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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