UFOs and religious imagery.

Dear, readers

As editor of this filthy monstrosity, I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at a piece discussing UFO narratives and religious imagery. Gonna be included in Issue 2- Give it a read. If you begin foaming at the mouth, gnashing teeth, and develop an ugly disposition, STOP immediately. Further thought could lead to serious medical complications. Contact your physician. 

PS-

And whatever you do, for god-sake don't follow the bright yellow light. Keep a safe distance and hide if you have to. There's no cowardice in fleeing. Remember the shovel, the unbearable cold, and Ms. cRaZy face.   You better hope the bright yellow light just passes by. Hide under a table or otherwise find solid shelter. Life preservers will not be sufficient when the wind comes. And the screams.        

On the evening of July 14, a Pan American airliner, flying at 8000 feet, was approaching Norfolk, Virginia, en route to Miami from New York. Except for a few thin cirrus clouds above 12,000 feet, the night was clear and visibility unlimited. Shortly after 8 pm, Captain William B. Nash caught sight of a red brilliance in the sky, apparently beyond and to the east of Newport News. “Almost immediately,” they later reported, “We perceived…six bright objects streaking toward us at tremendous speed…they had the fiery aspect of hot coals, but of much greater glow-perhaps twenty times more brilliant (than city lights below)…their shape was clearly outlined and evidently circular; the edges were well defined, not phosphorescent or fuzzy…the red orange was uniform over the upper surface of each craft. All together, they flipped on edge, the sides to the left of us going up and the glowing surfaces facing right…they were much like coins…then, without an arc or swerve at all, they flipped back together to the flat altitude and darted off in a direction that formed a sharp angle with their first course…the change…was acute…like a ball ricocheting off a wall.” Captain Nash estimated that the unlighted exposed edges of each craft were about fifteen feet thick and their top surfaces flat. As two additional craft suddenly joined the six, the lights of all eight blinked off, then back on. Remaining in a straight line, the UFOs zoomed westward, climbing in a grateful arc as their lights blinked out…one by one. The entire display lasted fifteen seconds.

            This account of a UFO sighting is a common staple in UFO legendry. As a form

 supernatural narrative, the UFO legend has become a popular piece of modern culture.

 Similar to stories about heavenly beings or demonic entities, the modern UFO legend is

 both shaped and interpreted by cultural context.

 UFO narratives are instilled with numinous qualities typically found in

 religious studies and the occult. The numinous is a way of describing the power or

 presence of a numen or supernatural. Usually the numinous is something that is beyond

 comprehension or is spiritually elevated. People have borrowed from religion to interpret

 UFOs. Keith Thompson remarks that, “classical theologians who adhered to the great

 chain/hierarchy of angels model of the universe, and modern-day Ufologists who catalog

 various types of aliens, can be viewed as detectives following the same scent”

 (Thompson 1991, 228). The modern UFO contactee encounters something much like

 visions of angels or the terrors of hell.

 Mythological themes are also prevalent in UFO sightings. Much like the use of

 angels in religion, ufology touches upon very important myth-motifs in its explanation.

 For example, the use of halos, demonology, and apocalypse are all common motifs in the

 narratives. Thomas Bullard states that, “UFO stories echo unmistakable leitmotifs of the

 great mythological themes: culture bearers and saucers from the sky, supernatural

 enemies and the end of the world, ritual as initiation and transformation, interbreeding

 with otherworld entities, magical events, and trickster figures like Men In Black”

 (Bullard 2010, 277). Using the occult and traditional religious visions, the UFO employs

 mythological paradigms as a template for understanding.

 It is my contention that images of the alien have taken the place of angels and

 demons in traditional folklore, fulfilling a need for the sacred in scientific or

 technological guise. Building upon the work of Linda Degh, I will examine the religious

 symbols and imagery of UFO legendry. Degh has remarked that, “when prestigious

 authorities such as Harvard psychiatry professor John E. Mack became serious about

 UFO aliens, they are actually joining theologians in the endorsement of the popular

 spiritualist belief in guardian angels among us, and are lending a hand to the evolution of

 a new complex of age-old traditional legendry” (Degh 2001, 262). By better

 understanding the imagery of UFO narratives as religious images, we are afforded a

 signpost for what the symbols mean and what kind of reality they conjure up. As part of

 my research for this paper, I will examine UFOlore, newspapers, and the internet, which

 are excellent platforms for legend dissemination.  

 The supernatural has become very powerful recently. Between television

 programs such as ‘Ghosthunters’ and Hollywood films like ‘The Blair Witch Project’, the

 occult and supernatural have saturated modern culture with a variety of ghosts, UFOs,

 and monsters. The news-media has also printed many articles about the supernatural.

 These stories frequently employ religious imagery or theological motifs. Bill Ellis

 remarks that, “Satan is alive and well, and the local newspaper regularly prints petitions

 to various saints and divine beings” (Ellis 2001:101). Made popular by the mass media,

 supernatural occurrences have become commodified and are easily assessable to the

 public.

Newspapers and tabloids are a valuable source for studying folkloric material. As

 a vehicle for consumption and distribution, the news-presses provide scholars with the

‘very latest’ in legend formation. Degh states that, “the repertoire of the tabloids is large

and comfortably familiar-variants of classic texts, revivals of old stories, or retellings of

those currently in distribution. In other words, the repertoire of tabloids is representative
of living legends” (Degh 2001:175). Through the popularity and dissemination of news-
stories and tabloids, we see the human need to find meaning in the unexplainable

Academia has studied the prevalence of the supernatural in modern culture. In

fact, many folklorists devote entire books to supernatural narratives and legend

formation. Jeannie Thomas states that, “Like any form of folklore, supernatural narratives

directly or indirectly tell us about culture. However, one of the characteristics that

distinguishes supernatural narratives is that they emphasize mystery and the

indeterminate, which overtly invites interpretation of various kinds” (Thomas 2007: 30).

This is what makes the supernatural so enjoyable as an area of study. One person’s ghost

or UFO sighting is a true event whereas to another person, the experience is a figment of

the imagination or daydream. The supernatural invites discussion and in so doing

becomes a popular part of  tradition.

One way that legends teach about culture is because they are related to belief.

According to Degh, all legends are based on belief. She asserts that, “belief makes its

presence felt in any kind of legend” (Degh 1976: 306). Suggesting that legends are stories

about belief, the degrees of belief do not alter this quality of the genre. Degh and her

proponents suggest that belief is not a narrative but the symbolic core of a legend and

because of this, all legends are necessarily “belief legends” (Ward 1991).

Largely differing only in semantics or subtle discrepancies on the importance of

the word ‘belief’ when discussing legendry, folklorists such as Gillian Bennett and Ott
Blehr prefer to use ‘story’ instead of ‘belief’ when discussing this subcategory of legend.

Their reasoning lays in the argument that “belief legends” represent “antiquated

traditions about beliefs that have been handed down in relatively fixed form. “Belief

stories”, by contrast, were narrative illustrations of still living belief traditions” (Ward

1991: 360). Bennett’s “belief story” addresses the current community beliefs whereas the

“belief legend” is a fixed narrative that belongs solely to the past. Gabbert on the other

hand, suggests that legend scholars focus “too much time on content and not

enough on contextual “everyday” or general belief” (Gabbert 2000).

UFO-lore offers numerous examples that show how ‘belief’ has changed due to a

changing cultural context. Traditional legendry of heavenly beings has shifted into our
perception of extraterrestrial visitors due to changes in context. What was once the

domain of angelic beings has now become the realm of otherworldly space-men.

Tumminia states that “flying saucers have postmodern myths. With the dawning of the

rational technological age, social settings expected secularization and science to wipe out

supernatural and magical religions. Instead, a magical enchanted worldview subverted the

scientific paradigm into an animistic account of space beings what was readily available
for our mass consumption” (Tumminia 1998: 115).

The ongoing need for the sacred promotes changes in legendry. Lindahl has

remarked about these changes in tradition when he states that, “modern society has shed a

good deal of its reliance on the divine, and replaced it with faith in technology. The sky,

once invoked as the home of the gods, was now filled with aircraft” (Lindahl 1986: 7). As

times change, legends adapt to fit the needs of society. Carl Jung studied religion and

legendry, and, with regards to UFOs, called the phenomenon a visionary rumor. He states

that, “it is closely akin to the collective visions of, say, the crusaders during the siege of

Jerusalem, the troops at Mons in the First World War, and the faithful followers of Pope

at Fatima” (Jung 1979: 8). In other words, UFO legendry fills the human need for the

sacred. Fulfilling a spiritual role in society, the otherworldly visitor provides an avenue

for the numinous in its various manifestations.

UFO narratives are full of religious imagery. Biblical allegories frequently

function as a template for modern UFO narratives. For example, the bible tells us that the

prophet Ezekiel saw a burning wheel in the sky. The narrator of the sacred story states,

“The appearance of the wheels and their work [was] like unto the color of a beryl: and

they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work [was] as it were a wheel

in the middle of a wheel” (Ezekiel 1:16). This wheel is very similar to the saucers made

famous by Kenneth Arnold in 1947. Arnold was a pilot who witnessed nine disk-like

objects flying near Mount Rainier. Based on his description of the UFOs seeming to skip

like saucers on water, the media coined the term ‘flying saucer’ and this term remains

popular today in describing UFO sightings. Whether perceived as a wheel or saucer, both

of these narratives describe a round object emitting a supernatural light and performing

unconventional maneuvers in the sky.

UFO folklore also makes use of the wheel or halo symbol in its literature. For

example, the UK tabloid ‘The Sun’ published an account of a circular formation in the

Moscow sky (October 11, 2009). The article describes:

                        This glowing halo in clouds over Moscow looks like an Independence

                        Day style of attack.

This astonishing ring was spotted over the city and captured on video by stunned locals. It has been described as a “true mystery” by a UFO expert. Scores of supernatural enthusiasts have been gripped by the astonishing footage and speculated it could be an ALIEN MOTHERSHIP. The sighting in the clouds is reminiscent of scenes from the 1996 Hollywood blockbuster Independence Day.

“Whatever it is, its one of the most beautiful and spectacular things I’ve ever seen.”

“Speculation is fever pitch on the internet.”

“This is being discussed in forums, blogs, and email lists all over the world. Some people say it’s a bizarre meteorological effect. Theories range from it being an alien mothership, proof of Russian weather modification technology or a weather weapon-even a sign of the end of the world” (Vince Soodin. The Sun. October 11, 2009).

This account of a round, seemingly supernatural formation is very similar to what we

read in Biblical scriptures. Both describe inexplicable objects that are spectacularly

beautiful. There is also a sense of mystery attached to both the Biblical wheel and the
halo-like cloud formation that resembled an “alien mothership.” Both narratives make use

of preexisting cultural information to assess what the object is and how it should be

interpreted.................To Be Continued.