2025: A Banner Year for Aliens
Thanks for tuning back into the BeX Files: Goodbye to 2025 edition.
What an incredible year it’s been for aliens—and therefore the alien-obsessed.
We got possible biosignatures on Mars. We’ve got multiple new releases from legacy alien franchises like Superman, Alien: Earths, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Also, my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens came out in September, which is a great gift for the alien enthusiasts in your life. :)
Workman Publishing Company
Now, to tie the year up in a neat little extraterrestrial bow, Steven Spielberg has dropped the trailer for his forthcoming film Disclosure Day, due out next summer.
The title and general vibe of the trailer eerily echo the documentary The Age of Disclosure, which was released last month and explores claims from former military officials that the government is withholding evidence of aliens found on Earth. While it's not clear what Spielberg will bring to this genre he pioneered, we can be sure that we are in good hands with Emily Blunt, who has plenty of alien-wrangling experience from The Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and A Quiet Place (2018).
I’ve had the uncanny sense for years that the many diverse and multifaceted alien fandoms are converging like tributaries into the Main Stream. I’ve been lucky to have the opportunity to talk about this with lots of different alien enthusiasts over the past few months while promoting First Contact.
My favorite interview of all, with my dear friend Emanuel Maiberg, was released this week in the 404 Media Podcast. Emanuel shares a heterodox interest in aliens that encompasses their many meanings to different groups, and he asked such sharp questions, which made me laugh and think. We talked about what historical figures like Maimonides thought about aliens, and pondered whether Independence Day predicted 9-11. Here’s that conversation:
I also had a blast speaking with Danielle Mercy of the podcast The Rabbit Hole: Conspiracy Theories, who is an excellent authority on all manner of alien lore and conspiracy. She walked me through the backstory of Valiant Thor and some of her favorite visitation stories, and we also talked about Skinwalker Ranch, the long history of UFO sightings, and modern efforts to find life in the solar system and beyond. I really appreciated her curiosity about the scientific search for life, and her vast expertise on alien lore, which is a major blind spot for me. Here’s that conversation:
I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have these conversations with fellow alien obsessives, which I have found constructive and thought-provoking. My own background and skillset is to cover this topic through a scientific lens, focusing on fields like astrobiology, SETI, and exoplanetary characterization.
But it’s also been rewarding to talk with people who get hooked on aliens through other gateways, such as the decades of tantalizing footage of unidentified objects in the sky, or the roiling pantheon of theories about the possibility that aliens have visited Earth. One of my main goals with First Contact was to inspire discussions between alien enthusiasts from all backgrounds, but I didn’t realize just how much it would impact my own perspective.
Along those lines, I also wanted to share a new article I wrote for WIRED that further explores the steady rise in the belief in alien visitation among Americans, an under-the-radar trend that I first shared with subscribers of the BeX Files a few weeks ago. The experts I consulted suggested some interesting potential drivers behind this shift, including the mainstreaming of aliens and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) as a legitimate topic of public discussion.
Becky Ferreira
As we head into 2026, I’m hoping to keep building on these conversations by continuing to probe how science, culture, history, and belief shape our view and expectations about extraterrestrial life. The BeX Files will remain primarily alien-focused, but I will also start to expand it out to my other beats, and I would like to include new voices in the New Year as well. I’m also always game to hear from subscribers about your own thoughts about aliens, or anything else, and what types of stories interest you most. Feel free to drop me a line at thebxfiles@gmail.com.
The BeX Files will be on pause for two weeks over the break, but I’ll be back in your inboxes on Friday, January 9. Before peacing out for the year, I wanted to share two my two last big features of 2025.
The first, freshly out from The New York Times, is about the Museum of the Earth, an amazing local institution in Ithaca, N.Y., which I have had the great pleasure of regularly visiting for many years.
The museum and the Paleontological Research Institution, which is the organization that founded it in 2003, are at risk of closing due to a financial crisis. Museums are in a tough spot right now in general, especially in the United States, where severe federal cuts in funding are expected to hit the sector hard. If you're in a giving mood, consider supporting the Museum of the Earth, or whatever local museum or public institution you hold dear.
Last, I wanted to close out the year with a mega-list of the top scientific discoveries of the 21st century so far, with a few emerging stories to watch, which came out this week from National Geographic.
I am really grateful for the input I received from Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel-Prize-winning co-inventor of CRISPR, and France Córdova, the former director of the National Science Foundation, on this article.
I am big into celebrating the equinoxes and solstices, those seasonal inflection points that carry their own unique character. The winter solstice occurs on Sunday in the Northern hemisphere, while the Southern hemisphere will bask in the summer solstice. Being a North Earthling, I associate this holiday with the idea that the darkest days can inspire the warmest moments and brightest epiphanies. It was a real joy to round out this year—which has, let’s admit, been a rough ride for many—with a story about the impressive wiles and indefatiguable moxie of humanity.
As I say in First Contact, I want to believe—in aliens, yes, but in humans, too. With that sentiment in mind, I’m wishing you all a restive and festive end to the year. See you at the cosmic rest stop in 2026.
