The novel’s emphasis on the limitations of any attempted secret government, finally, connects specifically to our peculiar U.F.O. discourse, where we suddenly have a government whistle-blower claiming knowledge of a 90-year conspiracy and, apparently, a chorus of anonymous sources encouraging belief. If there were an alien cover-up, though, I would imagine it would look more like the secrets held by N.I.C.E. in “That Hideous Strength.” Crucially, almost nobody in Lewis’s invented organization has any idea that in the inner ring they’re contacting the dark powers. In his account, and the one that’s implied by other anonymous leaks, you don’t have to get that far up the chain of command before somebody will take you aside and say, Look, we’ve got alien ships, lots of alien ships, you wouldn’t believe how many alien ships.

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Persons: Lewis’s, That’s, we’ve, Edward Snowden Organizations: N.I.C.E, humanitarianism, . Locations: China, Russia