Stanislav Grof has observed that death and rebirth struggles in LSD hallucinations are similarly accompanied by imagery of violent catastrophe: earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, electrical storms, gigantic comets and meteors, Armageddon, and so forth. They are constantly appearing during certain stages of the tearing down of the ego; a tactic sometimes obliged in therapy. Grof regards such imagery as the “source of schizophrenic experiences and paranoid conditions.” (Grof, 1975)
The association of paranoia and schizophrenia with cataclysmic fantasy is readily explicable within the framework of object relations theory. (Rinsley, 1981) When people fail to form an identity separate from parental figures, ego defenses are poorly developed and tend to have a primitive, fearlaced logic. The ego in such cases is easily susceptible to fragmentation and destruction in the face of crises. (Frosch, 1983) In paranoia, the crisis typically involves shame or humiliation. The persistence of apocalyptic thought thus reflects the persistence of suffering in the world and the panhuman tendency to project one’s mental state onto general reality.
The projective character of UFO apocalypticism is strongly hinted in the expansive, totalistic nature of these fears. The imminent doom spreads to all facets of external reality, much as paranoid conspiracies often spread to international dimensions. The psychodynamic underpinnings of the world-destruction fantasies in UFO culture are sometimes fairly evident when the circumstances surrounding the prophecy are known to some degree of detail.
When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger is a psycho-sociological classic that offers the most detailed account of a prophecy of doom on record. The investigators ran across an item in the paper in which Dorothy Martin was predicting a flood would destroy Chicago just before dawn on December 21, 1954. The cataclysm would spread, and the West Coast from Washington State to Chile would be submerged. Festinger thought it would make an ideal case study in the nature of proselytization in the wake of doomsday prediction failing.
Festinger’s reporting is impressively comprehensive and he was able to pin down the first explicit reference to the impending disaster as appearing in a message from Sananda dated August 2, 1954. The authors don’t ask why it appeared when it did, but their chronicle provides the answer. The day before, on August 1st, Martin was joined by a group of people at an airfield to await the landing of a spaceship that her contacts promised would come. It is simple enough to infer the failure of this prediction in so public a manner was a source of embarrassment. Some took it eventually as a sign she was a false prophet and dropped out of the group surrounding her. (Festinger, et al., 1956)
Wilhelm Reich was officially declared to possess a paranoid nature by a prison psychologist, and informally colleagues in Vienna psychoanalytic circles regarded him so long before. His wife separated from him due to irrational accusations of infidelity. In the waning years of his life he believed he was involved in a war being waged from outer space with DOR, a negative form of orgone energy he defined as Dead Life Energy. UFOs were an agent in the deterioration of the environment manifesting in the destruction of rocks, trees, forests, and the drying up of the atmosphere. Simultaneously with persecution by the FDA, Reich declared seeing far and wide a DOR emergency—evidence the War of the Universe was on. Later he predicted “the complete destruction of the globe of mother Earth looms on the horizon of the future.” David Boadella, speaking of Reich’s space-gun adventures in Arizona, regards it as obvious his mind had “tumbled beyond retrieve.” (Reich, 1973)
Even before the events of Communion, Whitley Strieber was whispering conspiracies—so much so that acquaintances tended to regard him as “the quintessential paranoid.” His early life follows the recipe of creating a paranoid: a trauma-filled childhood, a proud and ambitious family, a fall from grace into financial ruin sparking social slights and ridicule, rejections, and a withdrawal into himself. (Metzger, 1984; Winter, 1985)
These examples are merely illustrative of the personal dimension in the process of apocalyptic thought and not a full accounting. Charles Strozier’s study of the psychology of apocalyptic opinion among contemporary Christians gives cause to note that end-time beliefs are sometimes adopted because of group pressure, but modified and qualified by personality and experience. (Strozier, 1994)
This likely applies in UFO culture when the fantasy conforms to more popular fears like the common New Age expectation of a pole-shift. A similar case would be Betty Andreasson’s aliens who forecast “mankind will become sterile.” This echoes a familiar fear of environmentalists, one involving some dubious premises according to an investigation by Michael Fumento. (Fumento, 1999) It also looks like projection of her life. Andreasson had a hysterectomy and abortion in 1964 because of cervical cancer. (Fowler, 1990) Her sterility expands to fill the fate of the world.
One last note of possible interest is that these fantasies are rarely challenged in a forceful way among believers. The failure of apocalyptic predictions may be granted in a general way, but usually in a context advancing an alternative pessimism.
The ideologies of optimism found elsewhere in the culture never germinate there, never mind take root. Disbelievers, by contrast, tend to wax enthusiastic over human progress and the march of science, embed human history in deep time, and tend to see problems like overpopulation as soluble. (Kottmeyer, 2000) The infrequent instances of apocalyptic thought tend to be those appearing popularly in general culture.
—MARTIN S. KOTTMEYER
NOTE: For the sake of scholarly completeness, numerous names are mentioned in the text with which the reader may be unfamiliar. However, the author stands ready to direct the scholarly reader to his sources upon request. (Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.) Contact information can be found under the entry: KOTTMEYER, MARTIN S., in this encyclopedia.
References
Boadella, David. Wilhelm Reich: The Evolution of his Work (Laurel, 1973).
Festinger, Leon, Henry W Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (Harper, 1956).
Fowler, Raymond. The Watchers (Bantam, 1990).
Frosch, John. The Psychotic Process (International University Press, 1983).
Fumento, Michael. “Hormonally Challenged,” American Spectator (October, 1999).
Grof, Stanislaw. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research (Viking, 1975).
Keel, John. The Mothman Prophecies (Signet/NAL, 1975).
Keen, Ernest. “Paranoia and Cataclysmic Narratives,” in Sarbin, Theodore J., ed. Narrative Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct (Praeger, 1986).
Kottmeyer, Martin. “Debunkers of Doom,” The Anomalist (2000).
La Barre, Weston. The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion (Delta, 1972).
Lem, Stanislaw. Microworlds (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovick, 1984).
Metzger, Linda, ed. Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Vol. 12 (Gale Research, 1984).
Randles, Jenny. UFO Reality (Robert Hale, 1983).
Reich, Wilhelm. Contact with Space: Orop Desert Ea 1954-55 (Core Pilot, 1957).
Ring, Kenneth. “Precognitive and Prophetic Visions in Near Death Experiences,” Anabiosis: The Journal of Near-Death Studies (1982).
________. “Prophetic Visions in 1988: A Critical Reappraisal,” The Journal of Near-Death Studies (Fall 1988).
________. The Omega Project (William Morrow, 1992).
Rinsley, Donald B. Borderline and Self Disorders: A Developmental and Object Relations Perspective (Jason Aronson, 1981).
Sechehaye, Marguerite. Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl (Signet/NAL, 1968).
Spring, William J. “Observations on World Destruction Fantasies,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly (1939).
Strachey, James, ed. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 12: The Case of Schreber (The Hogarth Press, 1963).
Strieber, Whitley. Communion: A True Story (William Morrow/Beech Tree, 1987
).
________. Transformation (William Morrow/Beech Tree, 1988).
Strozier, Charles. Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America (Beacon, 1994).
Winter, Douglas. Faces of Fear (Berkeley, 1985).
Woodward, W. E. Bunk (Harper, 1923).
APRO See AERIAL PHENOMENA RESEARCH ORGANIZATION.
archetypes, UFO-ET phenomena as Psychologist Carl G. Jung was the first to term UFO sightings and contacts with them as “archetypal” phenomena in his 1959 book, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. Jung was quick to point out that the word “myth” did not imply something that did not happen. All myths, according to Jung, have a basis in reality; however, myths are embellishments of truth.
Jung believed that UFOs had both a psychic (archetypal) and a physical component. The spectacular, physical appearance of an unknown phenomenon (like brilliant manifestations in the sky) stimulated powerful unconscious processes in observers. These unconscious processes were released into the conscious minds of the observers causing them to give meaning to what they had observed. The meaning ascribed to UFO sightings come from the observers’ cultural and personal expectations.
For example, UFO reports beginning in the modern era (1949) were often interpreted as a military threat or a possible “alien” invasion. This was consistent with societal fears caused by the Cold War developing immediately after World War II and the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons. Some people also saw the emerging UFO phenomenon as representing the coming of a savior. Many people saw a world gone mad and had fervent hopes for an unearthly salvation from the madness. The contactee reports in the 1950s affirmed these expectations.
Basel Broadsheet of 1566
Jung interpreted the UFO phenomenon as a meaningful coincidence—or synchronicity—between a physical occurrence coinciding with an expectant mental state. Many people expected—and feared—uncontrollable disruption in all life. At the same time—and probably unrelated to the ongoing events in humanity—an unknown phenomenon (UFOs) manifested in the skies around the world. This unknown provided people with a screen upon which they could project their unconscious expectations and a “visionary rumor” quickly developed. Jung’ famous statement, “something is seen, but one doesn’t know what,” was his way of describing how this process begins.
When the unknown event is observed, people immediately project meaning to it and report it to others. As more and more people hear about the reports, this “rumor” —driven by something actually seen but not understood—is perpetuated and strengthened. In this complicated process, archetypal forces are released and provoke a powerful influence on society.
Jung took care to show that a longterm historical record existed showing that spectacular (and unknown) manifestations in the sky had occurred regularly throughout history. He cited Biblical accounts and reproduced the Nuremberg Broadsheet from 1561 and the Basel Broadsheet from 1566 as evidence.
Broadsheets served as the newspapers of that time. The unknown aerial phenomena observed by thousands in Germany during this period were widely reported and generally interpreted as a heavenly battle that was occurring in conjunction with the many religious wars going on in Germany. The present writer has uncovered at least fifty additional broadsheets showing similar phenomena.
Nuremberg Broadsheet of 1561
Jung’s thought can be incomprehensible to many people, in part, because it is necessary to be deeply acquainted with his other writings where he explains his terminology in greater detail. Few people have the necessary background or motivation to delve that deeply into his writing and have simply read or skimmed his 1959 book. Many of the examples Jung used to show how archetypes effect humanity come from consistencies in fairy tales, angelic visitations, and even in art. So, the average person envisions an archetype merely as a symbol. Most UFO writers have therefore interpreted Jung’s depiction of UFOs as a visionary rumor to mean that the phenomenon is not real in a physical sense—it is a mental process. However, that is not the case.
Jung termed the actual UFO manifestations as archetypal in nature and quite real. (“Something is seen, but one doesn’t know what.”) In his vast writings, Jung defined archetypes as “psychoid factors consisting of pure energy.” Under the right conditions, these psychoid factors—archetypes—can manifest into physical reality. Jung also related that the archetypes actually exist on the “invisible, ultraviolet end of the light spectrum.” In The Archetype Experience (Little, 1984) it was explained that the term “psychoid” describes a process that bridges the gap between psychological reality and objective reality—exactly as Jung described it. That is, archetypes are living energy forms (as described by Jung) that can move into the visible portion of the electromagnetic energy spectrum. John Keel’s (1970) classic book, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse and Grand Illusions (Little, 1994) make similar proposals.
Perhaps the most misunderstood and ignored aspect of Jung’s archetypal theory of UFO phenomena was his idea that UFO-like flaps occur at regular, predictable times in a great, cosmic cycle. In the preface to his 1959 book, Jung states that, “reflections such as these are … exceedingly unpopular…” What he proposed in his preface was that spectacular manifestations occur in the sky roughly every 2,150 years. Each 2,150-year cycle was a transition period between the so-called Platonic Months in the well-known 26,000-year precession of the equinoxes. The Age of Pisces, beginning just before the birth of Christ, was heralded by archetypal manifestations (angels, stars, etc.), and the Age of Aquarius is being heralded by modern UFO sightings. As each age changed, the religious focus of the world changed with it. Jung wrote that the transition period could last for a considerable time period, but that almost no one would comprehend this idea or accept it—a prediction that has proven true up to this point.
—GREGORY L. LITTLE
References
Jung, C. G. Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies (Routledge & Kegan Paul/Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1959; Signet/NAL, 1969; Princeton University Press, 1978).
________. Mandala Symbolism (Princeton University Press, 1959, 1972).
________. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Princeton University Press, 1959, 1969).
________. On the Nature of the Psyche (Princeton University Press, 1960, 1969).
________. Answer to Job (Princeton University Press, 1960).
________. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Princeton University Press, 1966).
________. The Undiscovered Self (Princeton University Press, 1990).
Keel, John. UFOs:Operation Trojan Horse (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970).
Little, Gregory L. The Archetype Experience (Rainbow Books, 1984).
________. Grand Illusions (White Buffalo Books, 1994).
Are We Alone? (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1981). Two University of Virginia science professors, Robert Rood and James Trefil, write the first science book proposing that we humans may be alone in our galaxy because a series of “bottlenecks” make the evolution of life rare if not impossible elsewhere. The first extraterrestrials we meet in space will be our own grandchildren who have migrated from Earth.
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Are We Alone? (Basic Books, 1995). Paul Davies, an Australian Professor of Natural Philosophy, thinks the extraterrestrial civilizations we eventually meet will be so far advanced they will appear as gods to us. He conjectures that what we know as consciousness is a “fundamental emergent property” and natural consequence of the laws of physics, meaning “the emergence of consciousness in the universe is more or less guaranteed.”
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Area 51 Also known as “Dreamland,” “Groom Lake,” or simply “the Ranch,” this now semi-secret U.S. government test facility has become in the minds of many the UFO capital of the world. The six-by-ten-mile dry lake bed is located approximately 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, as part of the Nellis Test Range.
Popularly known as “Area 51”
the site has a long history of official denial and controversy, which has only intensified outside interest in it. During a 1995 hearing on an environmental pollution suit at the base, then-Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall refused to reveal even the official name of the facility, claiming national security concerns.
Area 51 reportedly began life in the early 1950s, under the unofficial designation “McGinley’s Farm,” to serve as a test site for the U-2 spyplane. Since then, the facility has allegedly served as a test range for many of America’s “black projects,” such as the SR-71 “Blackbird” reconnaissance airplane, the F-117 stealth fighter, and other stillundisclosed aerospace vehicles and systems; possibly including the mysterious hypersonic “Aurora,” as well as laser-assisted orbital launching systems and particle beam weapons.
In 1989, a self-described “physicist” by the name of Robert Lazar claimed in a Las Vegas TV interview to have observed and worked with “flying saucers” under test at the neighboring S-4 location (also known as Papoose Dry Lake Bed), while he was employed there as a contractor. Lazar’s allegations that the government has recovered, “reverse-engineered,” and flight-tested alien saucer-craft are completely unsubstantiated, and his falsified educational and employment histories have been exposed by investigators. Nonetheless, Lazar’s claims have brought lasting worldwide attention to the base and himself, which of course is the point. If any of Lazar’s claims of secret technology were true, he would be serving a long prison term for violation of his so-called “Majestic” security clearance.
Perhaps one should ask which is more likely: that Lazar can freely reveal to the world his super-secret assignment (for which he was especially chosen) of backengineering the propulsion systems of captured UFOs, or that this elusive fellow who drives a red Corvette sporting a license plate that reads “MJ-12,” and whose claimed credentials are mostly nonexistent, might have something of a Walter Mitty complex?
Because the Groom Lake facility is in a known, accessible location and because unusual aircraft and unidentified aerial phenomena are sometimes visible from nearby, it has become a magnet for many who wish to observe “UFO events.”
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters Page 17