American Cosmic
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one can focus on the social effects, which are incontestably
very real. This strategy is helpful in the study of the phe-
nomenon of UFOs and was advocated by Jacques Vallee in a
1979 address to the special political committee of the United
Nations organization. He told the committee that “the belief
in space visitors is independent of the physical reality of the
UFO phenomenon.” Significantly, Vallee himself believes in
the reality of the UFO phenomenon but understands that the
formation of mass belief in it does not depend on its objec-
tive reality.9
A N E W R E L I G I O U S F O R M
It is an understatement to say that in 2012, as soon as my re-
search focus shifted, so did my life. When I began to focus on
modern reports of UFO sightings and events, I was immedi-
ately immersed in a world where the religious impulse was
alive and the formation of a new, unique form of religion was
in process. I was observing it as it happened. Carl Jung put it
wel . Referring to the modern phenomenon of flying saucers,
he wrote, “We have here a golden opportunity of seeing how
a legend is formed.”10
The cast of characters who showed up, unannounced
and unexpected, surprised me. They included television
producers, experiencers and their entourages of agents affili-
ated with the government, and even actors whose names are
known in every household. After my initial shock, I began
to understand these individuals from the perspective of the
I N T R O D U C T I O N | 1 1
history of religions. In a sense, they were the same cast of
characters who appear at the birth of every major religious
tradition, although today they have different names and job
descriptions. In the first century ce they would be called
scribes and redactors, but today they are agents of informa-
tion, like screenwriters, television producers, and authors.
I observed the dynamic genesis of a global belief system.
I began to record the mechanisms by which people be-
lieve and practice, and how they believe and practice. The
producers, actors, government agents, and even myself were
all part of the process of the formation of belief, and perhaps
even pawns in this process.
H O W I S I T R E L I G I O U S ? T H E
C O N TAC T E V E N T
One of the scientists with whom I worked, whose method-
ology is primarily “nuts and bolts” in that he uses scientific
analysis on what he believes to be artifacts or physical parts of
potential “crafts,” asked me why UFO events are often linked
to religion. This is a fair question. One answer lies in the fact
that the history of religion is, among other things, a record of
perceived contact with supernatural beings, many of which
descend from the skies as beings of light, or on light, or amid
light. This is one of the reasons scholars of religion are com-
fortable examining modern reports of UFO events. Jeffrey
Kripal, working with author Whitely Strieber, articulates this
wel . In his work he has sought to reveal “how the modern
experience of the alien coming down from the sky can be
compared to the ancient experience of the god descending
from the heavens.”11
1 2 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
These “contact events,” the perceived interface between
the human and the intelligent nonhuman being from the
sky, spawn beliefs and interpretations. These beliefs and
interpretations develop into communities of belief, or faith
communities. Kripal notes, “Some of the remembered effects
of these fantastic states of mind have been taken up by ex-
tremely elaborate social, political, and artistic processes and
have been fashioned by communities into mythical, ritual,
and institutional complexes that have fundamental y changed
human history. We call these ‘religions.’ ”12
Similar to religions, institutions appropriate, cultivate,
and sometimes intervene in the interpretations of a UFO
event. These institutions vary and range from religious
institutions to governments to clubs or groups, and, today, to
social media groups.
T H E F O R M AT I O N O F B E L I E F
C O M M U N I T I E S
In the history of religions, a contact event is followed by a se-
ries of interpretations, and these are usual y followed by the
creation of institutions. Such interpretive communities are
often called religions or religious denominations. Institutions
have a stake in how the original contact event is interpreted.
A familiar example is the communities of interpretation
that surround the religion of Christianity, of which there are
thousands.
A recent example of how a contact event spawns a
community of belief, and how institutions monitor be-
lief, is the American- based religion of the Nation of Islam.
One of the Nation’s early leaders was Elijah Robert Poole,
I N T R O D U C T I O N | 1 3
who adopted the name Elijah Muhammad. Poole believed
that UFOs would come to Earth and bring salvation to his
community of believers and punish others who were not
believers. The US government was interested in Poole and
his followers, and the FBI established a file on him and
his community. Within the history of many traditional
religions, institutions, including governments, have been
involved in monitoring and often forming and shaping the
interpretations of the contact event. This fact is becoming
less controversial and suggestive of conspiracy to UFO
believers, and the focus is shifting now to how institutions
monitor, and sometimes actively shape, the interpretations
of contact events. Perceived contacts with nonhuman
intelligences are powerful events with unpredictable social
effects.
T H E C R E AT I O N O F B E L I E F
A N D P R AC T I C E S : A T E N U O U S
R E L AT I O N S H I P TO T H E
C O N TAC T E V E N T
In analyzing the contact event and the subsequent
interpretations of it, one needs to keep a few things in mind.
First, a contact event is not automatical y a religious event,
and the spotting of an unidentified aerial object is not auto-
matical y a UFO event. These experiences become religious
events, or UFO events, through an interpretive process.13 The
interpretative process goes through stages of shaping and
sometimes active intervention before it is solidified as a reli-
gious event, a UFO event, or both. The various types of belief
in UFOs can be traced as cultural processes that develop both
1 4 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
spontaneously and intentional y within layers of popular cul-
ture and through purposive institutional involvement.
T E C H N O L O G Y A N D N E W F O R M S
O F R E L I G I O U S B E L I E F
Scholars of religion were not the first to suggest that the flying
saucer was the symbol of a new, global belief system. Carl
&nbs
p; Jung announced it in his little book, published in the 1950s,
Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies.
Writing in the late 1960s, Jacques Vallee argued, in Passport
to Magonia, that similar patterns could be observed in folk-
lore, religious traditions, and modern UFO events. Scholars
of the history of the flying saucer usual y date its emergence
to the beginning of the Cold War and pilot Kenneth Arnold’s
sighting of nine, flat, saucerlike discs over Mount Rainier in
1947. Vallee argues, however, that the phenomenon has been
around for thousands of years, perhaps more. He is right. Yet
the ubiquitous cultural framework for understanding them
as the modern UFO did indeed begin around 1947.
Since the 1960s, scholars of religion have made signif-
icant progress in identifying the mechanisms of religious
belief, including how social infrastructures inspire new re-
ligious movements. Interpretation of UFOs as connected
to religion or religious traditions constitutes a significant
cultural development. New religious movements such as
the Nation of Islam, Scientology, and Jediism incorpo-
rate the UFO narrative into older religious traditions and
scriptures.14 Popular television programs like Ancient Aliens
provide viewers with interpretive strategies that encourage
them to view religious visions of the past through the lens
I N T R O D U C T I O N | 1 5
of the modern UFO narrative, turning medieval angels into
aliens, for example. What was once a belief localized within
small pockets or groups of believers under the umbrel a
term “UFO religions” is now a widespread worldview that
is supercharged by the digital infrastructure that spreads
messages and beliefs “viral y.” The infrastructure of tech-
nology has spawned new forms of religion and religiosity,
and belief in UFOs has emerged as one such new form of
religious belief.
R E A L O R I M AG I NA RY ?
The media’s representation of the phenomenon often adds
some violence to the original event that motivated the belief.
Some may understandably ask, “Is it real, or is it imaginary?”
It is important to remember that the events themselves pale
in comparison to the reality of the social effects. This is a
shame. The closer one gets to those engaged in the study of
the phenomenon, the more one begins to fathom the com-
plex nature of these events that come to be interpreted as
religious, mystical, sacred, or pertaining to UFOs, and the
deep commitments of the people who experience them.
Each of the scientists with whom I engaged was passion-
ately obsessed with his research, but none of them would
ever offer conclusions as to what the phenomenon was or
where it came from. The suggestion that the phenomenon is
the basis for a new form of religion elicited sneers and dis-
gust. To them, the phenomenon was too sacred to become
religious dogma.
It was also, in their opinion, too sacred to be entrusted
to the media. Because of my dual research focus, on occasion
1 6 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
I became a reluctant bridge between the scientists and media
professionals. On one occasion a videographer, working for
a well- known production company, contacted one of the
scientists and asked him for a two- sentence quote. At first the
scientist was confused, wondering how the videographer had
acquired his contact information. He then correctly traced it
back to me. In a phone call to me he registered his disgust.
“There is a lot of arrogance in the assumption that I am
supposed to condense twenty years of research into the most
profound topic in human history into a two- sentence sound
bite to be broadcast out to the public so they can consume it
with their TV dinner. No thanks,” he said.
Interchanges like this, which I witnessed often, reveal the
chasm between those engaged in studying the phenomenon
and the media representations of it. Ironical y, however, it is
precisely media representations that create and sustain UFO
belief. Is it real, or is it imaginary? What follows suggests that
it is both.
✦1
THE INVISIBLE TYLER D.
The first rule of Fight Club is . . .
— C h u c k Pa l a h n i u k , Fight Club (1996)
A J O U R N E Y TO T H E D E S E RT
“You need to wear the blindfold.”
Tyler’s voice was calm but firm. His southern accent took
a bit of the hard edge off the statement, but James and I got
the message. It was time to put on our blindfolds. This was
one of the conditions to which we had agreed. We were to
wear a blindfold for the last forty minutes of the car ride, so
we wouldn’t be able to see where we were or how we arrived.
I had come to call the destination, somewhat tongue- in-
cheek, “the sacred place.” It was not Area 51, I was told. But
it was a place in New Mexico under a no- fly zone, and it was
supposedly a location where one could find artifacts of an
extraterrestrial aerial craft that had crashed in 1947. As a
professor of religious studies, this was outside my usual re-
search territory, but not by much. The study of religion can
get pretty weird.
I called this the sacred place because it marked the loca-
tion where it is believed that nonhuman intelligence revealed
itself to humans. In my field the word that describes this
kind of event is hierophany. A hierophany is a manifestation
of the sacred. It occurs when a nonhuman intelligent being
1 8 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
descends from the sky to the ground or otherwise reveals it-
self. The burning bush that Moses witnessed on Mt. Sinai, as
recorded in the Bible, is a classic example of a hierophany.
Locations like Roswel , New Mexico, function as sacred
places, or sites of hierophanies, to millions of people who be-
lieve in extraterrestrials. It is a destination that also happens
to be teeming with kitschy shops where tourists and pilgrims
can purchase UFO memorabilia. There is a museum that
is dedicated to the topic of UFOs, restaurants serve UFO-
themed food, and the town hosts an annual four- day UFO
festival.
A carnival- like atmosphere is common to many sacred
pilgrimage sites. A similar atmosphere can be found in the
town of Lourdes, France. In 1858, according to Catholics, the
Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a young girl, Bernadette,
and a spring of water miraculously flowed from the ground.
Today millions of people journey to the spring at Lourdes to
buy water, statues, and other sacred memorabilia. One can
purchase Virgin Mary– themed food and drinks, as well as
books and pamphlets describing the events of the miracle.
Where hierophanies appear, consumerism often follows.
To be clear, to suggest that the location to which we were
headed in New Mexico functioned as the site of a hierophany
is an interpretati
on. It is my interpretation. The site held no
sacred value for me, although this has changed. My intention
was to document how this site in New Mexico functioned
as a sacred site for others, particularly the two scientists
with whom I was traveling. My research partner was James
Master, one of the world’s leading scientists and a professor
at a major research university. For him, our destination was a
place where a nonhuman aerial craft had potential y landed.
If artifacts could be found, he believed he could show this
T H E I N V I S I B L E T Y L E R D . | 1 9
had truly happened. Tyler, our host, shared his belief. Tyler
believed that this was one of the most significant locations
in the history of humanity, and he explained that only a
handful of people had been there. I was more interested in
observing how James and Tyler, two of the most intelligent
and successful people I had ever met, understood the event
and the artifacts than in whether the artifacts were, in fact, of
nonhuman origin. At this point in the story, that was my po-
sition. For Tyler and James, this was a momentous occasion
that was also, perhaps ironical y, marked by the appearance
of a giant, gleaming rainbow in the sky, as I pointed out to my
distracted partners.
“Wow!” Tyler said as he glimpsed the rainbow. He looked
over at me suspiciously, as if I had somehow conjured it.
James and I fitted the blindfolds over our eyes, an awk-
ward moment for all three of us, or so I thought. Later
I learned (because he showed me the pictures) that Tyler had
photographed me and James in our blindfolds. He started
the car, and we jolted forward. I was riding in the front pas-
senger seat, and as Tyler drove we all rocked to and fro, back
and forth, over what had to be a gravel road. We drove for
forty minutes and joked about various things, none of which
had to do with the reason for our journey. I was nervous,
mostly because I couldn’t see where I was going. But I was
also nervous because I could feel the expectation in the air.
James was dying to get his hands on any potential artifacts—
the alleged pieces of crashed craft— to study them, and Tyler
was almost giddy that he was bringing two people to the site
who might help shed light on what he believed was advanced