Somewhere in the Skies - Paul Cornell: Saucer Country

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

On episode 35 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan speaks with Paul Cornell, creator and writer of the acclaimed comic book series, SAUCER COUNTRY. Cornell walks us through the careful research he conducted in relation to the alien abduction phenomenon and the overall UFO mythology that inspired SAUCER COUNTRY, chronicling his extensive creative process and pure fascination with ufology. Cornell gives his honest opinions on UFO history, the sociological and cultural impact of the subject, and even gives us the inside scoop on the recently released follow-up series, SAUCER STATE.  Guest Bio: Paul Cornell is a writer of science fiction and fantasy in prose, comics and TV, one of only two people to be Hugo Award-nominated for all three media. He’s written Doctor Who for the BBC, Action Comics for DC, and Wolverine for Marvel. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his television. His latest urban fantasy novel is Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? from Tor. He lives in Gloucestershire with his wife and son. Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Official Store: CLICK HERE Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, Ryan Sprague here. It is that time of the season again. Pepperment lottes, cozy sweaters, fat man coming down your chimney, whatever it is, I am wishing you a very happy holiday season. So for any of you saucer heads out there, I just wanted to let you know we have got a ton of new designs over at the Summer in the Sky Store, with many more to come. So why not get that special euphologist or enthusiast in your life something truly unique this holiday season? Visit tepublic.com and search for somewhere in the skies. That's teepublic.com. Also, if you're in the holiday giving spirit, the Patreon campaign is up and running

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That's patreon.com backslash somewhere skies. And most importantly, for anyone who purchases my book, somewhere in the skies, a human approach to an alien phenomenon, from now until January 1st, 25% of the proceeds will be donated to the Women's Refugee Commission. There are currently almost 60 million refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide who have been displaced by conflict. The Women's Refugee Commission improves the lives and protects the rights of women, children and youth, displaced by conflict and crisis. The Commission are leading experts on the needs of refugee women and children and the politics that can protect and empower them.

To support my work and to help an extraordinary cause this season, head on over to Amazon.com. in search for Somewhere in the Skies, available both in paperback and ebook. To learn more about this amazing organization, visit WemansRefugee Commission.org. Thank you for all that you do for the show and beyond. Let's make this holiday season one we won't soon forget. And with that, let's also get to this week's show. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Brian's Bread. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies.

I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. Every now and again, you come across something that feels like it was made specifically for you. Whether it's a song, a piece of clothing, a craft beer, or even a car, it speaks volumes to you that nothing else can, and it stays with you. About two months ago, a few listeners brought to my attention a comic book series that I'd never heard of before. I was hesitant, knowing full well that comics can often be very hit or miss, But I gave it a try, and by the first page, I was absolutely hooked.

Arcadia Alvarado, the leading Democratic candidate for president of the United States, says she was abducted by aliens. As the Mexican-American governor of New Mexico, she's dealing with immigration, budget cuts, and an alcoholic ex. She's about to toss her hat into the ring as a candidate for president in the most volatile political climate ever. But then, a lonely road and a nightmarish encounter have left her with terrible half-glimped memories. And now she has to become precedent to expose the truth and maybe to save the world.

Arcadia's quest is at the heart of this series, written by Paul Cornell and stunningly drawn to life by artist Ryan Kelly. With the help of her quirky staff, Arcadia will pursue the truth of her abduction into danger, mystery and awe. Saucer Country is a dark thriller that blends UFO lore and alien abduction with political intrigue, all set in the hauntingly beautiful Southwest. Today, I am speaking with the creator and writer of Saucer Country, Paul Cornell. Paul is a writer of science fiction and fantasy, comics and TV, and one of the only two people to be Hugo Award nominated for all three media.

He's written Doctor Who for the BBC, Action Comics for DC, and Wolverine for Marvel. He's won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, and shares in a Writers Guild Award for television. His latest urban fantasy novel, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes, is now available. With Saucer Country having wrapped in early 2013,

Cornell and his entire creative team recently revived the series with IDW Comics with a new title, Saucer State, which chronicles Arcadia Alvarado's journey as president of the United States, and her continued search for answers to what happened to her somewhere in the skies, whether she likes it or not. So, without further ado, let's dig deep into flying saucers, abductions, men in black, and the rich mythology of Yves. UFOs with Paul Cornell. So I came across your work a few months ago by several suggestions from listeners of the podcast and I am so happy I did. I bought both volumes of Saucer Country and I couldn't put it down, Paul. Thank you. Of course, man. It was refreshing. It was something that I'm so happy I came across. So today we're going to talk all about it, Saucer Country and also your recently released

follow-up, Saucer State. So with me today is Paul Cornell. Paul, thank you so much for joining me on Somewhere in the skies. Thank you very much for having me. So, I mean, like any good comic book, Paul, I'm sure you're well aware of this. I want to start with your origin story. How did your interest in the UFO phenomenon first begin before we even get to Saucer country? Well, it was when I was a child, actually. I mean, I grew up being obsessed with spaceflight. And in the mid-70s, the the whole spaceflight thing kind of docked completely with UFO mythology. You know, if you're a kid who was interested in Apollo, you were also interested in close encounters when it came along.

And I would find in the library weird UFO books. I realized the other day that George Adamski's flying saucers have landed in a hardback edition was in my school library. But I grew up And my school library was It was kind of this decaying country house And I think our library was basically the collection Of whoever had owned the house

Before the school came now And so I got exposed to some extraordinary things as a child So I would be reading these very scary UFO books Under the blankets and scaring myself silly I've been inured in this stuff from a very young age. I can mirror that quite closely, my friend. I mean, there are times where I remember sneaking these books, you know,

getting them from my public library, bringing them home, digesting them one by one, bringing them back, getting another one, where you become the UFO person at your local library. So it's quite a label to have for sure. Well, that's really cool. So I guess without giving away too much, could you maybe give us the what we call in the screenwriting world, which again you're quite familiar with,

the elevator pitch for Sasser Country. Well, Arcadia Arvarado, the governor of New Mexico, is about to launch her presidential bid, and on the eve of launching it, she's abducted by aliens. And we always put that in inverted commas because she's never sure of what exactly that was or what it meant.

And she runs for president. In Sosa State, the current volume, the sequel, She is the president and is trying to use the office to find out what happened. It's a collision between the world of politics and the world of UFO mythology. I think if you come to the book expecting a real alien invasion, then you're going to be disappointed. We're talking about this as a body of mythology, and it's very much slippery. It's about different levels of reality.

I always think that the X-Files is strangely, strangely detached from UFO mythology. You know, they brought their own concepts to it almost immediately. I mean, nowhere in UFO mythology do you find their alien bounty hunters with their little weapons that fit into the back next. You know, that's made up a mucloth. That's their own mythology. So we are right at the heart of this stuff and using, using all of the tremendous multi-facets of it, because it's an amazing mythology.

It's beautiful. It's multi-layered. And it just covers so much ground. And if anything, oddly, it's under-explored in popular culture. Because the greys basically have just taken over everything. They're like the Beatles of UFO mythology. Everybody's heard of them, but everything else has kind of become more obscure. few or anything? That is a really good point. The rich history behind uphology, I guess we could put it,

again, in inverted quotes, that there's so much to it. And something like the X-Files, they were very ambiguous. They never named names when it came to actual cases. It was rare if that ever happened. So yeah, it is interesting and very refreshing to see something like Saucer Country come around that actually uses that rich history, that uses the actual people that were involved in production cases or, you know, Project Blue Book, things like that. Myself and my wife did a tour around New Mexico when I knew I was going to be writing this comic. And it was just a delight to go and see all of these sites, you know, like, oh, Sorocco and poor old Roswell. Oh, yeah.

It really, it really, it really doesn't want to be that town. It's managed to confide it to one street. And again, mythologically, Roswell is this little town. And in real life, it's a huge industrial heartland. You know, it's the biggest town for a hundred miles, you know. All of those beautiful places with resident names where, you know, one found the romance back in those days. And New Mexico was replete with it, as well as being replete with genuine, you know, space history as well. Exactly.

Yes, a rich deep history, especially for our military. But that's something that your story covers as well, and we'll definitely get to that. Well, I guess Paul, what was the impetus for Saucer Country? How did the idea really come about? And how did you get connected with Ryan Kelly on this? I'm interested in the process of that. Well, Vertigo, I pitched the idea to Vertigo, and they offered me a range of artists. And I was already familiar with Ryan's work from the short-lived DC,

comics for girls line. I can't remember what it called Minks. And he did a beautiful book for them. And I just thought there is somebody who can do the real life stuff I need to do really, really well. We call it acting. He does good acting.

His characters, you can see what they're remote. And also, we've discovered that he's just amazingly good at the numinous, at the intrusion of the unbelievable into these realistic Dick Worlds as well. And that's what you really need for this title, somebody who can do both. And

honestly, I can't imagine doing it without him. He's so vital to this book. I would have to agree. I feel like it is a match made in heaven. There's so many comics out there that feel detached when it comes to the writer and the artist. And it just doesn't mesh. But like you said, that the emotive nature to his art really brings out what you're trying to say with your characters, which easily could become very, you know, forgive the pun, alienated when you're dealing with a topic like this, but it makes it very human. And I think that's what really kept me going. It wasn't even this excitement of reading about UFO history or the UFO phenomenon or abduction phenomenon. It really was this narrative and this main character that you've created. Another huge aspect of Saucer Country,

I would say. Well, he keeps pulling me into, you know, give more, I mean, Chloe Saunders, the Republican strategist, because he draws her so well and he can do comedy so well, I keep giving her more and more funny lines because I know he'll land them. So that's a lovely thing where that virtuous circle is happening, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. And every character definitely brings something to this entire story. And I think that's pretty awesome.

I guess my question in terms of character would be Arcadia. How did the idea come up to have... which we don't see that often. We see it a lot more nowadays. A female lead character in your story, which is very refreshing and long overdue. How did you come up with Arcadia? Well, I think I made a wrong bet on the nature of American politics.

I thought this is obviously going to be fairly soon what actually happens. Yeah. Yeah, we did. All did, didn't we mentally? But I knew that she had to be of Mexican descent, because I wanted to talk about aliens. I wanted to talk about the idea of, you know, incursions over the border of doing that metaphor between, you know, Earth and space and America and Mexico.

You know, we flow with that a lot, actually. You know, it's kind of important to her character that, you know, she's two generations from having been a family of illegal immigrants. at the time the rhetoric was in flame, now it's extraordinary. And that was really important. That was right at the start. That was in the first pitch, you know. Well, in terms of those politics, I'd love to hear a little bit more about what made you want to, Paul, mix politics with the whole UFO question.

I mean, we do see this run in tandem throughout UFO history of politics being involved, sometimes good. sometimes bad. So what made you want to cover U.S. politics over maybe another country or something like that? Well, it's something that's always fascinated me. And one of the things I do quite often is take a bunch of professionals involved in one field and throw them out of their depth into something else. My shallow police books are about police and magic. And there was something about, you know, how vulnerable and impotent the UFO phenomenon makes us. And I wanted to, contrast that with the power of high office to see if any power can be brought to bear against the numerous, against the extraordinary. And because I wanted to talk about UFO mythology,

I knew I wanted to talk about New Mexico, and that led to the governor of New Mexico, and that led to the presidential run. And, you know, these things just seemed to fit together really well. You know, the fact that a previous government of New Mexico at the time of Roswell actually figures quite largely into UFO mythology really helped. Yeah, yeah. I think it was a very important part of the book. And we do hear a lot of the time that there are U.S. presidents who have asked this question. Like, what is going on with Area 51? Who shot JFK?

You know, we know Clinton is probably the biggest outspoken one about this of, yeah. I asked. Well, during her campaign, when... At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light, and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV! Then I heard a voice.

Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is our city. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep,

and sudden belief in extraterrestrials, no credit cards, or alien, encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. Hillary Clinton mentioned the possibility of disclosure in a positive way. I thought, wow, we're really, we're zeit-lasting there, and then we hit a brick wall with that. I don't think actually the comic politically hit a brick wall at all, in that we did predict and actually have followed through on one huge thing, which is Russian interference in American politics, which we got there first with, frankly, and I'm really pleased about that.

And it's become clearer and clearer that that's where the title's going. And that was always part of the mix, which is beautiful. Yeah, it's always refreshing when some, when an art form can predict future events, for sure. But, no, I didn't expect Trump at all. and now incorporated him in that we've got a insourcer state with somebody who looks like a prospective challenger in the future who is very like him and brings that to the table. I'm a political geek, I'm just really, really interested.

And also, I respect politicians. I kind of wince at the general tendency to say they're all the same. I really like highly skilled politicians. And until this current one, I would think that virtually every president of the United States has been a reasonable intellectual, you know, somebody who could very definitely hold their own intellectual debate. Even the ones we tend to think of as stupid. Reagan, for instance, much more intelligent than he's portrayed. And the presidents who asked about UFOs, we go into this a lot of the comic. a couple of particular issues.

In fact, we're going to go there again towards the end. We've got another little history lesson before we finish. But, you know, one of my favorite books about UFOs and possibly the single sanest book about UFOs is Mirage Men by Mark Wilkington. Yes, absolutely. Oh, yes. From the personal account of his own inexplicable experience to a real look-in-to-a-look- to how much UFO mythology benefits American intelligence that right back from the 1940s,

that we have Freedom of Information Request records as to, you know, how many intelligence officers are in for the first UFO groups. And there's loads of them. And they're not there to debunk or to observe or to report back. They're there to encourage because it's much better for them if when people look up, They don't see a YouTube, but a disc. And I think personally, you know, spoilers, but it's out there in a factual book anyway. I think personally, this doesn't really spoil our future story, that it's, among the many uses the intelligence community found for this stuff, was trying to convince the very credulous Soviet Union who, you know, would make the occasional little news item about, you know, psychic powers or something like that.

that the US had a crash-flying saucer. And so when Star Wars comes along, and Reagan drops that careful hint to Gorbachev about perhaps the two of us will find we're fighting some other power. Maybe he just had gone crazy in the background, going, oh my God, they really have. That's where they're getting this Star Wars stuff from. Right.

It actually contributed, I believe, to the end of the Cold War. I think the social idea that the U.S. has had a crash-flying saucer since Roswell is entirely to freak out the Soviet Union. I think that's what it's for. The fact that the Americans got their own public to believe that and just really sold the whole bit. Absolutely. I mean, we have this whole idea which Mirage Man touches on of disinformation. You know, when we had Roswell, the first headline in the newspaper, was, you know, we captured a flying disc. The next day, nope, it's a weather balloon.

Now, you know... And the guy who passes that story gets promoted. Exactly. So right there from the start of modern UFO history, I mean, you have this idea of the military, of the government, using this to their benefit however they can. From a case-to-case basis, I would venture, I guess, when it comes to UFO crashes or what is seen in our skies

that could be threatening national security. It's fascinating to think that the intelligence. intelligence agencies could say, yep, that's alien. We're going to go work on this over here in the, you know, in darkness. And let them think it's aliens or vice versa. And I think that's what your comic covers as well, too, this constant struggle between what is actually happening to Arcadia and are there aliens actually abducting human beings? Or are they not?

Yeah, and I will keep that part secret. But I think the multifarious uses made of the mythology, I do believe the story of Reagan whispering to Stephen Spielberg, you won't believe how much of this is true about ET. Yes. I think Reagan did that on mission. I think he was specifically briefed to do that. Because, you know, if you're Spielberg, you're going to tell that to the first person you meet outside the Whitehouse, aren't you? I think so. Those are bragging rights, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, and multifariousness, I think it's Serpo, the Serpo documents that are meant to have been written by various famous science fiction writers. So this is a brilliant mythology, some of which has actually been written by very well-qualified people. It's a tremendous body of work, UFO mythology. Well, well done there, science fiction writers and the people to whom it actually happened. Because I don't believe these things are mutually exclusive. I think the mythology also includes accounts of people who were mistaken. Like Lonnie Zamora, I'm pretty sure, saw the future lunar module. Yes, yes, yes.

I think he saw the lunar module on the bottom of a helicopter before it was declassified. Or the Chilean who was meant to have had said. with an alien woman in... What's his name? I'm also blanking. I'm failing my Uphology 101. But it's pretty clear now that he actually got...

He seems to have been... I kid you not. And I use these words, realizing how ridiculous they sound, he seems to have been gassed by the CIA. And what we have on record are his hallucinations. But anyway, so those guys are mistaken. But I also think some people, whether or not, whether or not if we were standing beside them, we would have had the same experience, who knows?

But I think some other people contributed honest records of things they actually experienced. I'm not about to write off the intrusion of the impossible into the world. At the same time, all this stuff is multifarious and maybe just us glimpsing things that are not, are part of a wider reality. that nevertheless do not add up to spacecraft from beyond the solar system, you know? Very good point, yes, when we're dealing with such a multifaceted, vast phenomenon. The impetus to immediately go to alien is always there. It's so ingrained in us. But I think it's important to ask different questions of what these UFOs could be as well.

So I think you do a great job. Is Jack Valle, who says UFOs are far too interesting to be just alien spacecraft? A very good point, yes. Paul, in terms of that, you know, someone like Jacques Valet, you clearly did your homework when it comes to the mythology. Were there any researchers that you turned to when you started looking into all this? Or was this just an obsession with the literature that's out there? Yeah, I mean, all my life, I've been reading this stuff. So I never really turned to a body of research.

I checked on a few things I remembered. Always read 14 times. Actually, I've stopped reading 14 times just in the last couple of months. but I've always been a reader of 14 times. I've read every issue. I've got a sort of vast database in my head of how all this fits together. And so I know where to go to find the research about a particular thing. Making some particular connections, for example, you know,

it's actually you find in the history of science fiction, much more stuff about the shaver mystery and how the, I remember Lemuria and, and Ray Palmer, how his extraordinary, how his editorial direction of Amazing kind of brought forward all this impossible, paranoid stuff into the mainstream, in an enormous way just immediately before Roswell.

And that whole huge culture of, you know, the Dero's and the Deroes under the Earth, who are influencing human beings above the earth and we see their ships coming out of the ground and those are UFOs. It was huge cultural phenomenon there that vanished completely and that isn't really talked about very much now.

And that's much more recorded in context in the histories of science fiction than it is really in UFO mythology because it doesn't quite fit with the mythology as later established, you know? Exactly. Amazingly, that guy, from our mythology, Ray Palmer, his name lives on as a hero of one of DC's, what are they called, the current DC show.

Is it the legends? Legends of Tomorrow. Ray Palmer is the atom, and I'm pretty sure that he's named after that Ray Palmer. Because Ray Palm, the science fiction editor, is contemporary amos with that character being created. Perfect. What a perfect Easter egg. I love it. Well, I mean, Paul, you've got someone like Ray Palmer. You've got someone like John Keel. You've got someone like, who is the other guy? I'm thinking of. Gray Barker. In terms of the men in black phenomenon. Now, this is another subset that we consider a part of euphology. And I was so happy to see that in Souser Country, you brought this story up in a very unique way. One I haven't really thought about, when I haven't seen in the stories. And it was very interesting how you handled the men in black. And what they may actually have been.

Would you mind commenting on that? I grabbed this wholesale from a UFO researcher called Jenny Randalls, who I saw talk at her 14 times unconvention, and she did an hour-long lecture purely on the subject of the men in black as a USAF hazing ritual. And she came up with all sorts of convincing detail. that when this first started, the uniforms they wore and the cars they drove were just what you'd expect from a visit from the feds. And because the rules seem to be set in stone, they stay that way through the subsequent decade. The rules being set in stone like that sort of says somebody's written the rules down there somewhere.

And it doesn't seem, it seems odd for an actual cosmic entity to behave that way. And also, sometimes they haven't been very good at this. And the rubbish men in black when they show up, drop cultural details that just make you laugh and make you go, oh, come on. Some of them are very good, some of them are bit rubbish. And she just pointed out how the whole continuum fits with the idea that this is a continuing practical joke that's been kept going over decades in the form of something written down in USAF messholes. That would not surprise me one bit, especially like you say. I actually just did an episode on Men in Black where we talked about some of the more

ridiculous and bizarre accounts of them. And like you said, you know, the things they would bring up, it's just, it made no sense whatsoever. And again, only, I think, to further confuse a UFO witness. So fascinating. Yeah. I'm happy to hear that that came from someone like Jenny Randalls, who I have a great respect for. So that's interesting.

With Keel, as always, I think he's on his own long, strange journey. And I don't think that's what happened to him. But I, Indrid Cold, I have no idea. It's such a beautiful name. It's such, again, such a writerly invention. Whether that's his invention or whether that's an invention of some kind of cosmic trickster, who knows? Absolutely. It's very poetic. The idea of this grinning man showing up and having a conversation and leaving. It's fascinating, you know, tying into the whole Mothman prophecy as well. John Keel, I do agree with you, is on his own personal journey. Now, whether or not he did witness men in black or this, you know, this singular figure that we've come to know as Indy Cold. I'm deeply fascinated by that as well. Something maybe, maybe, uh, we could see in future saucer state follow-ups.

Who knows? Well, I have an ending plan. That's the thing. That is the thing, yes. It's really important to me that, you know, we are still hoving towards this ending that we've had in mind all a lot. And again, unlike the X-Files, which is a different beast, it's got different aims. It wants to keep going.

We know where we've been going, and we have, I know what the last page is. and we are going to answer all our questions and tie little bows around every single mystery. This is really important to me. So, yeah, it just occurs to me that the strange thing about this mythology is that when somebody who knows them encounters the men in black,

who is aware of the mythology, nobody ever just puts one in a headlock, slabs the door and who calls the papers, do they? I mean, nobody has to be. grabs this stuff and runs. That's a very good point. You even bring this up in Saucer Country. Like, why, when you're on the ship, if you're being abducted, just grab something

off the table for God's sake. Yeah. I mean, that's why I did that scene of Michael, where he has his false abduction narrative that's put there by a hypnotist under, you know, hypnotic recall, that he actually gets into the business of fighting the grades, that we have a little grade. in Kung Fu and all that. Honestly, the range of things that you can imagine the

Gray's doing that aren't hilarious is pretty tidy. As soon as they start to do anything but loom ominously, they become fairly ridiculous. And the fact that whenever we do seize a bit of fairyland, whenever it's given to us, like

cakes, all this food that aliens give people. And it always turns out to be fairly stodgy recipes with no salt in it. You know, they have extraterrestrial wheat mills there, extraterrestrial flour, you know. They're not gluten-free, I would assume. Well, they probably have become gluten-free now. At this point, yeah.

On a more serious, no, Paul, you also bring up another really interesting aspect of the mythology in terms of what I would assume is sort of connected to Project Blue Book, but you have this idea of the Blue Birds angle in your story. This, you know, black budget, top secret thing going on behind closed doors. I loved it, loved it, you know, possibly, possibly being the keyword reverse engineering UFO craft. How did this whole idea come about in Sasser Country? Well, they used to work for the government, and then they went off into private enterprise all at one. And this came about because I started to read articles about the fact that there were aerospace professionals who were interested in this stuff,

who would meet up clandestinely without not under any kind of name that would indicate what they were interested in, because they were very afraid of ridicule. I'd also been reading books about, some of which I think were really not good journalism, about aerospace engineers who had found effects which weren't supported in physics, the idea that sometimes engineering can get there first and start developing an effect that's not fully, understood. I think it's entirely possible that you could encounter something for which there is not a theoretical background. And the bluebirds are about private enterprise doing that and running with it. And of course they've got this mythological leader who's meant to be still alive having fought in

the Battle of Britain, who's done all the fictional things that, you know, every time somebody says, oh, I was a member of this special ops force who went to get down the UFOs in Cambodia. It turns out we can't find their military credentials anywhere, you know. He did all that stuff. You know, he was on the moon at the same time as the Apollo astronauts, all those things. So, yeah, I'm trying to bring all the different aspects together. And I have to have some different plot lines to explore some stuff. which go to the places that our heroes can't go, you know?

Absolutely. Well, I mean, another big part of that is the folkloric aspect. You have, you know, large sections within the book that comment on this idea of fairies, which I found very interesting. This is a big part of the mythology when you look at someone like Jacques Valle, who's looked at this very culturally and looked at the evolution of the idea of alien throughout history, you know, from magic to mysticism to what we have today. this idea of the grey.

Well, the way that fair is and aliens map onto each other so completely that they're doing the same cultural things. And also, just for a moment in the middle, European aviators, during the end of the 19th century when America had was overflown by Jules Verne-style airship that are just a few years ahead of current technology. This is at the time when Zeppelin is just flying prototypes that can't get further. than 100 yards in Germany, you know. Right.

That America's being overflown by these mysterious airships. And people meet the occupants from them all the time. And they are inventors from Europe who swear the locals to secrecy because they're about to go home and, you know, apply for their patent. As they should. Yes. And they are, you know, the accounts we have of them are complete, you know, they give their names, you know.

And these people cannot be. They cannot exist. And there they are. That's a very good point. Well, I guess, in terms of the aliens you choose to cover in Saucer country, we have the greys and we have the reptilians, which I thought was hilarious. Oh, and some ancient Nordics. Yes, yes, we do have the ancient Nordics as well. We have the whole contactee movement, which is something we didn't talk about.

But, yes, very fascinating. the aliens you choose to involve within this narrative. What made you choose these days? Oh, you can't forget Hopkinsville. The goblins are one of my favorite stories of all time. When I saw that, you know, almost splash page that Ryan and you decided to do, it was gorgeous. And it was the first time that really the Hopkinsville case really came into full, full effect for me. I was like, oh, my God, I would have been terrified.

I think actually, a recent article which talked about mating owls, how there are these enormous local owls around there that hang on to each other and flap about in twosomes, being genuinely terrifying on the ground. I do wonder if those poor guys really were besieged by something, and it was those owls. That is a very interesting question, yeah. But no, I like the vast variety.

and I especially like the ones that never quite got off the ground. Anybody who meets insect people, you know, they tend to be a one-off. They don't retain their detail between, yeah. And that guy from Birmingham who met basically Gandalf and R2D2. I know we shouldn't laugh, but come on. Yeah, absolutely. But there is nothing inherently more silly about meeting somebody who's got to a copyright on them than meeting the reptilians. There really isn't. And of course the reptilians

have now becomes a bit more fashionable than the greys. One thing that's really interesting is that none of this stuff is fashionable anymore. We're actually getting to the end of UFO mythology, I think. I think unless something, some new cycle comes along, some new development comes along. It feels like a field that's increasingly talking just to itself. And I think basically the success story of the Grays kind of finished it off. The reptilians are sort of its last gasp. And what the reptilians bring with them. I mean, the way this whole field has been swinging to the right,

from the contactees, which is a fairly liberal movement, all the way to post-cattle mutilation on, we're going further and further into right-wing fantasies and conspiracy theories. And the reptilians are the height of that, you know, this strange equivocation between reptilian aliens and Jewish people, which is abominable. And is sort of the secret language of conspiracy theory, you know, there are those who say reptilian and mean reptilian alien and those that mean, you know, perfectly normal people who they don't like very much. Very good point. And so, you know, it's, I wanted to explore the, you know, the sheer variety.

And I love the old Venusians. I love Orthon and all of his are Orthon. Isn't that a fabulous name? I love it. Well, we have that piece of paper with all the names written in and crossed out Thoron. Yeah. Thoron, you know. We landed on Orthon, which I think.

is great. But Paul, that is a very good point and something I haven't really touched on the show. I don't get political often, but I think what your book does well is bring this idea of the alien forward, not meaning extraterrestrial, but just

other. And the idea that we live here in America, no, not just America, all across all across the world. We live in a very extreme tension-filled world, right, now. And like you said, I do see within that small subset of the UFO community or UFOology,

this extreme leaning right now, which is extremely disappointing to someone like myself, who is on the younger side, sees a lot of very rational, tolerant, young people getting into the UFO field and coming face to face with the reality that it's sort of being run by the David Ikes of the world. or things like that, that there's this ambiguous, like you say, reptilian thing that they're going with, which clearly is not alien. It is a small, you know, different race of human being that they're commenting on. This is very fascinating.

I think your comic was ahead of the time in looking at that, that Arcadia is searching for answers to what has happened to her, but at the core of it, it's this idea of people, not wanting the other to be here. Exactly, exactly. And it's, you know, UFO mythology is an expression of fear largely. It's fear of the unknown. It's fear of the other.

And it's also an expression of powerlessness. You don't get much more powerless than an abductee. And it also became an expression of the idea that the government is hiding the most wonderful things about the universe. And, you know, I'm quite a fan of David. Clark, the British researcher who went from, I mean, I wouldn't call him a skeptic because there are skeptics who just enjoy laughing at this stuff and I'm not with them at all. I find that boorish and actually as true believerish and fundamentalist as anybody who fully buys into one of the conspiracy theories.

He's a small, smaller skeptic who basically doesn't think there is. anything alien to it. But he's done a huge amount of research into the mythology. And one of the things that he runs with is how the British government seemed to have a genuine interest for a while, set up a desk to, you know, record instances of people encountering UFOs, gathered this stuff for a long time, and then just basically got bored. and, you know, filed it all away and stopped having the desk and laid everybody off. And, you know, it's kind of the opposite of the response you'd expect if there was anything to it.

They seem to have become convinced that there was nothing there. Well, yeah, and I mean, that's something that I think your main character is searching for as well, where she's searching for an answer to what may have happened. But, you know, maybe it's not what we all expect. We've had so many projects here in the U.S. that have looked at the U.S. UFO phenomenon, and they all eventually fizzle, whether that's due to finances or what, but you do have to wonder, you know. Well, I think it's because the interest here is not in nuts and bolts.

Issue 5 of Souser State is an issue that involves a lot of quotes from somebody I'm very fond of the writer Jeffrey Krippel, who is a historian of religion who takes UFO mythology seriously as he does any other religion he writes about. And his view on it is tremendous, and very, very refreshing and treats people who've had these experiences very fairly, I think. And you go away from him feeling that the bounds of reality do sometimes fray at the edges. He points out how rightly the phenomena is, how like a body of fiction. But that doesn't actually make sense either in that there are. are all sorts of coincidental and beautiful and poetic links with the things that have

happened across UFO mythology, which seem to imply structure and reason and purpose. But, you know, unless there has been a single team of writers show running this thing from 1980s until now, that's just not possible under the rules of reality as we know them, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that, you know, some of the... like Capel brings up a good point that this is more about us than it ever is about whatever is out there. It is us shining a mirror on ourselves. It's a brilliant quote about the idea of a UFO

without an observer is ridiculous. Exactly. Yeah, the whole tree falling in a forest. I love it. Yeah, yeah. In terms of the idea of what the government might know, Paul, what do you personally believe, Are aliens visiting the planet? Does our government know anything about what's going on? Well, I think the governments of the Western world only, I think they think they've made it up entirely. I think at the highest levels of the intelligence community in the States, those who are concerned with this stuff,

they pretty much think that UFOs are their baby, that this is something they wrote. Do I think aliens have ever visited Earth? Maybe once or twice? Maybe this is a huge cargo cult. Maybe it touched the earth once, and we reacted so hugely that we created a religion around it. I have some time for Barney and Betty Hill. I think they are either great American writers, an amazing mythologists, who basically put together huge strands of this mythology out of nothing.

I'm a huge fan of the Outer Limits. people who talk about Barney and Betty Hill's experiences in relation to the episode of the Outer Limits that had gone out the previous week, which is an episode called the Bolero Shield. As a huge fan of the Outer Limits and the follow of UFO mythology, all the time I was growing up, I never associated those two things, and I still don't. I think it's an enormous stretch. The Bolero Shield has no narrative elements that play into the U.S. UFO mythology. The only connection is the Israelis that have rather wrap around eyes. And they don't look very much like the greys, obviously. They really

don't. And also, there's no proof that Barney and Betty Hill ever saw it. And the outer limits at that point, not a very big show. You know, not rating very well. So blowing that out of the water, I think they seem to have come up with either through it happening to them

or through pulling just amazing things out of the collective unconscious under hypnosis. And the fact that details of their experience were edited out of the later mythology. You know, the little guys they meet were in uniforms with caps, like the biker in the village people. Right. And, you know, that gets edited out because it feels silly. Yes.

And Betty's Star Map, the way that seems to relate to. I know it's been debunk, but again, she actually saw something and drew it, you know. And there's all sorts of little features which seem genuinely, they have veracity to them. They feel like they could be real. And that applies to almost nothing else in the literature. I think something interesting happened to them. We may never find out what. Maybe that's not the one or two points where the alien arrived.

I sort of think maybe they were here briefly and then went away again. It's vaguely possible. You know, some film you see, almost no photographs, but some video is more convincing. I don't think there are any good UFO photographs, obviously. There aren't even really many good fakes even. Good point. But that recent collection by Jack Womack, flight sources are real, which basically contains every memorable photo from one's childhood.

There's nothing in there that really makes you go, woo. Maybe once or twice. Yeah. You know, yeah, maybe once or twice. Or maybe even it's just a flyover. Or the stealth technology was good enough so that we never really notice very much. much. I tend to agree with you, you know, I've never come down hard, even as a UFO quote-unquote researcher of when you get asked that question, it's so hard to answer. I feel like the most

clear, concise answer you can ever give is, I don't know. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Speaks volumes. When you look deeply into something like Rindlesham Forest and it just falls apart like a wet card house and so many of these cases are like that that they require belief to keep going

yes it's a struggle we we have all the time belief versus fact within the UFO field for sure but uh I mean when you listen to the Rendleshan tapes and the voices on the board you know yeah still looking at this

slide in the sky like me happy yeah these guys are going through a great transcendent experience, are there? That's a good point. And then often the audio we do hear, whether it's on a documentary or whatnot, are the one small moments where something out of the ordinary does happen. And that's what we always hear. If you're observing a light in the sky on the horizon for several hours, I tend to suspect that that might be something astronomical of nature. Mm-hmm. Yes. Maybe a lighthouse, maybe not. We'll never, again. And we'll never know.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, sort of wrapping things up, Paul. So I'm sure, like you and many of your readers, they were disappointed when Vertigo decided not to continue Saucer country. But we've sort of hinted at what is coming right now. That is Saucer State, the new version with IDW. Can you tell us a little bit about what we can expect with this new? Is it a 12-issue run? It's a six-issue run initially.

Okay. Then we're, so the last issue of that comes out just before the turn of the year in late December. There's a gorgeous new IDW complete edition of the original Salsa Country in one volume, where I've taken the opportunity to fix a few errors like, you know, move speech balloons that were pointing to the wrong person and all that. And Salsa State will be collected early in the new year, those six issues. And then we're going to pause a bit to let Ryan Kelly recover for a while. And then we are going to finish it in, we're still discussing what the form of that might be. Whether it'll be individual issues, whether it'll be one volume, we're not sure.

But then there will come the conclusion. The conclusion will be roughly, roughly four to six issues long, but it might be in one volume. Perfect. Well, that's very exciting to hear. I'll take whatever I can get with it, man. Well, I mean, I've been looking over your resume, Paul, after I discovered Sasser Country. and you've worked on some pretty extensive properties. And this is a question, sort of throwing you a curveball here,

but something like Saucer Country and Saucer State is completely yours. You created this from start to finish. What I kind of want to know before we leave here is what is it like as a writer working on a completely original project versus a pre-existing world, a franchise that everyone knows that you're sort of diving into? What do you find most rewarding about either one of those? Well, I got the opportunity when working in other people's worlds to deal with characters I'd always wanted to write. You know, you're Doctor Who's and your Marvel characters.

That's a great pleasure. But I've started to feel in recent years that that's fun. And the serious work, the stuff that I really want to do lies in original characters. So I'm pursuing that much harder now. Yeah, it's sort of a mixed diet, a varied diet. You know, you want to do a bit of one and a bit of the other. You know, I've just been amazingly fortunate to be able to wander about sort of being a bit of a dilly tanty and just sort of having fun and doing bits here and there.

Now I've made my big decision to only work on my own characters. You know, the universe mocks me. As soon as I said that on Twitter, an hour later, Titan Comics announced they'd got the rights to dad there. And part of me went, could you not have waited a day? Come on. Oh, God bless Twitter for all it's good and bad, for sure. But, you know, I really loved Dan there, and I would really want to do that. But I just ruled myself out beforehand.

Hey, there's, you know, we live in a world where you can always go back on your word, my friend. Well, I may be doing that soon. There's one last thing. There's one last thing. No, I can't talk about that yet. That's fair. But no, I'm loving Saucer Country and Sorcer State. And, you know, I think it's sort of, it's my big story. It's my sort of central work.

I mean, my most autobiographical work is my horror novel chalk. But this is what I really want to land and to finish, you know. And I'm amazed that we got, you know, IDW. because Chris Ryle of IDW is such a UFO buff. He was sort of, he was the big factor in bringing us over there. And, you know, to their credit, D.C. were very cooperative in giving the rights back to us. So, you know, it's been delightful all and all. That's great.

Well, now I know another guest I'm going to turn to now. So thank you for giving me that name over at IDW. Oh, yeah. Chris Ryle, I'm sure. He loves conversations like this. Oh, that's great. Well, you mentioned Chalk, what else do you have on the creative side coming up? Is there anything you can talk about right now?

Let me see. My Litchford books, starting with Witches of Lichford, continue at Tor.com Publishing. I've got all sorts of things that are doing. It's going to be a busy year for me. But this is this sort of point of the year where you can't talk about anything. That's completely fine. No, it was this year it was Chalk at Lichford. And I've just finished a run on Van Perala for.

my old friend Matt Idelson, who was the editor at Dynamite. And yeah, that's about it right now. I think that's plenty, for sure. Well, Paul, where can we find Sasser State and more about what you're up to? Well, you can find Sources State in all good comic shops or on comicsology digitally, and you can find the collected saucer country from IDW there as well. And you can find out all about me on Paul Cornell.com or Paul underscore Cornel. on Twitter. Perfect. Well, I can't tell you how happy and giddy I was to have discovered your work,

probably much later than I should have. But, you know, now I eagerly await every issue of Saucer State. It's interesting. You know, we live in such a fast-paced binge-consuming world now. It's refreshing, again, to wait for something to come out. I think that's very important. It really helps the reader and the writer in the creative side and the consuming side, especially when it's something as close to my heart is UFOs. Well, thank you. Of course. I'm really glad we've tuned into something there for you.

Thanks very much. My pleasure. Thank you again for bringing Arcadia and Company out. I think it's an incredible story. I can't wait to see where it's going and how it's going to end. I think that's very exciting. So thank you again for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies. Thank you.

All right. That is it for this week's episode. I have to thank Paul again for coming on. Again, the newly released series, Sasser State, can be found on comicsology or through IDWPublishing.com. For a complete list of Paul Cornell's work, be sure to visit him at Paul Cornell.com. If you haven't already, please take a moment to subscribe, write, and review somewhere in the skies on iTunes. This is the largest platform for podcasts, and the more subscribers we get, the more visible the show becomes to new listeners. We're on Twitter at SomewhereSkies, Instagram at SomewhereSkies pod, and to make any topic and guest suggestions, to read bonus articles, and to submit your own UFO sighting and encounters, please contact me through the website, somewhere in the skies.com.

I'll see you here next Monday. And remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching, somewhere in the skies. In The Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with Antica Productions and the Antica Podcast Network. To learn more, visit antica productions.com.