In January, n+1 Books released Missing Time, the debut essay collection by Senior Editor Ari M. Brostoff, which includes pieces originally published in Jewish Currents, n+1, and elsewhere. The titular essay reads Brostoff’s preteen passion for the supernatural police procedural The X-Files alongside their nascent political consciousness, as they became a young communist (and then ex-communist). Tracing the relationship between the original run and the 2016 and 2018 reboots, the piece considers the gap between two recent historical epochs, when history seemed to stall and then sputter back to life. In the years since the essay’s initial publication and the show’s conclusion, more and more evidence of real-life UFOs has come to light, with the US government admitting last year that it can’t account for these phenomena—or rule out extraterrestrial explanations. To celebrate the release of their book, Brostoff spoke with Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel and Managing Editor Nathan Goldman—two recently converted X-Files fanatics—about the show’s political potential, the nature of belief, and whether aliens are real.

Books, Articles, and TV Episodes Mentioned:

Missing Time: Essays by Ari M. Brostoff

“Missing Time” by Ari M. Brostoff

Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions by Budd Hopkins

“Aubrey,” The X-Files

“Excelsis Dei,” The X-Files

“The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat,” The X-Files

“Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” The X-Files

“2 Navy Airmen and an Object That ‘Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’” by Helene Cooper, Leslie Kean, and Ralph Blumenthal

“Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program” by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean

UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean

“U.S. Has No Explanation for Unidentified Objects and Stops Short of Ruling Out Aliens” by Julian E. Barnes

“How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus

“I’ve seen the saucers: Obama weighs in as US interest in UFOs rises” by Adam Gabbatt

Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens by John Mack

Arielle’s Shabbat Reading List recommendation of The X-Files

“In the sky! A bird? A plane? A … UFO?” by Jon Hilkevitch

 “UFO report stirs believers, skeptics” by Jon Hilkevitch

“Berkshires UFO,” Unsolved Mysteries

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”