Anthropology and UFOs

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Sociology & Psychology: Anthropology and UFOs

Generic introduction

I will start my overview of sociological, psychological, and psychoanalytic work on UFOs in the US by isolating several key genres in the many fields concerned with UFOs.

A first genre is the analysis of the social psychology of UFO belief. Jung (1991) was among the first to take this approach with his psychoanalysis of saucer reports, though he also focused on the psychological profiles of self-identified UFO witnesses. His broader analytic work has served as a point of departure for later studies of the symbolic content of UFO reports, alien folklore, and sci-fi entertainment. Studies in this latter group often point out the structural similarities between alien contact narratives and fairy lore, treading the frontiers of psychoanalysis, folkloristics and ufology (compare Rojcewicz 1995 to Vallée 1993 [1969]).

A second genre is the micro-level study of UFO enthusiast and religious groups. Festinger et al's When prophecy fails (1956) remains the most prominent and influential publication on this subject, if only in the sheer number of citations it receives. Since, as with most cultic groups, a great deal of the character of "UFO cults" revolves around the psychological makeup of the leader and its influence on the internal and external dynamics of the group, such studies also appear in psychological journals.

The third genre I will highlight is the heavily psychological issue of the psycho-physiology of the UFO experience. I distinguish this from the first genre dealt with by virtue of its focus on both the individual (as opposed to the more broadly social) and on psychodynamic causes and effects. John Mack (1994) and Michael Persinger (1989) lie at opposite ends of this theme's spectrum: Mack, a psychiatrist, assists self-identified abductees in clarifying memories of alien contact, rendering support to hypotheses of alien contact; Persinger, a laboratory-based psychologist, technologically elicits what he identifies as the contact experience in nonabductees in order to undermine the argument for alien abduction. Some work in this genre relates UFO experiences to religious and mystical experiences, trance states, shamanic initiations, and other alternate states of consciousness, coming into contact with anthropology in the process.

Issues in the sociology & psychology of UFOs

Out of these genres we can derive a couple of major issues for sociological, psychological, and clinical approaches to UFOs.

First we see the attempt to elucidate the functions of UFOs and aliens as mythic figures for individuals as well as for social groups.

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