Thinking about the Impossible
Miracles, apparitions, anomalous observations, and unexplained experiences — phenomena that resist prevailing explanatory frameworks — have long served as testing grounds for how we know what we know. A two-day interdisciplinary symposium on how societies define, contest, and adjudicate the boundaries of the real.
Where the impossible is made, unmade, and governed
This symposium brings together leading scholars from the humanities and social sciences, alongside scientific, legal, and policy perspectives, to situate today's debates about anomalous experience within much longer traditions of interpreting extraordinary events.
Claims of impossibility function as stress tests: they push social and cultural systems, and the knowledge bases underlying them, to their limits. Historically, religious authorities built formal procedures to evaluate miraculous claims; scientific bodies developed protocols for distinguishing anomaly from error; legal systems continue to wrestle with admissible evidence when events resist ordinary explanation. Recent waves of unidentified aerial incursions — closing airports, prompting official investigation — are only the latest chapter.
Rather than adjudicating any particular claim, the symposium asks how institutions and societies negotiate uncertainty, authority, and evidence — from early modern ecclesiastical tribunals to contemporary legislative hearings — and what that negotiation reveals about power, credibility, and the structures of myth and narrative that hold a culture together.
- What role have anomalies played in pushing science forward?
- Who draws the boundary between legitimate and problematic knowledge claims?
- What makes for a paradigm case of the impossible — and which are seen as flawed?
Sponsors
Thinking about the Impossible is made possible by the following supporters.
We are grateful to the Society for UAP Studies for its generous support of the symposium, which helps fund speaker travel and the event itself. SUAPS will also host a panel discussion featuring several of its members, who will present some of the Society’s recent initiatives.
Convened by
With additional help from
Speakers
Scholars joining from subjects including religious studies, history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, law, and astronomy.
Schedule
The full agenda is being finalized. Session times and titles will be posted here as they're confirmed.
Jeff Kripal joins us remotely to set the stage on how to think impossibly, along the lines of his recent book How to Think Impossibly. Refreshments will be served for those attending in person; details to follow.
A note on the name of our conference: the modern usage of the term largely stems from Kripal's seminal Authors of the Impossible. The symposium was very nearly “History of the Impossible,” after Carlos Eire's They Flew: A History of the Impossible. Phil Smith, joining from Sociology, suggested broadening the scope to “Thinking about…” — and only months later did it dawn on us that we had landed on a permutation of Kripal's more recent book.
Join us
Let us know you'd like to join. Sign up for updates.
We're aiming to convene a diverse group of thinkers, but attendance will be limited by space, and we'll prioritize scholars, students, archivists, and researchers. Submitting the form isn't a confirmed spot — it puts you on our list so we can do our best to include you.
We'll follow up 6–10 weeks out with more specific registration details, once we have a clearer sense of demand.
I'm Interested →Watch later or remotely
Select sessions will be recorded and made available online, pending speakers' permission. We're also exploring livestreaming — sign up via the interest form above if you'd like that option.
Get in touch
For accessibility requests, press inquiries, sponsorship inquiries, or general questions:
impossible2026@yale.edu