Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview Mike Fiorito, whose novel For All We Know: A UFO Manifesto has its debut on April 7th, 2024.
How would you describe For All We Know - fact, fiction or something more complex?
It’s speculative fiction. While I intended the story to be relatable and read like a memoir, I wanted to have the liberty to express wildly imaginative ideas.
You have written seven books to date. How does this one relate to the others?
This book is more closely related to Falling from Trees and Mescalito Riding His White Horse, which were both more imaginative and speculative. That said, the book does relate back to the stories I’ve written about growing up in the inner boroughs of NYC in the seventies.
What made you decide to use a Speculative Fiction setting in For All We Know?
I didn’t want to be tied to facts. While some of the stories were based on actual events, I took significant liberties. For instance, I’ve never seen a UFO (except in my dreams).
What made you take an interest in UFOs, and how did that develop?
I’ve always been a science-fiction fan and have long thought that there must be other intelligent life in the universe. Reading Jeffrey Kripal’s The Flip, Diana Pasulka’s American Cosmic, and a slew of other books, opened my mind to the following: governments, such as the United States and others, have tasked agencies with investigating UFOs (while publicly denying this); a certain small percentage of the cases studied could not be explained; trained observers, such as pilots, have witnessed objects moving at speeds beyond our current capabilities and moving in a manner that is physically not possible given our current understanding of physics (the object moved sixty miles in a few seconds, leaving no exhaust plumes[1]); the pilot observations have been backed by multiple modalities of radar and other detection equipment; and the NYT 2017 article written by Leslie Kean.
Why do you think human interest in UFOs grew so much in the 20th century?
There have always been accounts of “unexplainable things seen in the skies” across cultures. There are published accounts of experiences documented by Indigenous cultures around the world, which Western societies have largely ignored. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Professor Emeritus at Montana State University, and an Indigenous American, has published a number of well-respected books on this subject.
Tell us something about your protagonist, Matteo Tarquini.
He’s named after my friend Andrea Tarquini, a musician who lives in Italy. While I definitely referenced autobiographical material to write the book, Matteo is not me. I wanted to make a point of showing Matteo to be a little dopey and incomplete in his knowledge. A flawed character is more likeable, perhaps more like the rest of us.
To what extent does the book discuss UFO cases, and how far is it about experiences of the transcendent?
I don’t really go into cases in For All We Know. I wanted to avoid the typical way in which UFO books are written and invite other people into the conversation. I wanted to ask more questions than offer answers. In my opinion, the UFO subject is a spiritual quest. Once you begin asking questions about the limits of science and the limits of knowledge, this opens you to the deepest aspects of what it is to be human, to have a mind, to be alive and so on.
Who do you think will enjoy For All We Know? Have you got a specific audience in mind?
From people who have read it, I’ve been told it’s like a “Holden Caulfield UFO themed” book. I hope that anyone who likes a good story will read it. I tried to put a lot of emphasis on the poetry of the language. Whether or not I was successful is up to the reader.
What are your thoughts about scepticism towards UFOs and other supernatural occurrences?
I understand their scepticism. However, I would say that, once you begin looking into the subject, it challenges your assumptions of science and cosmology. It’s not hard to believe that there are multiple civilizations, say twenty thousand, one hundred thousand and two million years ahead of us. Also, given our current understanding of physics, there could be other dimensions intersecting with ours that are invisible to us, given our current level of technology. In college I studied the Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Mind. Both of these subjects challenge our definitions of science and consciousness. For instance, Issac Newton’s ideas were groundbreaking. But his ideas don’t work at the subatomic level. Even Einstein stated that “God doesn’t play dice,” but quantum mechanics suggests otherwise.
While science has produced amazing results in the modern era, science is a moving target. We need to understand there may be ideas that are simply beyond our comprehension. Perhaps the UFO anomalies that are encountered can be explained by a future science that we don’t yet understand. That said, the anomalous phenomena that people experience seem to have intentionality. According to Commander David Fravor, who witnessed the "Tic Tac" UFO, it accelerated with intentionality, catching up to the pilots and zooming past them, playing cat and mouse. Also, pilots have a term called a cap point. In aviation parlance the cap point is agreed upon before a mission. It is something only they know, like a strategic triangulation point. At one point, David Fravor saw the Tic Tac object move to the cap point after rapidly accelerating past him, which was like the Phenomena saying: ‘I'm reading your mind.’ [2]
Why are humans preoccupied with the idea of alien visitors/beings from beyond the cosmos?
It seems odd that the universe would exist only for Earth-based life. It would seem that life elsewhere in the universe is highly probable, given the amount of stars (estimated one septillion, that’s only the ones we can observe!) and the amount of potential planets (estimated 2 trillion). How could this tiny blue dot be the only planet where life exists?
What are you working on at the moment?
A non-fiction book that explores the uncanny origins of music, why we make and need music.
What do you love to read, in relation to this subject?
I’ve loved books
by Jeffrey Kripal, Diana Pasulka, Alan Steinfeld, Whitley Streiber, and Kathleen
Marden.
Amazon
About Mike Fiorito:
Mike Fiorito is an editor, journalist and the award-winning author of eight genre-defying books: For All We Know, The Hated Ones, Falling from Trees, Sleeping with Fishes, Call Me Guido, Freud’s Haberdashery Habit, and Hallucinating Huxley. He was born in New York City and lives in Brooklyn with his family.
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