unidentified, I was keenly aware that ongoing events could obsolete the novel at any moment (and still might).
On the other hand, I figured, if aliens were to suddenly hold a press conference on the White House lawn, blowing my novel completely out of the water, this would be so cool, so epic, that I really wouldn’t care.
Before I leave this section, I also want to reach out to any extraterrestrial readers out there. I hope that nothing in this novel has offended you in any way. Just to be clear, the term Sheep Species was meant to be a compliment. Sheep have many excellent qualities, and let me be the first to say that I own several wool sweaters that I like quite a lot.
Also, to any Grays out there, just in case the narrative suggested otherwise, I, personally, find you to be a super-handsome species, you know . . . in the exact right lighting.
Finally, I should point out that alien-language rights to this novel, and all of my others, are available in both the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies. Just contact me or my agent. My agent has told me that he’s been in the game a long time, so has already negotiated with a number of parties he was convinced were not human, especially those coming from Hollywood.
FIRST PERSON: I found this to be as difficult and challenging as any novel I’ve ever written. I think that trying to forge compelling scenes across multiple chapters, all taking place inside an unconscious character’s head, and involving a nanite AI, a superintelligent hive-mind, and a disassociated, trapped consciousness, cut off from control of its own body, is the definition of ambitious (and perhaps the definition of foolhardy, depending on how well you think it turned out :).
Then, too, I’ve never written a novel in first person before, which added difficulty.
So why did I choose to write in first person this time? I was feeling burned out, as I mentioned, and I was desperate to try something different.
So I took a deep breath and dove in, well aware of the challenges I’d be facing in trying to do this. I have to admit, there were times I wasn’t sure I could actually pull it off (like in the beginning of the novel, the middle of the novel, and the end of the novel).
In my view, if done right, first person can be a more immediate, intimate, and linear way to tell a story. It can also foster a more propulsive narrative since it follows a single point-of-view character throughout, rather than switching back and forth between multiple points-of-view and multiple scenes with all different characters.