{"id":67966,"date":"2014-03-12T14:30:44","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=67966"},"modified":"2014-03-12T15:30:04","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T19:30:04","slug":"micromegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Microm\u00e9gas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alien_pixel\"<\/a>

Photo: Axel Pixel, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials. For much of my life, I\u2019ve had a faint aversion to aliens. I didn\u2019t like movies or X-Files<\/i> episodes that dealt with them; I avoided science-fiction stories featuring life on other planets; I couldn\u2019t even get into the campy, genre-defying sidekick on Futurama<\/em>. (And yes, we all understand that from the time of Voltaire, and later Wells, the alien invasion narrative has been an allegory for the threat of military hegemony\u2014from Eastern powers, specifically.)<\/p>\n

This was not about whether or not aliens existed. If pressed, I guess I would have said probably not, but that wasn\u2019t even the issue: they could have existed, and shown up, and done a bunch of amateur proctology, and I\u2019d still have been averse. From what I could gather, aliens had no sense of humor, and no interests besides probing and machinery.<\/p>\n

Then I was watching Gravity<\/em>, and I thought, Hmm, even though these are pretend astronauts, I could never be an astronaut. And then I thought, But maybe most of the aliens on other planets couldn\u2019t be astronauts either! And then came the real revelation: Maybe the aliens we meet are just the nerds of outer space! <\/p>\n

And now when I think about other planets, they are maybe full of people baking or reading or listening to music, and interested in genealogy and history and puzzles and maybe even gardening. Maybe plenty of them are blowhards, or have really bad senses of direction, and can\u2019t even drive. Perhaps sometimes their children die and their hearts break. And then I feel a great warmth for them. And more than that, I feel a great sympathy for the intergalactic travelers we meet, who are so sadly obsessed with probing, and seem to have such terrible social skills.<\/p>\n

No one seemed very interested, or seemed to think this was much of a breakthrough. But, like generations before me, I had found myself obscurely comforted by a solipsistic vision of large, scary forces. In his article \u201cThe Meek Shall Inherit the Earth,\u201d academic James D. Stone terms the traditional fifties-era sci-fi plot line \u201ca realm in which any attack could be repulsed \u2026 a comforting talisman of American strength.\u201d With the recent discussion of \u201cnew cold wars,\u201d it was tempting to wonder if current events might give rise to an increase in reported alien sightings or traditionally structured invasion narratives. Failing to find any particular evidence of this, I went to the source: The Weekly World News<\/em>, who has always given comprehensive coverage to the doings of P\u2019lod, his intervention in geopolitics, and alien life generally. There was, indeed, a relatively recent piece of intel from their ET correspondents. \u201cSTUDY PROVES MOST ALIENS ARE\u00a0DWARFS<\/a>,\u201d it said. Which, I guess, sort of proves Stone\u2019s point.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials. For much of my life, I\u2019ve had a faint aversion to aliens. I didn\u2019t like movies or X-Files episodes that dealt with them; I avoided science-fiction stories featuring life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[13175,13176,13177,13179,10595,13178],"class_list":["post-67966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-aliens","tag-extraterrestrials","tag-gravity","tag-james-d-stone","tag-nerds","tag-the-weekly-world-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMicrom\u00e9gas by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 12, 2014 \u2013 Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Microm\u00e9gas by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 12, 2014 \u2013 Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-12T18:30:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-12T19:30:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"609\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"305\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Microm\u00e9gas\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-12T18:30:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-12T19:30:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/\"},\"wordCount\":508,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Aliens\",\"extraterrestrials\",\"Gravity\",\"James D. Stone\",\"nerds\",\"the Weekly World News\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/\",\"name\":\"Microm\u00e9gas by Sadie Stein\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-12T18:30:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-12T19:30:04+00:00\",\"description\":\"March 12, 2014 \u2013 Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Microm\u00e9gas\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\",\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sadie Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Microm\u00e9gas by Sadie Stein","description":"March 12, 2014 \u2013 Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Microm\u00e9gas by Sadie Stein","og_description":"March 12, 2014 \u2013 Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-03-12T18:30:44+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-03-12T19:30:04+00:00","og_image":[{"width":609,"height":305,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Sadie Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sadie Stein","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/"},"author":{"name":"Sadie Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9"},"headline":"Microm\u00e9gas","datePublished":"2014-03-12T18:30:44+00:00","dateModified":"2014-03-12T19:30:04+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/"},"wordCount":508,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png","keywords":["Aliens","extraterrestrials","Gravity","James D. Stone","nerds","the Weekly World News"],"articleSection":["Our Daily Correspondent"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/","name":"Microm\u00e9gas by Sadie Stein","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png","datePublished":"2014-03-12T18:30:44+00:00","dateModified":"2014-03-12T19:30:04+00:00","description":"March 12, 2014 \u2013 Many of my closest friends are sick of hearing my \u201ctheory of aliens.\u201d This is not a political stance, but rather a strong opinion about extraterrestrials.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Alien_pixel.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/micromegas\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Microm\u00e9gas"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9","name":"Sadie Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sadie Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67966"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67998,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67966\/revisions\/67998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}