American Cosmic
Page 29
Religions: Christian and Theosophical Themes,” in Modernism,
Christianity and Apocalypse, ed. Erik Tonning, Matthew
Feldman, and David Addyman (Leiden: Bril , 2014), 339– 353.
James R. Lewis, ed., The Gods Have Landed: New Religions
from Other Worlds (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1995).
Chapter 1
1. Brenda Denzler, The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious
Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 2001). Edward U. Condon, “Condon Report,”
N O T E S | 2 4 7
Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1968, http://
files.ncas.org/ condon/ index.html. Robbie Graham, Silver Screen Saucers: Sorting Fact from Fantasy in Hol ywood’s UFO
Movies (White Crow Books, 2015).
2. Denzler, The Lure of The Edge. Greg Bishop, Project Beta: The
Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation
of a Modern UFO Myth (New York: Pocket Books, 2005).
Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia,
Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs (New York,
NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010). Graham, Silver Screen
Saucers.
3. George M. Young, The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism
of Nikolai Fedorov and His Fol owers (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012), 152.
4. Saucey Saucerton, “Remote Viewing, Looking Toward the
Future of Humanity. Unlock Your Mind,” filmed 2011,
YouTube Video 01:15:21, posted January 15, 2015, https://
www.youtube.com/ watch?v=IBcQ8RDIe9w.
5. Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science
Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
Simone Natale, Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian
Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016).
6. Credit to Rose Rowson, “Repost or Die: Ritual Magic and User-
Generated Deities on Instagram,” in Believing in Bits: Digital
Technology and the Supernatural (New York: Oxford University
Press, forthcoming).
7. George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal
(Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2001).
8. Kary Banks Mullis, Kary Mullis, December 14, 2016, https://
www.karymullis.com/ index.shtml.
9. Grant Cameron, Inspired: The Paranormal World of Creativity
(Winnipeg: Itsallconnected Publishing, 2017), 33. Brad Steiger
and Shel y Steiger, Real Encounters, Different Dimensions, and
Otherworldly Beings (Canton, OH: Visible Ink Press, 2014).
10. “Secrets of the Creative Brain,” The Aspen Institute, published on
July 18, 2014, https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=unAbERa0otY,
accessed May 13, 2018.
2 4 8 | NOT E S
Chapter 2
1. “Report of Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying
Objects Convened by Office of Scientific Intelligence,
CIA: January 14–
18, 1953,” 19–
20, http:// www.cufon.org/
cufon/ robert.htm.
2. “Blue Book Archive: Supporting Serious UFO Research,” last
modified November 15, 2005, http:// www.bluebookarchive.org.
3. “Report of Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying
Objects Convened by Office of Scientific Intelligence,
CIA: January 14–
18, 1953,” 19–
20, http:// www.cufon.org/
cufon/ robert.htm.
4. Jose Herrera, V- 28: A Fox Co. 1st Platoon Story (CreateSpace
Independent Publishing Platform, 2001), and personal
communication.
5. See chapter 3 of Jeff Kripal, Authors of the Impossible: The
Paranormal and the Sacred (Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 2010).
Chapter 3
1. “In the Field— Active Observers and Researchers Around the
World,” https:// www.facebook.com/ groups/ scottbrowne/ .
2. Scott Browne’s mother’s diary, personal communication, April
23, 2017.
3. I am indebted to Erica Lukes of UFO Classified for this
information.
4. Carl Jung, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the
Skies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 16.
5. Ibid., 18.
6. Ibid., 23.
7. The Library Angel is mentioned throughout Koestler’s book The
Roots of Coincidence (Portland: Vintage, 1973).
8. Diana Pasulka, “From Purgatory to the UFO Phenomenon: The
Catholic Supernatural Goes Galactic,” in Religion: Super
Religion, ed. Jeffrey J. Kripal (New York: Macmil an, 2016),
375– 387.
N O T E S | 2 4 9
9. Teresa of Avila, The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself,
trans. J. M. Cohen (London: Penguin Books, 1957), 210.
10. Barry Downing, The Bible and Flying Saucers, 2nd ed.
(New York: Malrowe & Company, 1997). Michael J. S.
Carter, Alien Scriptures: Extraterrestrials in the Holy Bible
(Nashville: Grave Distractions Publications, 2013).
11. George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal
(Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2001); Jacques Vallee,
Masters of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults (Brisbane: Daily
Grail Publishing, 2008).
12. Fiedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Koffman,
“Aphorism 277” (New York: Vintage Books, 1974) 223.
13. Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schacther, When
Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern
Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (Eastford,
CT: Martino Fine Books, 2009).
14. “Kubrick: And Beyond the Cinema Frame,” last updated 2015,
http:// www.collativelearning.com/ 2001%20chapter%202.
html.
Chapter 4
1. Stephanie Schwam and Jay Cocks, The Making of 2001: A Space
Odyssey (New York: Modern Library, 2000), 163.
2. Alex Ben Block, “5 Questions with George Lucas: Controversial
‘Star Wars’ Changes, SOPA and ‘Indiana Jones 5,’ ” Hol ywood
Reporter, February 9, 2012, http:// www.hol ywoodreporter.
com/ heat- vision/ george- lucas- star- wars- interview- 288523.
3. Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson, Infinite Reality: Avatars,
Eternal Life, New Worlds, and the Dawn of the Virtual
Revolution (New York: William Morrow, 2011), 1– 2.
4. Diana Walsh Pasulka, “ ‘The Fairy Tale Is True’: Social
Technologies of the Religious Supernatural in Film and
New Media,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84
(2016): 530– 547. See also “The Total Recall Effect: Techno-
Human Hybridity and Degrees of the Posthuman,” in
Posthumanism: Emerging Technologies and the Boundaries
2 5 0 | NOT E S
of Homo Sapiens, ed. Diana Walsh Pasulka and Michael
Bess. Macmil an Interdisciplinary Handbooks (Farmington
Hil s, MI: Macmil an Reference USA, January 2018). Alison
Landsberg, “Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade
Runner, ” Sage Journals: Body & Society 1 (1995): 175– 189,
https:// doi.org/ 10.1177/ 1357034X95001003010.
5. Pasulka, “ ‘The Fairy Tale Is True.’ ”
6. Je
ffrey Zacks, Flicker: Your Brain on Movies (New York: Oxford
University Press, Kindle Edition, 2014), 92.
7. Ibid., 105.
8. Ibid.
9. Blascovich and Bailenson, Infinite Reality, 1– 2.
10.
“Science Indicators Biennial Report. Science and
Technology: Public Understanding and Public Attitudes,”
National Science Foundation, 2002, www.nsf.gov/ sbe/ srs/
seind02/ c7/ c7h.htm.
11. Alon Harrish, “UFOs Exist, Say 36 Percent in National
Geographic Survey,” ABC News, June 27, 2012, accessed March
15, 2015, http:// abcnews.go.com/ Technology/ ufos- exist-
americans- national- geographic- survey/ story?id=16661311.
12. “Report of Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying
Objects Convened by Office of Scientific Intelligence, CIA:
January 14– 18, 1953,” 19– 20, http:// www.cufon.org/ cufon/
robert.htm.
13. Ibid.
14. I’ve written about this, specifical y about the irony of the term
and its reference to the P. K. Dick short story, in “The Total
Recall Effect.”
15. Impossible Factual Production Company, accessed September
9, 2017, http:// www.impossiblefactual.com/ .
16. “More Than Just Science Fiction,” If Star Wars Was Real, http://
www.nirahlee.com/ iswwr/ index.php?option=com_ content&t
ask=view&id=4&Itemid=30.
17. Jakob Schiller, “What It’d Look Like if Star Wars Spilled into
the Real World,” Wired, October 24, 2014, http:// www.wired.
com/ 2014/ 10/ thomas- dagg- star- wars/ .
18. Mike Horn, “Death Star over San Francisco,” YouTube Video,
2:40, posted September 15, 2008, https:// www.youtube.com/
watch?v=AfqDVP_ 0O0c.
N O T E S | 2 5 1
19. Scott Thil , “Sci- Fi Satire Fuels Fanboy’s Funny Star Wars
Videos,” Wired, May 13, 2009, https:// www.wired.com/ 2009/
05/ sci- fi- satire- fuels- fanboys- funny- star- wars- videos/ .
20. Personal communication, April 2014.
21. Carole Cusack, Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction, and
Faith (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2010). John Lyden, Film
as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals (New York: New York
University Press, 2003).
22. David Chidester, Authentic Fakes: Religion and American
Popular Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2005), 17.
23. Michael Bess, Diana Pasulka, Posthumanism: The Future of
Homo Sapiens; Carole Cusack, Virtual Religions and Real Lives
(Detroit: MacMil an References USA, 2018), 167– 178.
24.
Markus Altena Davidsen, “Fiction-
Based Religion:
Conceptualising a New Category Against History- Based
Religion and Fandom,” Cultural Religion 14 (2013): 378– 395.
25. Krishnadev Calamur, “ ‘Definite Evidence’ of Alien Life Within
20– 30 Years, NASA Chief Scientist Says,” NPR, April 8, 2015,
accessed April 13, 2015, http:// www.npr.org/ blogs/ thetwo-
way/ 2015/ 04/ 08/ 398322381/ definite- evidence- of- alien- life-
within- 20- 30- years- nasa- chief- scientist- says.
26. Robert Orsi, “Abundant History: Marian Apparitions as
Alternative Modernity,” Historical y Speaking 9, no. 7 (Sep/ Oct
2008): 12– 16.
27. David J. Chalmers, “The Matrix as Metaphysics,” in The Character
of Consciousness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
28. Jeffery J. Kripal, “Better Horrors: From Terror to Communion
in Whitley Strieber’s Communion (1987),” Social Research: An
International Quarterly 84 (2014): 897– 920.
29. Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,”
http:// www.nyu.edu/ gsas/ dept/ philo/ courses/ concepts/ clark.
html, accessed May 8, 2018.
30. N. Katherine Kayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual
Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1999).
31. Susan Schneider, “It May Not Feel Like Anything to Be an
Alien,” Nautilus, December 2016, http:// cosmos.nautil.us/ fea-
ture/ 72/ it- may- not- feel- like- anything- to- be- an- alien.
2 52 | NOT E S
32. Col ative Learning, “2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Meaning
of the Monolith Revealed PART 1 (2014 update),” YouTube
Video, 7:57, Posted August 15, 2014, https:// www.youtube.
com/ watch?v=MSo6s_ xrj4c.
33. David Halperin, Journal of a UFO Investigator: A Novel
(New York: Penguin Viking, 2011).
34. David Halperin, Intimate Alien, unpublished manuscript.
35. Ibid.
36. Robert A. Baker, “The Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression
Revisited,” in The Hundredth Monkey and Other Paradigms of
the Paranormal, ed. Kendrick Frazier (New York: Prometheus
Books, 1991), 57.
37. Elizabeth Loftus, “The Fiction of Memory,” TED Video, 17:36,
Filmed June 2013, https:// www.ted.com/ talks/ elizabeth_
loftus_ the_ fiction_ of_ memory?language=en.
38. Annette Kuhn, Daniel Biltereyst, and Philippe Meers,
“Memories of Cinemagoing and Film Experience: An
Introduction,” Memory Studies 10 (2017): 3– 16, https:// doi.
org/ 10.1177/ 1750698016670783.
39. Alison Landsberg, “Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade
Runner, ” Body & Society 1 (1995): 175– 189, https:// doi.org/
10.1177/ 1357034X95001003010.
40. “ ‘Alien Encounters’ 1995— When UFOs Invaded Disney
World (Part 1),” David Halperin: Journal of a UFO Investigator,
https:// www.davidhalperin.net/ alien- encounters- 1995- when-
ufos- invaded- disney- world- part- 1/ .
41. SubscriptionFreeTV, “Lost Disney UFO Documentary
Original Full Version— Alien Encounters,” YouTube Video,
43:32, posted February 24, 2014, https:// www.youtube.com/
watch?v=z3yt1DJpbvk.
42. Ibid.
43. As transcribed by David Halperin, January 13, 2017, https://
www.davidhalperin.net/ alien- encounters- 1995- when- ufos-
invaded- disney- world- part- 1/ , from this video: https:// www.
youtube.com/ watch?time_ continue=553&v=WshFZcSva6o,
accessed May 8, 2018.
44. “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online
Reasoning,” Stanford History Education Group, https://
N O T E S | 2 53
sheg.stanford.edu/ upload/ V3LessonPlans/ Executive%20
Summary%2011.21.16.pdf.
45. Camila Domonoski, “Students Have ‘Dismaying’ Inability to
Tell Fake News from Real, Study Finds,” NPR, November 23,
2016, http:// www.npr.org/ sections/ thetwo- way/ 2016/ 11/ 23/
503129818/ study- finds- students- have- dismaying- inability-
to- tell- fake- news- from- real.
Chapter 5
1. Jacques Vallee, The Invisible Col ege: What a Group of Scientists
Has Discovered About UFO Influence on the Human Race (San
Antonio, TX: Anomalist Books, 2014), 153.
2. Ibid., 30.
3. For an overview of this development see Simone Natale,
Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the
Rise of Modern Media Culture (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Pre
ss, 2016).
4. N. Katherine Hayles, among others, criticized the assumption
that consciousness could be downloaded or otherwise moved
into nonhuman containers in her book How We Became
Posthuman.
5. Vallee, The Invisible College, 2.
6. Ibid., 107
7. Ibid., 126.
8. Peter Horsfield, From Jesus to the Internet: A
History of Christianity and Media (Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley- Blackwell, 2015).
9. Vallee, The Invisible College, 29.
10. George P. Hansen, introduction to The Trickster and the
Paranormal (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2001),
http:// www.tricksterbook.com/ Intro.htm.
11. Ibid.
12. William A. Christian, Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and
the Reign of Christ (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1999).
13. Vallee, The Invisible College, 154.
2 5 4 | NOT E S
14. Joaquim Fernandes and Fina D’Armada, HEAVENLY
LIGHTS: The Apparitions of Fatima and the UFO Phenomenon,
ed. Andrew D. Basiago, trans. Eva M. Thompson (San Antonio,
TX: Anomalist Books, 2007), 35.
15. Antonio Marion Martins, Novos Documentos De Fatima (San
Paolo: Loyola Editions, 1984).
16. Vallee, The Invisible College, 142.
17. Ibid., 3.
18. Ibid., 197.
19. Diana Walsh Pasulka, “The Spectrum of Human Techno-
Hybridity: The Total Recall Effect,” in Posthumanism: The
Future of Homo Sapiens (Detroit: Macmil an References
USA, 2018).
20. Robert A. Wilson and Lucia Foglia, “Embodied Cognition,” in
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta
(Spring 2017), Stanford, California: https:// plato.stanford.edu/
archives/ fall2011/ entries/ embodied- cognition/ .
21. Matthew Field, “Facebook Shuts Down Robots After They
Invent Their Own Language,” The Telegraph, August 1,
2017,
http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/ technology/ 2017/ 08/ 01/
facebook- shuts- robots- invent- language/ .
22. Gabriel A. Radvansky and Jeffery M. Zacks, Event Cognition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
23. Andy Clark, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and
Cognitive Extension (London: Oxford University Press, 2008),
131– 132.
24. N. Katherine Hayles, How We Think: Digital Media and
Contemporary Technogenesis (Chicago: University of Chicago