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Alien Worlds: Social and Religious Dimensions of Extraterrestrial Contact

Extraterrestrials have been a common theme in popular culture, which is unsurprising given that a recent poll by the Associated Press estimated that 34 percent of people believe in unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Scholars have been trying to understand this phenomenon, and a number of them are represented in Alien Worlds, a collection of essays on “extraterrestrial contact” written by a wide array of international researchers and edited by Diana G. Tumminia, a sociologist and expert on contactée religions. The essays include an overview of diverse contactée religions, defined as “an organized following that forms around a contactée mystic” and characterized by mythology, channeling, ritual and a “millenarian worldview” (xxix), and also include topics such as explanations for alien abduction experiences, “Ufological science,” and support groups for abductees.

Part I represents an overview of various contactée religions. These chapters give the beginner an overview of these groups (even though this section is not intended to be comprehensive). Some of the chapters seem merely descriptive (Jerome Clark’s chapter on the “Odyssey of Sister Thedra” or Diana G. Tumminia’s chapter on “The Universal Industrial Church of the New World Comforter”). Whereas others were written with specific key points in mind, such as the sanctification of the leader of the Aetherius Society (George King) in official texts, or an ethnographer’s (Tumminia’s) comparison of the construction of knowledge of members of Unarius with her own view of reality. The chapter by Bryan Sentes and Susan Palmer that connects Radians’ popularity to the “postmodern condition” seems especially well thought-out and conceptualized. Its central theme is that “Raelianism replaces the supernatural with the extraterrestrial and technological in order to demystify and demythologize primarily the Abrahamic religions, simultaneously (if unconsciously) mythologizing and ideologizing science and technology” (59).

Part II centers on alien abduction experiences and explanations for them. Authors propose such explanations as “sleep paralysis” as well as cultural and social environmental factors for these phenomena such as the availability of abduction narratives to compare one’s own experiences with, or “secondary beliefs,” a following based upon hearing other people’s confessions. Here, we found Scott Scribner’s chapter to be especially interesting, since he highlights parallels between religion and these experiences, notably in the area of “interactions with supernatural beings, stmggles between good and evil, encounters with overpowering benevolent (‘light’) forces or malevolent (‘dark’) forces, conversion and reframing of interpretations (belief templates), the notion of being chosen, visions, testimonial evidence, the occasional channeling of otherworldly beings, altered states of consciousness, healing narratives, and apocalyptic pronouncements” (151-152).

The main theme of Part III is the representation of UFOs in myths and the media. There are diverse voices here: while the chapter by Annie E. Kubiak is historically oriented and describes various UFO myths over time, Jacques Vallee (the model for the scientist in Spielberg’s Close Encounter’s of the Third Kind) acknowledges the possibility of UFOs, but looks beyond the theory of extraterrestrial contact by proposing other possible factors such as “situational triggers” (e.g., hypnosis) or myths and images of demons. The interesting ethnography of Star Trek Klingon fan groups by Jennifer Porter nicely describes how fans “play” with cultural norms; but, unlike the other essays, it does not concern plausible extraterrestrials.

Part IV is entitled “Ufological Science and Therapy.” What is the relationship between ufological science, traditional science, and religion? James F. Strange advocates an open-minded position toward extraterrestrials, positioning “awe and wonder” against fear and aggression as possible responses. Other chapters in this section discuss how ufology and beliefs in extraterrestrials (Cross’s chapter) or archaeology and beliefs in extraterrestrials overlap (Anderson’s chapter). Christopher Helland’s chapter on the Raelians’s equation of gods with scientists who clone takes this reasoning a step further.

Though some chapters are rather weak theoretically, we found this book very informative and eye-opening, especially because it is written both by academics who take an objective or neutral stance toward the phenomenon (i.e., most of the authors) and those who seem to be advocates (e.g., James F. Strange). It also seems to fill a gap in the literature and gives the reader a much-needed presentation of what is going on in the Alien Worlds.

However, the chapters are quite loosely connected, and at times it was not easy to see how it forms a whole. Another way to categorize the various chapters is around these themes: contactée religions and postmodernity (Sentes, Palmer, and Kubiak); the mythologizing of science or overlap between science and beliefs in these groups (Sentes and Palmer, Cross, and Heiland); UFO as representing an Archetype as originally presented by Carl Jung (Vallee and Kubiak); the role of the sociology of knowledge in the construction of beliefs and narratives (Tumminia and Vallee); and ethnographic research on contactée groups or random (Tumminia, Porter on Klingon fandom, and Bader’s research on UFO Abduction groups) ( perhaps replacing the titles of Part I through IV with titles describing these themes).

Nevertheless, we would recommend Alien Worlds to readers interested in the extraterrestrial phenomenon and in how religion is expressed in atypical forms or through popular culture. It is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses in the sociology and psychology of religion, and parts of it can surely also be used in media courses.

About the Author

The author, StunnerCold (Alias), is an Electrical engineer specializing in cutting edge semiconductor technology with an eye out for the long overdue galactic rendezvous. Checkout the nifty blog on Alien Civilizations for a thorough scientific account of the Life Beyond, without the speculative conjuncture.

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