Decades ago, six-year-olds Alex and Ana vanished for 36 hours while on vacation in Palm Springs.
They returned unharmed, but where they were and what happened to them was unexplainable, igniting the media and country in a firestorm of conspiracy theories. The event forged a bond between Alex and Ana, lasting through their adolescence until the never-ending spectacle of their disappearance tears them apart.
Present day: a mysterious transmission--a signal from the solar system is detected and growing stronger, interrupting communications and satellites, and prompting Alex to reunite with Ana. What is the signal, and does it have anything to do with their childhood disappearance?
This is the story behind writer Meg Charlton’s debut novel, Voyagers, a wholly original story about friendship, family, the reliability of memory and the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
In a recent What We’re Reading interview, Meg Charlton revealed that the idea for the story began in 2015 while she was part of a documentary film crew in Roswell, New Mexico, renowned for an alleged 1947 UFO crash.
She explained, “Part of what inspired me was hearing the stories of different experiencers and also seeing the conflicting poles of skeptic and believer and realizing that both sides can cling to this very dogmatic vision of the world, this very rigid narrative about what did or didn't happen.”
Because the characters Alex and Ana were very young when they had their experience, the reliability of memory is called into question as they grow older. Charlton noted that this was a space she wanted to play in as a writer.
“We all have these memories, especially from early childhood, that diverge with or conflict with those of the people that we love and the people who supposedly went through those experiences with us. You know, you can grow up in the same house and yet end up with completely different interpretations of what that experience was like. And so I think I was really interested to explore that incredibly common and basic reality of the unreliability of all of our memories through the experience of the experiencers, through these people who are really called to account for their memories because the things they describe kind of push at the edges of consensus reality,” she said.
While the disappearance and relationship between Alex and Ana take center stage in Voyagers, the story has elements of science fiction, with the signal and the speculation that extraterrestrial contact has been made.
On our ongoing fascination with extraterrestrial life, Charlton noted, “I think that so much of the allure of UFOs is about wanting to recognize and sort of see Earth from the outside. At least that is for me, to sort of see it the way the Artemis crew saw it, see it the way the Earthrise photo saw it, sort of recognize that we are this dust mote suspended in a sunbeam, this little pale blue dot, and to kind of see ourselves the way that an alien might, and to see our specialness, even as we would recognize that we aren't unique and we aren't alone.”
Learn more about Voyagers and writer Meg Charlton on her website, which includes a Voyagers playlist.
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