Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to

explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Are we truly alone in this universe?

This question can mean many different things based on the tone in which it's asked.

If asked in a tone of hope and wonder, it makes us reflect on the majesty of the universe,

infinite space and possibility among the stars and all that.

But it can also be asked in a tone of apprehension or fear.

Loneliness is comforting, in a sense, because that would mean that no intelligences beyond our

own are scrutinizing the planet from dark void of space.

Anxiety about extraterrestrial invasions is well over a century old. First, we look to the heavens

and saw gods. Then, as the Industrial Age took over post-enlight First, we looked to the heavens and saw gods. Then, as the

Industrial Age took over post-enlightenment, we looked to the heavens and saw another version of

ourselves. And in the H. G. Wells' book, The War of the Worlds, Britain at its colonial peak is

itself colonized by a force whose technology far strips their own. Even then, the fear of extraterrestrials was

just a fantasy. It wasn't until the mid-20th century that these fears seemed to be coming true.

First, the Roswell incident in 1947 triggered a wave of speculation about spacecraft from

another world. Then, over the ensuing decades, many individuals throughout the world started sharing

their own strange stories.

The earliest UFO encounters were spiritual, optimistic.

But starting in the 1960s, something changed in the character of these stories.

...