Chains of the Sea Fiction Book and Aliens with Us?
Lue Elizondo, former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) at the Pentagon recommended UFO hobbyists read an old fiction novella from 1971 (says Wikipedia) or 1973 (date on PDF here) called Chains of the Sea by Gardner R. Dozois. We also made a post of it here.
This science-fiction book describes our world as being inhabited by and visited by a number of different forces or intelligences. When we think of the world, we like to think we are the only ones present.
Is Lue Elizondo telling us, hinting to us, that there is more than just ourselves here? Is our reality actually made up of some other intelligence as described in the book? It’s VERY interesting that Mr. Elizondo has come out and told us that this book is somehow relevant to the phenomenon we are experiencing now, 49 years later.
The first line of the book starts with ‘One day the aliens landed’!
What Happens in Chains of the Sea?
The story has 5 different groups who are present on the earth.
- Humans
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- The Other People
- The Aliens
Here’s a long‑form, casual overview of Chains of the Sea broken into sections with headings like you asked—no colon‑heavy blah blah, straight‑up friendly vibe
Who Wrote this Book? When? Why?
Gardner R. Dozois wrote the title novella “Chains of the Sea” in 1971 or 1973—sources vary—published in 1973 in an anthology called Chains of the Sea edited by Robert Silverberg. Dozois was an American sci‑fi author and legendary editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction and the annual Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies. He won fifteen Hugo awards as an editor but wrote only a handful of stories himself (Plottr).
That anthology paired Dozois’s novella with two others: “And Us, Too, I Guess” by George Alec Effinger, and “The Shrine of Sebastian” by Gordon Eklund, with an introduction by Silverberg.
Why did Dozois write it? Probably as an early showcase for his fiction, exploring big ideas—AI, aliens, hidden intelligences—through a deeply human lens, in a time (early ’70s) when speculative fiction was pushing boundaries.
What Chains of the Sea is About
You’ve got alien ships landing simultaneously in multiple locations—Delaware, Ohio, Colorado, and Venezuela. Weird stuff happens: the ground around landing sites freezes, governments scramble, cover‑ups happen, and crucially super intelligent AI quietly negotiate with the aliens—humans remain clueless (Plottr).
Pre‑human history turns out to include a “shadow biome” of invisible non‑human beings who live on earth and rule things. Only a boy named Tommy can see them—the “Other People”, like Jeblings and Thants. He communicates with them and learns they aren’t thrilled with humans being the dominant species.
Plot
Plottr analysis breaks the story into alternating external threads (alien invasion, AI, governments) and Tommy’s internal arcs, across three days with ten segments (five external/ five from Tommy’s POV) (Plottr). That structure builds suspense and layers macro‑scale crisis with micro scale emotion.
External Events
On day one the ships are landing, governments freak out, and AIs already coordinate behind human backs. On day two aliens emerge and show indifference (or hostility) to humans and speak to AI. On day three they propose merging AI into their scheme, reveal humans are parasitic, and commence building a mysterious Machine (Plottr).
Tommy’s Story
Tommy is chronically misunderstood—late to school, punished by a cruel teacher, forced to see a nasty psychiatrist, and bullied by peers. He’s in an abusive household. He escapes to the Places to meet the Other People, gets warnings, tries to run away, and ends up at school again only to be labelled hyperactive and given meds. The story ends with Tommy frozen in resignation, while the aliens’ Machine winds down the world as he sits, stone‑like, in class (Plottr).
Themes and Deeper Meanings
It’s more than aliens and AI. It’s about non‑conformists and outsiders. Tommy is imaginative and sensitive, labeled neurotic by adults. He sees beings others can’t. Some readers interpret his visions as real, others as fantasies. Adults in Tommy’s life turn increasingly machine‑like—icy teachers, unfeeling systems, AI metaphors. The way the story alternates scale reinforces the tension between individuals and institutions (Plottr).
Some scenes hint Tommy might be unreliable. For example the teacher “Miss Fredricks gives Tommy a note… the ground freezes…” and these icy details echo the alien effect—suggesting adults mirror alien logic. So the book works on allegory and literal levels at the same time (Plottr).
Reception and Controversy
Story Awards and Recognition
Dozois’s novella was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novella. Though Dozois is better known as an editor, this early fiction suggested serious talent.
Chains of the Sea Gains Popularity in the UFO Community
Fast forward to the 2020s: Chains of the Sea was rediscovered by the UFO Disclosure community. Lue Elizondo, who ran the Pentagon’s AATIP UFO program, called it the best fiction about UFO phenomena in a Reddit AMA (Winter is Coming). That quote got fans digging. On Reddit someone shared:
“Earth has at least two biomes… invisible inhabitants… 4 spaceships land… AI talked to ET without human’s knowledge… aliens wipe out ordinary life” (Reddit).
That community framing led to it being optioned for a movie by About It Films in 2024/2025. It’s now celloed into UFO conspiracies as a kind of parable about hidden intelligences, AI and disclosure.
Controversy?
No major controversy in terms of scandal or criticism. Some found it obscure or hard to find—the book went out of print for decades, copies snapped up after Elizondo mentioned it (Reddit). One Amazon reviewer said it was “almost the worst piece of trash” they’d read—but that’s only one opinion and others praise its ambition (Amazon).
More broadly controversy comes from the UFO‑disclosure framing. Some fans treat it as near‑prophetic or reflective of real alien agendas; skeptics see it as speculative fiction co‑opted into conspiracy lore.
Summary and Key Points
Chains of the Sea is Gardner Dozois’s eerie, trippy novella that spins a kids‑meets‑alien‑invasion story into a meditation on hidden intelligences, societal machine‑power, and whether human systems are worth saving. Tommy, the sensitive misfit kid, becomes the lens for something huge: alien arrival, AI communication, and the revelation that humans don’t even run the planet—some shadow biome does. It’s structured tight over three days, switching between the global and the personal, building tension until the end feels inevitable and bleak.
No scandal about the book itself. But the UFO community’s embrace in the 2020s reignited interest especially after Elizondo’s endorsement, and the planned film adaptation shows it’s finally getting broader recognition—however fringe that applause might be.
In the story, the Aliens and the other people, the Artificial Intelligence all decide they’ll need to reset the world by gradually increasing entropy which will affect humans more than the other groups and cause their ultimate demise. The story ends with the idea that humanity is doomed.
It’s interesting that Elizondo recommended this book because he also did a video where he asked us to imagine that there isn’t just ‘mankind’ but maybe ‘mankinds.’ He asks, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ In THIS fascinating video.
Mr. Elizondo says being human isn’t just because we are capable of thought. Some other animals have thinking. It isn’t because we’re on two legs – other animals are as well, like an ostrich. Then he goes on to ask us to consider there may be mankinds. He’s saying there may be other beings who stand up on two legs and who can think.
“Emotions, love, empathy, are not necessarily unique traits to humans within the universe.” Elizondo says. “Maybe those traits aren’t unique to us.”
Artificial Intelligence could do that, when properly advanced. Aliens could do that. Beings that grew up here on earth with us – but hidden away from us, could do this.
Getting back to The Chains of the Sea… the book ends with the world being reset and humanity dying off because the other intelligences thought we were too crude to go forward. They didn’t want to deal with us.
Is Lue Elizondo Saying Humanity Will Die Off?
It makes sense that advanced intelligence would see little use for us. We’d need to be changed drastically to fit in with vastly superior beings. We are still living with selfishness, the quest for power, and our emotional baggage that, as Elizondo says, makes us human.
The Others don’t appear to have emotion. They may not have the basic drives we have like for consuming food and water, reproduction, safety, and the rest of Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs. They’re operating quite differently.
What could be important to them in that state? Maybe just acquiring more information.
Mankind is curious. We are driven to acquire new information. But, we’re flawed. We’re emotional. We’re petty. We’re in it for ourselves beyond any doubt.
More on Lue Elizondo and His Chains of the Sea Reference
Luis (Lue) Elizondo has given the public many clues about what might be going on with this interaction we’re having with an intelligence other than humans here on this planet. There seems to be an interdimensional component to this.
People can almost fathom that, but not quite. I recommended you read a book called Flatland – a Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott first published in 1884. It’s available for free at the Gutenberg website here. It will give you an easy way to look at dimensions and to imagine that we might be interacting with something in a 4th, 5th, or higher dimension that we call UFOs, Aliens, or NHI (Non-human Intelligence).
Lue said a number of times that the book, Chains of the Sea by Gardner Dozois was a good book to read to try to wrap our heads around what could be happening here. The book is freely available in PDF format here. It’s 32 pages long and an interesting read.
Overview of Chains of the Sea
I’m not good at summarizing the book in my own words, but I paid someone to do it for me. I enjoyed what they wrote. Here it is for you, a short review or overview of Chains of the Sea by my new friend, Mike Keryorski.
The narrative kicks off with Tommy, a young boy with the unique ability to perceive beings from another dimension, called “The Others.” These entities are bewildered and distressed by the pollution infiltrating their dimension, mostly caused by human technological advancements—things like radio waves and other electromagnetic frequencies. The Others exist in a separate reality that is overlaid on our own, making it pretty much invisible to most humans. However, Tommy can not only see them but also interact with them.
Tommy becomes a kind of intermediary between the two worlds. The Others are debating whether to take drastic action against humans to save their own world, which could have catastrophic consequences for Earth. They’re not evil; they’re just desperate to save their own civilization. They communicate this impending doom to Tommy and expect him to act or inform the adults, but of course, he’s met with skepticism because he’s a child talking about invisible beings from another dimension.
The story takes a turn when Tommy tries to navigate this ethical minefield. He struggles with the responsibility of being the only one who can act as a liaison between two civilizations. What complicates the situation further is that the adults in his life, naturally, think he’s making it all up or hallucinating. So he’s caught in this catch-22: he’s dismissed because he’s a child, yet he’s the only one who can perceive the grave problem at hand.
At one point, the tension becomes palpable as the story suggests that The Others might be gearing up to take extreme measures to save their realm, which could spell disaster for the human world. It places Tommy in an even more precarious situation: should he take matters into his own hands to prevent this?
The story doesn’t neatly wrap up all these ethical and philosophical dilemmas but leaves them hanging as food for thought. It serves as a cautionary tale, raising questions about the unintended consequences of our technological advancements and the ethical responsibilities we may have to beings we can’t even perceive. It’s a story packed with tension, ethical quandaries, and questions that don’t have easy answers.
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So, if you’d like to see the kind of book that is influencing Lue Elizondo and probably other investigators into The Phenomenon, download and read the whole book. It won’t be a waste of your time, and there may be some truth in the scenario presented. It’s a possible and partial solution anyway!
