"A.D. After Disclosure" by Richard Dolan

If you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, aliens were confirmed by a high-ranking whistleblower in front of Congress and under oath. Being a fan of futurism and "unimaginable" things (see "Imaginable" by Jane McGonigal), my first question after the disclosure was, "What would happen next?" Should I buy weeks worth of supplies, guns, and ammo? Would there be panic? How would history change? How would the world change?

So I went down the rabbit hole to find fiction and non-fiction on what could change. Anything would suffice because the concept itself is somewhat "blocked" in my mind, and I can't go any further than the obvious "Oh my God, pyramids could indeed be built by aliens!" Fortunately, by pure chance, a random person on the Internet recommended Richard Dolan's book — and I'm ever so grateful!

Having researched and written on aliens a lot, Richard has a somewhat balanced point of view about the topic. The author doesn't go too deep into speculation yet presents the evidence we have on hand. Dolan presents various scenarios that could happen "after the disclosure." Witnessing the media blockade of the news and the overall indifference of society toward the topic and, at the same time, reading about this exact scenario in a decade-old book gave me the chills. I'm glad that the author understands the concept of the exponential proliferation of change and suggests a slow in-the-beginning and ever-speeding-up blueprint of what would happen.

But I'm cautious about using the word "would" here because what the author described is happening now. Anyway, from what it looks like, we aren't heading toward the collapse of civilization, so I had to return all the supplies, guns, and ammo to the local Costco again.

However, like in the "Imaginable" book, it is always better to try to "live through" the shock before it happens — back then, people who went through the exercises on the global pandemic before it happened coped better. Similarly, you might find yourselves less surprised after reading Richard's book.

One of the most exciting ideas from the book was about how we have so much more evidence of aliens than of, for instance, string theory. Yet, the string theory is respected, but aliens are dismissed. I also feel ashamed that I haven't seen this before. Tens of millions of people have seen the aliens, and I was still ignoring the evidence for no reason.

I find myself, again, in a weird state. I want to discuss the disclosure with everyone around me — but I see that people take me for another nutjob. Similarly to GPT4, which I use daily, people still don't get the magnitude of what's happening.

And again, this book was written more than a decade ago. This fact does not stop amazing me.