American Cosmic Read online

  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

  6 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC

  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

  8 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC

  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

  1 0 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC

  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