American Cosmic
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company, which specializes in manufactured space equip-
ment, mostly with his own funding in 1998. Due to the reli-
ability and safety of Bigelow Aerospace’s equipment, NASA
and other space companies use Bigelow’s space habitats and
other equipment in their explorations and experiments in
space. In the interview, Bigelow boldly claimed that aliens, or
nonhuman intelligences, are interacting with humans, and
have been for a long time.
“Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in
UFOs and aliens?” asked interviewer Lara Logan. “You don’t
worry that some people will say, ‘Did you hear that guy? He
sounds like he’s crazy’?”
“I don’t give a damn. I don’t care,” Bigelow replied. “It’s
not going to make a difference. It’s not going to change the
reality of what I know.”1
I was not surprised by Bigelow’s statements. They are
typical of the many scientist- believers I have met since
I began my research in 2012. Since that time, I have come
2 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
to know millionaires and billionaires and successful inno-
vative scientists who believe in and study the phenomenon.
This was the first of several surprising revelations about the
UFO phenomenon. People like Stephen Hawking are wrong
when they state, as Hawking did in his 2008 TED Talk, “I
am discounting reports of UFOs. Why would they appear
to only cranks and weirdos?”2 The lie has been that belief in
UFOs is associated with those on the “fringe”— “cranks and
weirdos,” in Hawking’s words. The truth is just the opposite.
This book is about contemporary religion, using as a
case study the phenomenon known as the UFO. It is also
about technology. These may seem like completely unrelated
topics, but they are intimately connected. They are connected
because social and economic infrastructures shape the ways
in which people practice religions. A historical and uncon-
troversial example is the impact of the printing press on the
Christian tradition. The mass production of Bibles in the
common languages of the people soon gave rise to the doc-
trine of Sola Scriptura, or Scripture Alone, according to which
scripture is the only reliable and necessary guide for Christian
faith and practice—a foundational principle of the Protestant
Reformation. As technologies shift infrastructures, religious
practices and habits are changed.
Beyond documenting how technological infrastructure
shapes religious practices and beliefs, the UFO is considered
by believers to be advanced technology. Like the Spiritualists
of the nineteenth century, believers see technology as a portal
or a frequency shift that allows humans to connect to other
minds, human or extraterrestrial, as well as to places outside
of the current understanding of space- time.3 Therefore, not
only is the technological infrastructure the basis for wide-
spread belief in UFOs, through media technologies and
I N T R O D U C T I O N | 3
other mechanisms, but also technology itself is a sacred me-
dium, as well as the sacred object, of this new religiosity.
Conversely, within certain theological circles, technology,
especial y the internet, has been characterized as “the Beast,”
the anti- Christ. Technology in these contexts is not secular
but infused with theological meaning.
A U N I Q U E E X P E R I E N C E F O R A N
AC A D E M I C
This book is about how technology informs a widespread
and growing religiosity focused on UFOs, but it is also a
story. It is partly the story of my own participation in a group
of scientists and academics who study the phenomenon
anonymously (except for me, of course). The participants
are anonymous because of the stigma that is often associated
with UFOs and belief in them, but also because there were
classified government programs in which the phenomenon
was studied, necessitating secrecy among the participants. To
offset any conspiratorial interpretations of this book, I will
clarify that I am not “read in” to any government program
to study the phenomenon, I was never privy to any classified
information of which I am aware, nor am I part of an official
or nonofficial disclosure of UFOs to the American public.
I began my study of UFO cultures in January 2012.
I proceeded in the conventional way in that I conducted
an ethnography of a variety of believers and delved into re-
search into UFOs and ufology, a branch of research devoted
to the topic. I was lucky to inherit an extensive library of re-
sources about UFOs and reports of contactees/ experiencers
from Dr. Brenda Denzler, whose own book, The Lure of the
4 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
Edge, informed my study. The library included her own re-
search, as well as the research of ufologists and organiza-
tions like MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) and CUFOS
(Center for UFO Studies) and the works of other academics
and researchers studying the phenomenon. I read the works
of Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, John Keel, Budd Hopkins,
and John Mack, as well as those of people who theorize the
phenomenon academical y, such as Jeffrey Kripal, Whitley
Strieber, Debbora Battaglia, Greg Eghigian, Carole Cusack,
Susan Lepsetter, and David Halperin.
Not long after I began, I quickly surmised that there
is a parallel research tradition within the field of the study
of the phenomenon, and that there always has been. There
are public ufologists who are known for their work, there
are a few academics who write about the topic, and then
there is an “Invisible College,” as Allen Hynek called it
and of which Jacques Vallee wrote— a group of scientists,
academics, and others who will never make their work
public, or at least not for a long time, although the results
of their investigations impact society in many ways.
Halfway through my research I made the decision to write
about this group, for a couple of reasons. First, they re-
ceive no recognition or press, yet rumors about them
spawn folklore and traditions that constitute the UFO
narrative. Second, frankly, this was the group whose work
and members I became best acquainted with, and whose
stories I found most fascinating. I had to muster courage
to write about this group because its members are anony-
mous, and what I observed of their work places me in the
odd position of almost confirming a myth. This is not the
preferred position of the academic author of books about
religion. It is usually the place occupied by authors of
I N T R O D U C T I O N | 5
theology. In the end, however, I chose the path of writing
a book that conveys what I consider the most interesting,
and challenging, aspects about the topic.
The parallel tradition of ufology is not known to the un-
initiated, but it is well known wit
hin the culture of ufologists.
Some scientists, such as astronomer Massimo Teodorani and
physicist Eric Davis, have confirmed its existence. Teodorani
writes:
I have been quite heavily involved in the so called “ufo” stuff
for at least 25 years, in research that is parallel to more canonic
studies of physics and astronomy. I know that some anomalies
do exist and I stress the importance of studying this problem
scientifical y, especial y when measurement instruments are
used. For many years I have been studying the problem be-
hind total y closed doors.4
Davis has also noted this aspect of the study of UFOs.
“UFOs are real phenomena,” he writes. “They are artificial
objects under intelligent control. They’re definitely craft of
a supremely advanced technology.” He goes on to say that
most of what academics and scientists know about the phe-
nomenon is secret, and will probably remain so. “There are
scientists who are aware of evidence and observational data
that is not refutable. It is absolutely corroborated, using fo-
rensic techniques and methodology. But they won’t come out
and publicize that because they fear it. Not the subject— they
fear the backlash from their professional colleagues.” He
notes that one tradition of study requires secrecy, as it is re-
lated to the military: “It’s the domain of military science. The
fact that [unknown] craft are flying around Earth is not a
subject for science— it is a subject for intelligence gathering
collection and analysis.”5
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There are a number of players in this story. For the most
part, they fall into one of two categories: there are those
who engage with and interact with what they believe are
nonhuman intelligences, perhaps extraterrestrial or even
interdimensional. The people in this category who are fea-
tured in this book are the scientists to whom Davis refers.
They agreed to be included on condition that they remain
anonymous. The second category consists of those who in-
terpret, spin, produce, and market the story of UFO events
to the general public. Members of the first category are silent
about their research, while members of the second category
are very vocal about information they have received second- ,
third- , or even fourth- hand. Often they even make up stories
or derive their information from hoaxes.
The second of the surprising revelations is that even as
some respected scientists believe in the phenomenon associ-
ated with UFOs and make discoveries about it, what is ulti-
mately marketed to the public about the phenomenon barely
resembles these scientists’ findings. Belief in the phenomenon
is at an all- time high— even among successful, high- profile
people like Bigelow. Among those who report sightings are
former US president Jimmy Carter and legions of other cred-
ible witnesses, including the trained observers of the US Air
Force, pilots, commercial pilots, police officers, US Army
personnel, and millions of civilians who were certainly not
out looking for UFOs.6 Different pol s record varying levels
of belief in UFOs, but all indicate that it is pervasive. A 2008
Scripps poll showed that more than 50 percent of Americans
believe in extraterrestrial life. Seventy- four percent of people
between the ages of eighteen and twenty- four are believers.7
In 2012, in connection with marketing their UFO- themed
programming, National Geographic conducted an informal
I N T R O D U C T I O N | 7
poll of Americans about their belief in UFOs. They randomly
sampled 1,114 individuals over the age of eighteen and found
that 36 percent believed UFOs exist and, more significantly,
77 percent believed that there are signs suggesting that aliens
have been to Earth in the past. Although not a formal pol ,
the results concur with professional pol s such as the Harris
Poll conducted in 2009, which found that 32 percent of
Americans believe in UFOs.
I began my own research into aerial phenomena after
I finished a book on the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. The
project was a multiyear study in which I examined many pri-
mary sources of European Catholic history, found mostly in
obscure archives, of anecdotes about souls from purgatory.
These sources dated from 1300 to 1880. In them I found a
lot of other unexpected things, such as reports of orbs of
light, flames that penetrated wal s, luminous beings, forms
of conscious light, spinning suns, and disclike aerial objects.
I wasn’t sure how to theorize these reports, and I left them
out of my book. Yet I wondered about them. I wondered
aloud one morning while drinking coffee with a friend.
“These reports remind me of a Steven Spielberg film. You
know, lots of shining aerial phenomena, luminous beings,
transformed lives,” he said.
I summarily dismissed his comparison. The next day,
he found an ad for a local conference about UFOs and
extraterrestrials taking place the following weekend. He
suggested that I attend.
The conference featured speakers who were experiencers,
people who have sighted UFOs or believe they have seen
extraterrestrials. They described some of the same things I had
observed in my research in Catholic history— shining aerial
discs, flames, and orbs— and especial y how these experiences
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transformed their lives. The experiencers interpreted these as
spiritual or religious events. They either fractured their tra-
ditional religious belief systems or, more commonly, caused
them to reinterpret their traditions through a biblical– UFO
framework in which they viewed biblical and historical reli-
gious events as UFO events. Ezekiel’s wheel is the prime ex-
ample of how scripture is used in this context. Many religious
practitioners view the strange spinning aerial contraption
witnessed by the biblical prophet Ezekiel as a UFO. The tele-
vision show Ancient Aliens offers a similar interpretive slant.
This way of looking at anomalous ancient aerial phenomena
is not restricted to experiencers but is common, especial y
among youth such as my students.8
Could the orbs of the past, once interpreted as souls
from purgatory, still be around? Are they currently being
interpreted as UFOs? This question was not so mind-
bending. I could still fit this data into my academic training,
interpreting orbs as social constructions based on an exter-
nal y generated unknown event, or some type of perennial
mystical experience interpreted through each era’s reigning
cultural framework.
The challenge began when I met the meta- experiencers,
the scientists who studied the experiencers and the phenom-
enon. It confounded the academic categories I had been
using thus far in my work. The new research compelled me
to think in
novel ways to understand this group and their
research. Additional y, the charisma and conviction of the
scientist- believers were difficult to discount— at least for me.
As a scholar of religion I am trained not to weigh in, one way
or the other, on the truth or falseness of believers’ claims.
When looking at the documentation of the proliferation of
a belief, there is no need to consider whether the belief is
I N T R O D U C T I O N | 9
justified or not if one is just analyzing its social effects and
influence. My association with the scientists brought about
something that Harvard UFO researcher John Mack called
an “epistemological shock,” that is, a shock to my funda-
mental understanding of the world and the universe.
The shock to my epistemological frameworks, or to
what I believed to be true, occurred on two levels. The first
is obvious. Several of the most well- regarded scientists in
the world believe in nonhuman intelligence that originated
in space. The second level of epistemological shock was
galling. Rumors of the findings of these scientists inspired
hoaxes, disinformation, media, and documentaries based on
bogus information that purported to inform the public about
UFO events and created UFO narratives and mythologies.
I watched several of these unfold in real time. It was hard
to remain aloof when confronted by what I knew to be mis-
information, some created as disinformation, some created
for the sole reason that it sel s. I was so embedded in the re-
search, on the one level of observing the scientists and on
another level of being involved with the producers of media
content, that it was impossible to be neutral. It was at this
point that I felt myself fall headlong into Nietzsche’s abyss,
stare into it, and see it grin mockingly back at me.
M E T H O D
In one sense, I feel as if I have been studying this phenom-
enon my whole life, but I didn’t call it UFO research; I called
it religious studies. Scholars of religion are well suited to
study this topic because religious studies is not a religion, but
a set of methods for studying religious phenomena. With a
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few exceptions, scholars of religion do not assess the truth
claims of religious practitioners. The metaphysical truth and
the objective truth of the phenomena are bracketed so that