Review: High Strange

I believe in aliens.

Once upon a time, this may have been a statement that would have gotten me at best strange looks, or at worst a stay in an institution. Aliens, you know?

When you consider the mere chances of other life in the universe, it’s usually something that we can wrap our heads around. Movies and books alone have proved this is something humans can certainly fathom. It’s exciting on the one hand. Yet, the other side of the coin is the ultimate existential dilemma extraterrestrials pose.

If other life exists, if other intelligent life exists, and if they are more advanced than us; what does that mean?

High Strange explores these questions from an investigative reporter angle. From the minds that brought you Up and Vanished and Atlanta Monster we are given a peek into the search for extraterrestrial life. This is certainly one of those podcasts where a single episode can send you down a range of episodes. Each of these eight episodes hovers between forty and fifty minutes, with an immersive and chic production.

Sometimes, a podcast just sounds in fashion and edgy. High Strange definitely plays with this in this podcast - giving the narrative a particularly engaging background as we travel back in time.

Yes, to look at the alien question we have to go back in time. Further back than the year 2017 when the government released information about UFOS for the first time. We have to go back even further because honestly accounts of what we might now consider extraterrestrial activity can be seen as far back as maybe the 1700s or earlier.

So we have to go back in time, and eventually, we get to splicing in audio from many decades ago. Twisting in and out of these accounts, many of them familiar to those who have already explored these ideas is a through line of seeming impartiality. A throughline of “look at what we have, look at what we knew and what we now know”.

I don’t want to get into what impartiality is or isn’t, but I do think this podcast does a great job of finding that middle line as well as someone probably could with this subject in 2023. There is obviously a range of reactions to the alien question. Enthusiasm, general ambivalence, or downright fear. High Strange juggles enthusiasm and ambivalence well. Anyone who fears aliens probably won’t listen to this, so that’s a moot point.

Evidence both ways is presented, and honestly in the final episode Payne Lindsay does an exceptional job of summing up the whole season in a very profound way.
To find out for yourself listen to the podcast here.

If you like this podcast because you like space consider reading my reviews of NASA’s Curious Universe or The Last Soviet.

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