by D W Pasulka
AMERICAN COSMIC
AMERICAN COSMIC
UFOs, Religion, Technology
D. W. PASU L KA
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
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Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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© Oxford University Press 2019
Parts of Chapter Four have been adapted from D. W. Pasulka’s article
“The Fairy Tale is True”: Social Technologies of the Religious
Supernatural in Film and New Media in the Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, Volume 84, Issue 2, 1 June 2016, Pages 530–547.
Used with Permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pasulka, D. W., author.
Title: American cosmic : UFOs, religion, techonology.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015547 (print) | LCCN 2018047070 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190693497 (updf) | ISBN 9780190693503 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190692889 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Unidentified flying objects—Religious aspects. |
Unidentified flying objects in popular culture. | Life on other
planets—Religious aspects. | Extraterrestrial beings in popular culture.
Classification: LCC BL65.U54 (ebook) |
LCC BL65.U54 P37 2019 (print) | DDC 001.9420973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015547
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
American Cosmic is dedicated to Tyler.
“Almost two thousand years, and no new god!”
— F r i e d r i c h N i e t z s c h e
“The Internet is an alien life form.”
— Dav i d B ow i e
CONTENTS
Preface: A Tour of Silicon Val ey with Jacques
Val ee
ix
Acknowledgments
xiii
Introduction
1
1.
The Invisible Tyler D.
17
2.
James: Master of the Multiverse
51
3.
In the Field: The War Is Virtual, the Blood
Is Real
84
4.
When Star Wars Became Real: The
Mechanisms of Belief
120
5.
The Material Code: From the Disembodied
Soul to the Materiality of Quantum
Information
153
6.
The Human Receiver: Matter, Information,
Energy . . . Contact
185
7.
Real and Imaginary: Tyler D.’s Spiritual
Conversion in Rome
215
Conclusion: The Artifact
240
v i i i | C ON T E N T S
Notes
245
Glossary
259
Index
261
PREFACE
A Tour of Silicon Val ey
with Jacques Val ee
“These are the hil s of Silicon Valley. There are many secrets
in this valley.”
Jacques Vallee maneuvers his car expertly through the
daunting San Francisco Bay Area traffic, darting this way
and that. Large trucks and small cars barrel toward us on
the winding roads, and crashes are narrowly evaded. Every
twenty minutes I lift my shoulders, which are stuck to the
back of the car seat, and try to shake out the tension.
Jacques, father of the modern study of UFOs and an
early visionary of the internet, is giving me and my colleague,
Robbie Graham, a personal tour of his favorite geolocation,
Silicon Valley. We drive by places that loom large in the his-
tory of “the Valley.” He recal s the early days of the tech-
nology revolution: “They were on fire and purely democratic.
Pure scientists, fueled by discovery.” Jacques’s credentials are
intimidating. As an astronomer, he helped NASA create the
first detailed map of Mars. As a computer scientist with a
x | P R E FAC E
PhD from Northwestern University, he was one of the early
engineers of ARPANET, the Advanced Research Projects
Agency, a precursor of the internet. He is also a successful
venture capitalist, funding startups of innovative technologies
that have changed the daily lives of millions of people. He is a
prolific author. He is probably most famous for being a con-
sultant to Steven Spielberg on the movie Close Encounters of
the Third Kind (1977). The scientist character in the movie,
played by French actor François Truffaut, is based on Jacques.
Jacques has perhaps done more for the field of ufology than
anyone else in its short history, and yet he cal s the study of
UFOs his hobby.
This is the orthodox history of Jacques’s life and work.
His unorthodox history is equal y interesting. He worked
with scientists affiliated with the Stanford Research Institute,
now SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research
institute in Menlo Park. The group’s activities are largely un-
known to the public, but declassified documents from the
1970s and 1980s indicate that it was a research site for the ex-
traordinary. Jacques did his early work on the internet under
a program that, as Jeffrey Kripal writes, was probably called
“Augmentation of the Human Intellect.”
This research was happening at the same time and
in the same place as studies of remote viewing, precog-
nition, and extrasensory perception. These esoteric skil s
were studied under a classified program called The Stargate
Project, funded by the US military in partnership with the
SRI. The hope was that the skil s and talents of people who
were natural y psychic could be developed and harnessed
for the purposes of gathering intelligence. In the course of
this research, the psychic viewers reportedly uncovered un-
intended and surprising targets, like UFOs. The participants
P R E FA C E | x i
in the program
also reported that they could travel through
space, to the moon, and to other planets, like Mars. In other
words, the program allegedly developed, intentional y or not,
psychic cosmonauts.
Perhaps unknown to Jacques and the researchers of
the SRI, psychic travel had long been reported. Psychic
cosmonauts like the eighteenth- century philosopher/ theolo-
gian Emanuel Swedenborg crop up throughout the history of
religions. Swedenborg claimed that, with the assistance of an
angel, he had visited Mercury, Mars, Venus, and the moon.
He claimed to have spoken to beings on those planets and
he published his experiences in a book, Life on Other Planets
(1758). The activities of the cosmonauts of the SRI may have
resembled the interstel ar adventures of Swedenborg, but
their goals could not have been more different. They hoped
to operationalize the knowledge they acquired about ter-
restrial targets; remote viewing was one of many methods
of attempted data collection. These efforts to create human
portals to other planets were taking place under the same
auspices and at the same time as technologies of connectivity
like the internet.
As we spun down the highway, I recognized the
neighborhoods of my childhood, but I saw them now through
Jacques’s eyes. The streets, the smell of the eucalyptus trees,
parks, schools, cafes— all looked new to me, shining with the
al ure of mystery. As much as I wanted to, I never got up the
nerve to ask Jacques exactly what he meant by the secrets of
Silicon Valley. But on that drive I caught a glimpse into the
exciting ideology and philosophy behind the revolution— its
zeitgeist.
If Jacques were an essay, he would be “The Question
Concerning Technology” by the philosopher Martin
x i i | P R E FAC E
Heidegger. This essay, dubbed impenetrable by many readers,
nevertheless offers several intriguing observations about the
relationship between humans and technology. As Heidegger
saw it, humans do not understand the essence of technology.
Instead, they are blinded by it and view it simply as an instru-
ment. The interpretation of technology as pure instrumen-
tality was wrong, he said. The Greek temple, for the Greeks,
housed the gods, and as such it was a sacred “frame.” Similarly,
the medieval cathedral embodied and housed the presence
of God for medieval Europeans. Heidegger suggested that
the human relationship with technology is religiouslike, that
it is possible for us to have a noninstrumental relationship
with technology and engage ful y with what it real y is: a
saving power. Jacques Vallee is ful y aware of the revolu-
tion that is technology. Although he most likely never read
Heidegger’s essay, Jacques’s depiction of Silicon Valley as the
home of the new resonates with Heidegger’s vision of tech-
nology as bringing to birth a new era of human experience,
a new epoch.
The symbol for this new epoch is the UFO. Carl Jung
called the UFO a technological angel. This is a book about
UFOs and technology, but also about a group of people who
believe anomalous technology functions as creative inspi-
ration. I found these people. In the 1970s, when Jacques
consulted on Close Encounters, he encouraged Spielberg to
portray the more complex version of the story, that is, that
the phenomenon is complex and might not be extraterres-
trial at al . But Spielberg went with the simple story, the one
everybody would understand. He said, “This is Hol ywood.”
This book does not tell the simple story, but I believe it is a
story anyone can understand.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to those who helped me in the process of
writing this book, which has been an adventure from the be-
ginning. More than an adventure, the research has brought
me into a deep relationship with the forces that motivated
me, as a child and young adult, to study religion.
I am indebted to Jeffrey Kripal and Michael Murphy
for supporting my effort to explore religion and technology.
Jeff has been a great mentor to many scholars whose work
seeks to grapple with religious experience, and his integrity
and courage have innovated the study of religion in ground-
breaking ways. His work continues to be an inspiration to me.
I would like to thank my editor, Cynthia Read, whose
suggestions and book recommendations were always ser-
endipitous and relevant. Early on in my research Cynthia
suggested I read Dr. George M. Young’s The Russian
Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and
His Followers. I received the book as I was researching the
x i v | AC K NOW L E D G M E N T S
history of the American space program, and as I interviewed
scientists whose intimate relationships with rockets and sat-
ellites could have been the content for the next chapter in
Dr. Young’s book. Dr. Young’s work on the esoteric traditions
of the Russian space program was so relevant to my work that
my title, American Cosmic, is an homage to his brilliant book.
I am indebted to Christopher Bledsoe and his wife,
Yvonne, and to the whole Bledsoe family. Their kindness
and hospitality allowed me a peek into the blessings and
hardships that an experience can produce on a person and
his or her family members. I wish to thank Chad Hayes and
Carey Hayes, whom I worked with as a religion consultant
for The Conjuring franchise. They were open to my academic
proclivities and allowed me to view the making of a media
production about the supernatural from the inside.
Whitley Strieber’s work and friendship helped me un-
derstand aspects of the phenomenon that are not easily un-
derstood. Whitley’s brilliant commentaries, insights, help,
and moral support were instrumental in helping me finish
the book manuscript. I would like to thank my colleagues
Brenda Denzler, who donated her library of UFO- related
materials to me, and Dr. David Halperin, whose inspiring
work on the topic of UFOs is brilliant and helped me think
through my own work. I am grateful to Rey Hernandez and
to astronaut Edgar Mitchell for their insights and helpful-
ness with my section on quantum physics and Rey’s expe-
rience. Nancy Mullis and Kary Mullis were both kind, very
helpful, and deeply insightful. I wish to thank them for their
friendship. Tanya Luhrmann’s work and comments were
very helpful and always brilliant.
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S | x v
I would like to thank Jacques Vallee, whose work and
insights permeate this book. My thanks to him cannot be
overstated, as his ideas about the phenomenon and tech-
nology have proved to be prescient. I owe so much to my
anonymous friends, Tyler D. and James. They possess a
burning desire to know the mystery, and I was infected with
their enthusiasm.
I am indebted to researche
rs Scott Browne, Allison
Kruse, and David Stinnett. Scott’s Facebook page, In the
Field, provides a forum for serious videographers to vet their
captures, and Scott, to his credit, has kept the forum free from
the vitriol that accompanies much discussion within ufology.
I owe thanks to my friend Robbie Graham, who early in my
research helped me think through a lot of the theoretical
aspects of the phenomenon, and to Greg Bishop, whose own
work on the topic helped me to understand the climate of the
research. George Hansen’s work was instrumental in helping
me understand the “trickster” element of the phenomenon.
Dr. Patty Turrisi, my colleague and friend, provided moral
support and helpful comments. Dr. Dean Radin’s work, and
his comments, were helpful and always fascinating. I met
many virtual but nonetheless real friends during this re-
search, including David Metcalfe, whose insights into dig-
ital technology have been instrumental to putting together
several helpful pieces of the puzzle. Christopher Laursen has
been a wonderful conversation partner throughout the expe-
rience. My students have inspired me with their intelligence
and bravery. They include Jose Herrera, Steve Nunez, Lauryn
Justice, Bryan Hendershot, Eugene O’Dea, and so many
others. My student Alex Karas was instrumental in helping
x v i | AC K NOW L E D G M E N T S
me as a research assistant, and I am especial y thankful for
his help.
I want to thank my wonderful family, especial y my
little brother. As latchkey kids we used to sit in our living
room with the neighbor kids watching rerun episodes of
the Twilight Zone, never anticipating that one day, we would
wake up in an actual episode.
AMERICAN COSMIC
INTRODUCTION
When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes
also into you.
— F r i e d r i c h N i e t z s c h e
AS I FINISH WRITING THIS INTRODUCTION, the television
series 60 Minutes has just aired an interview with billionaire
Robert Bigelow, of Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow founded his