in 1891 when thomas blott alleges that a man from mars appeared in the kitchen of his rural home and fully endorsed late 19th century democratic socialist utopianism, which was nice for thomas blott to hear since he was already a believer in such things, or in 1896-1897 where you see a series of unexplained airships seen in the skies over the west coast. there's a really interesting variety of stories that come out about these airships. some of them claim that they see humanoid beings inside pedaling to make it go, which if that is a spaceship that is a lot of pedaling. some allegedly call out to the airship as it goes over and the airship calls back down to say that they are from mars. all right. even in the 19th century people are very fixated on the idea of life from mars. but there's these ideas, right? there is this long history, this long concern about contact with extraterrestrial life, and extraterrestrial life visiting us here on earth. but when we talk about modern ufo conspiracism, what we're really talking about is the post-world war ii era. these conspiracies paint an al