ETs, UFOs and the Psychology of Belief

ETs and UFOs

Among those interested in the possibility of life on other planets, the acronym ET (extra-terrestrial) points to the notion that living organisms exist beyond our Earth.

By way of contrast,
the acronym UFO (unidentified flying object) usually denotes alleged spacecraft that transport intelligent ETs from other worlds to ours.

But this isn’t an ironclad distinction. The ‘U’ in UFO stands for unidentified and it’s conceivable that some UFOs could be ETs.

During World War II, for instance, various glowing balls were observed and photographed by Allied pilots. These phenomena came to be called Foo Fighters and suggest that some UFOs might, in fact, be intelligent life forms.

If UFOs are also ETs, they would probably exist as beings able to survive any kind of atmospheric conditions. That is, they’d be ETs without bodies as we know them or possibly with bodies shielded by some kind of energy field.

ETs and UFOs in Popular Culture

Amidst all the uncertainty, hoaxers and fuzzy thinking, one thing seems certain: ETs and UFOs are a part of popular culture.

Different web sites seem to reflect various human myths, dreams and expectations about aliens and their alleged spacecraft. In fact, most of the UFO/ET discourse appears to be dramatically colored by personal and cultural filters.

Religious extremists who see the world in black and white often say that aliens are manifestations of the devil. At the other end of the spectrum, some ET/UFO enthusiasts claim that aliens have arrived to save the planet. Meanwhile, some individuals believe they are alien emissaries, born of a human but really, so they say, from another planet or cosmic dimension.

While it’s fine to be open-minded, the topic of ETs and UFOs requires careful, critical analysis and begs a few questions:

• Are ET/UFOs real or the stuff of fantasy?
• Do ETs have physical, energy or spirit bodies?
• Do ET/UFOs travel through space and time?
• Just how intelligent are they?
• How much more of the universe can they see?
• Would every ET be kind and helpful?
• Could some be harmful to other ETs and to human beings?

It seems probable that ETs exist in some shape or form. Both the Catholic Church and the CIA endorse inquiry into the possibility of alien life. And the Canadian government has a website called Canada’s UFOs: The Search for the Unknown.

In fact, there’s quite a lot of material about ETs and UFOs on the web. Here’s a sampling of what can be found today. Some of these web pages might seem questionable while others clearly ask some very good questions.

• UFO Evidence posts citing reports and photos of alleged UFOs
• Drawings and Pictures of Aliens outlines different types of alleged ETs
• Alien Abduction Experience and Research suggests alien abductions lead to psychological difficulties
• Stop Alien Abductions provides instructions on how to make a helmet that supposedly prevents ETs from abducting or controlling people through psi
• Religious Movements Homepage: UFO Cults surveys ET/UFO phenomena from a sociological perspective
• UFOs: The Beginning of a New World is sympathetic to the idea of ETs/UFOs
• Dr. James Harder looks at UFOs from several perspectives, including the possibility of benevolent, friendly ETs and less friendly, manipulative ones
• Terry Melanson believes that the ET cult serves the purpose of social engineering and brainwashing
• Steve Hammons writes about alleged secret data on ETs, government projects and the possibilities of social acclimatization and transformation
• Daniela Giordano explores the possibility of UFOs being represented in the history of the arts
• Billy Booth looks at ET/UFOs from various perspectives, including best-known cases and alleged evidence for historical and recent sightings

ETs, UFOs and Spiritual Discernment

Arlan K. Andrews summarizes a fair number of reports suggesting that psi abilities (i.e. ESP, clairvoyance) significantly increase after a person believes they’ve had a first ET/UFO contact.¹

Although inadequately explored in the ET/UFO literature, from the perspective of interfaith mysticism it is possible that manipulative ETs or perhaps demonic spiritual influences posing as ETs impart paranormal abilities on psychologically vulnerable individuals, leading them to develop an Adlerian-style inferiority/superiority complex.

It would be easy for a vulnerable person to overlook painful personal issues if meddling ETs or demons were apparently feeding them other people’s thoughts, along with false prophecies and delusional ideas about being special and better than everyone else.

Indeed, some people seem utterly convinced that they have been sent to Earth as sacred rulers over the unenlightened masses. They’re quite willing to ignore or patch up false prophecies with ad hoc explanations to prevent their bubble from bursting, which would probably result in painful personal issues coming to the fore.

While most people see false prophecy in terms of a delusion or mental illness, contemporary and ancient religious traditions suggest the perhaps related approach of discernment.

As the anthropologist I. M. Lewis illustrates in Ecstatic Religion (1971), saints, sages and shamans from all walks of life agree that the psyche is not an island.

This may have a positive aspect. Figures such as St. Anthony, for example, reportedly have guided individuals toward lost articles and missing children.

However, personal openness to being guided has a down side. A good number of spiritualists and theologians believe that the mind can be obsessed or even possessed by spiritual hackers, traditionally regarded as demons, tramp souls and ancestral spirits.

For convenience I’ll group the possibility of evil ETs and demons under the single heading of Negative Spiritual Influences (NSI).

While some believers in NSI might be paranoid reactionaries, it’s improbable that all are paranoid and deluded.

Along these lines, various religious traditions suggest that NSI may produce hallucinations and manipulate individuals. Existing in a more comprehensive space-time than human beings, NSI might see future possibilities, influence a person’s choices and compel them to accept a false explanation as to why certain events come about.²

Most of us have probably encountered someone with an underlying inferiority complex or unresolved psychological trauma who parades around telling others they’re an achieved saint. This kind of thing seems quite common in both organized religions and cults, where not a few borderline – or perhaps even insane – individuals hide out under the safe, well-defined and socially legitimate structures of their particular religion or cult.

To avoid this kind of scenario, it’s important that interior influences allegedly of ET origin are painstakingly discerned. Discernment in the religious sense is the use of reason, experience and divine gifts to separate true from false interior perceptions. As Henri Martin P.S.S. puts it:

The charism of discernment is “a kind of supernatural instinct by which those who have it perceive intuitively the origin, either divine or not, of thoughts and inclinations submitted to them.” (J. de Guibert, Lecons, p. 306). It is to be distinguished from revelation of the secrets of hearts, properly so called, made directly by God. In such revelations, which is extremely rare, objective certitude is absolute. In the case of discernment the chances of error lie in the subjective interpretation and use of the supernatural light received. Lacking an infused charism, ordinarily “God will assist by special interior light a gift of discernment acquired by experience and prudence in the application of the traditional rules of discernment.” (ibidem).³

On the need for spiritual seekers to be sincere, humble and rational in the discernment process, the renowned scholar of mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, says:

Ecstasies, no less than visions and voices, must, they declare, be subjected to unsparing criticism before they are recognized as divine: whilst some are undoubtably “of God,” others are no less clearly “of the devil.”⁴

The Next Step

Cautionary words aside, the notion of ETs and UFOs can be extremely thought-provoking and great material for science fiction TV and movies. ETs and UFOs point to a broader canvas and possibly the next stage of humanity’s journey through the cosmos.

As with any new and uncharted territory, however, it would be unwise to act on blind impulse. Those who believe they inwardly perceive and perhaps possess special abilities from ETs would probably do best to err on the side of caution.

Regardless of their origin, interior perceptions and alleged psi abilities should be soberly evaluated in the spirit of humility and, in most instances, within the context of informed and qualified peers.

This means that predictions should be checked with actual outcomes. Either something happens or it doesn’t. And no amount of ex post facto fudging can change the fact that a particular ET prophecy just didn’t come true.

Interior perceptions should also be checked, whenever possible, within a larger group of qualified people so mistakes can be identified and corrected. A genuine conversation among real human beings could entail coming to terms with personal issues or perhaps faulty information that could have contributed to a false interior perception.

To rigorously examine a truth claim is hardly a groundbreaking idea. It’s prominent in the discernment process of religion and in the peer review procedure of science. And there’s absolutely no reason why ET and UFO research should not strive to be spiritually and scientifically responsible.

Anything else runs the risk of lapsing into sheer fantasy and outrageous fanaticism.

Notes

¹ “Psychic Aspects of UFOs” in Ronald Story, ed. The Encyclopedia of UFOs. Doubleday & Co. Garden City, New York: 1980, pp. 286-289.

² (a) George P. Hanson provides an interesting discussion in this area in The Trickster and the Paranormal (New York: Xlibris, 2001, pp. 210-248). (b) The belief in demonic influence is found in almost all religions, myths and folk traditions. See, for instance, Sir J. G. Frazier’s The Golden Bough. Some have attempted to integrate this view with perspectives from contemporary psychiatry and psychology.
(c) Spiritual seekers sometimes believe that a divine voice foretells the future or outlines the best course of action. Others say God appears to them personally. However, in some cases it’s unclear whether these voices and visions are from God or perhaps a NSI that phrases things and applies specific emotional tones (e.g. firm and domineering or perhaps gentle and loving) to prey on psychologically vulnerable individuals. Similarly, destructive cult leaders manipulate disciples through prolonged psychological, sexual and/or cultic abuse. Victims compensate by believing they’re special or ‘chosen’ vehicles of the divine when, more likely, they’re being duped and exploited by the charismatic leader and possibly a NSI. Moreover, a cult leader or alleged spirit guide may give victims new names and even induce extraordinary numinous experiences to reinforce a delusory sense of superiority and holiness. Chrystine Oksana points out that victims of prolonged abuse often denounce their families and form ties with a new family, creating new names for themselves to fit with their new self-image. This may be a necessary stage in the overall healing process but the question remains: How many victims abreact their pain and heal from the initial abuse? Catholics and Muslims also accept new names when entering a monastic community. So the issue of taking on a new name is potentially complicated and jumping to the conclusion that the practice indicates pathology seems unwarranted.

³ Jacques Guillet, Gustave Bardy et. al. (trans.) Sister Innocentia Richards, Ph.D., Discernment of Spirits. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1970, p. 104. More about discernment can be found at » http://earthpages.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/discernment/

⁴ Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism, New York: New American Library, 1955, p. 361. Likewise, William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, suggests that some lower forms of mysticism may have “proceeded from the demon” (London: Penguin, 1985, p. 423). See also, An Outline of Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, Chapter XVI – The ‘Cruder’ Phases.

Image Notes

These lights appear about ½ - ¾ inch below the moon in the original photo (posted at top right of this article and detailed here with enhanced contrast). This is not a UFO but at first I thought it might be. After taking several pictures of the same scene it was clear that the three lights moved in some kind of mathematical relation to the camera angle. I concluded that these lights were a quirk of the camera and am compelled to ask how many other UFO images fall into the same category.

Further Reading

Ashpole, Edward. The UFO Phenomena. London: Headline, 1995.

Bletzer, June G. The Donning International Encyclopedic Psychic Dictionary. Norfolk, Virginia: The Donning Co., 1986.

Dennet, Preston E. One in Forty: The UFO Epidemic. Commack New York: Nova Science Publishers, 1997.

Frazier, Kendrick et al. (eds.). The UFO Invasion. Amherst New York: Prometheus Books, 1997.

Godwin, Malcolm. Angels: An Endangered Species. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Hanson, George P. The Trickster and the Paranormal. New York: Xlibris, 2001.

Hough, Peter A. and Jenny Randles. The Complete Book of UFOs : An Investigation into Alien Contacts and Encounters. London : Piatkus, 1994.

Howe, Linda Moulton. Glimpses of Other Realities, Volume II: High Strangeness. New Orleans, Louisiana: Paper Chase Press, 1998.

Lewis, James R. (ed.). The Gods Have Landed: New Religions From Other Worlds. Albany: State University of New York, 1995.

Matheson, Terry. Alien Abductions. New York: Prometheus Books, 1998.

Story, Ronald D. (ed.). The Encyclopedia of UFO’s. Garden City, New York: Dolphin Books, 1980.

Thompson, Keith. Angels and Aliens: UFO’s and the Mythic Imagination. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1991.

Vallee, Jacques. Forbidden Science. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1992.

Wright, Susan. UFO Headquarters. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Zukerman, Ben and Michael H. Hart. (eds.). Extraterrestrials: Where are They? (second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

“ETs, UFOs and the Psychology of Belief” © Michael Clark. All rights reserved.