Saucers And The Sacred The Folklore Of U

Utah State University Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU DigitalCommons@USU All Graduate Plan B and other Reports Graduate Studies Saucers and the Sacred: The Folklore of UFO Narratives Saucers and the Sacred: The Folklore of UFO Narratives Preston C. Copeland Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports Part of the American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Copeland, Preston C., "Saucers and the Sacred: The Folklore of UFO Narratives" (2012). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/149 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Plan B and other Reports by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please [email protected]. Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All Graduate Plan B and other ReportsGraduate Studies, School of Saucers and the Sacred: The Folklore of UFO Narratives Preston C. Copeland Utah State University This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, School of at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Plan B and other Reports by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please [email protected]. Recommended Citation Copeland, Preston C., "Saucers and the Sacred: The Folklore of UFO Narratives" (2012).All Graduate Plan B and other Reports.Paper http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/149 SAUCERS AND THE SACRED: THE FOLKLORE OF UFO NARRATIVES Preston C. Copeland A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF SCIENCE AMERICAN STUDIES UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, Utah PRESTON COPELAND RATIONAL UFOLOGY: THE RITES OF PASSAGE IN ALIEN ABDUCTION NARRATIVES. In 1973, nineteen year old Calvin Parker and forty two year old Charles Hickson, both of Gauter, Mississippi were fishing in the Pascagoula river when they heard a buzzing noise behind them. Both turned and were terrified to see a ten-foot wide, eight-foot- high, glowing egg-shaped object with blue lights at its front hovering just above the ground about forty feet from the riverbank. As the men, frozen with fright, watched, a door appeared in the object, and three strange Beings floated just above the river toward them. The beings had legs but did not use them. They were about five feet tall, had bullet-shaped heads without necks, slits for mouths; and where their noses or ears should be, they had thin, conical objects sticking out, like carrots from a snowmans head. They had no eyes, gray, wrinkled skin, round feet, and claw-like hands. Two of the Beings seized Hickson; when the third grabbed Parker, the teenager fainted with fright. Hickson claimed that when the Beings placed their hands under his arms, his body became numb, and that then they floated him into a brightly lit room in the UFOs interior, where he was subjected to a medical examination with an eyelike device which, like Hickson himself, was floating in midair. At the end of the examination, the Beings simply left Hickson floating, paralyzed but for his eyes, and went to examine Parker, who, Hickson believed, was in another room. Twenty minutes after Hickson had first observed the UFO, he was floated back outside and released. He found Parker weeping and praying on the ground near him. Moments later, the object rose straight up and shot out of sight. (Bryan 1995: 115) This supernatural abduction narrative is called the Pascagoula incident and is one of the most famous accounts of supposed extraterrestrial interaction with human beings. Known as a close encounter of the fourth kind, the abduction narrative is ripe with terrifying accounts of regular people being accosted by otherworldly beings that subject their captives to torturous ordeals. According to UFO mythos, a close encounter of the first kind involves a UFO sighting that is reported at close range. The second type of encounter is when there is physical evidence of the UFO. Some of this trace evidence might include burned vegetation, frightened animals, and loss of electricity. An encounter of the third kind is characterized by contact with an extraterrestrial Being. But the fourth is clearly the most disturbing because it involves an actual abduction. These stories of supernatural abduction have a clear structure and fit into consistent themes. Typically, the episode begins with an initial capture, which is followed by a sort of medical examination and otherworldy journey. In many cases, interaction with the Being produces a theophany in the abductee. The sequence usually culminates with the return of the victim, but the aftermath of the ordeal lingers sometimes for years after the event. My own interest in UFO narratives stems largely from my fascination with the esoteric and arcane. From as far back as I can remember, Ive had a profound interest in all things occult and/or mysterious. In terms of the UFO abduction, Ive always found it fascinating how somebody could experience something largely indefinable and have their world-view changed forever. I often wonder what it is about anomalous experiences that have the potential to spark a life-changing shift in a persons ethos or societal niche. Also, popular culture has had an influence on why UFO narratives hold my interest. Television programs such as the X- Files and Roswell were popular when I was in high school, and I think that their story-lines, coupled with the fact that I was at an impressionable age, instilled a fascination with the UFO in me. To this day, I try to draw correlations between the occult and UFO narratives. As something as mysterious to me now as it was when I was younger, these stories of the unknown spark my imagination and inspire me to delve deeper into their structural nuances. Of all the imaginings the human mind can produce, those of the supernatural may hold the most proclivity for individual expression. As part of our unusual psyche, ideas of the paranormal or supernatural manifest in a variety of ways. Throughout human history, ideas of otherwordly or inherently inhuman beings have been used to explain pervasive or otherwise frightening occurrences. The supernatural abduction, whether by witches, ghosts, or goblins, is a common staple in all civilizations and is a structural part of a communitys social organization. According to Jodi Dean, abduction stories describe the interventions of non-human folk in human lives. They are stories of border crossings, of everyday transgressions of the boundaries demarcating the limits of that define reality (Dean 1998:163). The idea of abductions by fairies, for example, is a type of assault narrative. As described in Western European folklore, a changeling was the offspring of a fairy or some other supernatural entity that was put in place of a normal human child. People believed that the abductee could only be returned if the changeling was made to Nowadays, UFO abductions are perhaps the most popular supernatural assault tradition to saturate popular media. Due to the plethora of science fiction movies and television programs, the appropriateness of the UFO abduction as material for academic study can easily be questioned. Many academic disciplines dismiss the UFO narrative as pure science fiction. Nevertheless, Thomas Bullard is correct when he states that the question before us is not whether UFOs are folklore. They certainly are, and just as certainly resemble other folklore in forms and function. The coherency of abduction reports stands out as the most unequivocal piece of evidence that folklore scholarship contributes to the UFO mystery (Bullard 1981: 48). In fact, Bullard himself conducted a study of 270 abduction cases and concluded that the narratives hold structural similarities regardless of who the abductee was or who the researcher was (Jacobs 2000). Drawing on Bullards notion that UFO abductions are folklore, in this paper I suggest that UFO abduction narratives can be interpreted productively by using Arnold van Genneps rites of passage. I will be utilizing what I have come to call rational liminality to show that after the abduction sequence, an ultimate reincorporation into society is achieved by the abductees rational acceptance of his/her liminal experiences that occurred during the initial event. Arnold van Gennep was instrumental in recognizing and discussing the rites of passage that accompany specific life stages. A French anthropologist and folklorist, van Gennep coined the idea of rites of passage and used this schema to address various transitory events in a persons life. In his book Rites Of Passage , he identified three distinct steps that make up a typical rite of passage. The first involves a separation from society. This separation is followed by a complex set of events that are liminal in nature. The term liminal refers to an in-between state. Something on a threshold or ethereal, the liminal is an intermediate phase of the event. After the separation and liminal experiences, a period of consummation or reincorporation into society occurs. Van Gennep utilized these three gradated steps to explain everything from puberty rites to secret society membership. In order to thoroughly examine the rites of passage apparent in UFO abduction narratives, I draw on various abduction accounts. Drawing on information from published interviews conducted by Budd Hopkins and C.D.B. Bryan at the 1992 Abduction Study Conference at M.I.T., I will show how most abduction stories have similar morphology and thematic structuring. Some of the most compelling testimonies involve abductees named Carol Dedham and Alice Bartlett. These women have been friends since childhood and both have reportedly been abducted multiple times. I will also refer to a group meeting taken at Budd Hopkins studio that had abductees Brenda, Erica, Terry, and Linda Cortile in attendance. Brenda, Erica, and Terry are multiple experiencers who prefer not to divulge their last names for reasons of anonymity. These four women have undergone hypnotic regression a number of times and provide valuable insights into UFO abduction narratives. The study of UFO narratives has become more commonplace in academic circles over the years. One discipline that takes narratives of abductions seriously is psychotherapy. Many therapeutic psychologists interpret the supernatural assault tradition as a means to express other ailments. According to Newman and Baumeister, a handful of mental health professional are arguing that psychotherapists should be educated about the UFO abduction phenomenon so that they will recognize the symptoms and be able to help the victims. Abductees, they argue, are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (1996:100). For many abductees who exhibit post-traumatic stress, certain ailments such as disassociation and depression are prevalent in the victims. Sharps, Mathews, and Astin state that depressed individuals might be more likely to believe in ghosts, for example, because ghosts provide evidence for an after-life in which present stress would be eliminated. We expect that belief in UFOs would be another avenue of escape for depressed individuals (2006:583). Disassociation and the UFO abduction scenario have even been studied scientifically in order to find correlations and/or disparities as uncovered through structured interviewing and questionnaires. The results have overwhelmingly shown that the abduction sequence does indeed correspond to depressive tendencies. In fact, belief in UFO yielded an overall significance (P=.003) regression coefficient against psychological characteristics, with both depression and hyperactivity yielding significant associations (Sharps, Mathews, and Astin 2006). Psychologists also assert that after victims speak to a neutral listener, the symptoms of PTSD are alleviated. This is often why abductees choose to seek out others that have had similar experiences. By congregating with other victims, the UFO abductee can return to a sense of normalcy. Studies of religion and religious anthropology also are relevant to UFO abduction narratives. More often than not, the extraterrestrial being is imbued with the god-like powers of omniscience and omnipotence by the abductee, making these narratives quasi- religious. Aliens are thought to exert complete control over their human captives and subject them to capricious whims or impulses. In regards to aliens being equated with the divine, Jacques Arnauld notes the characteristics of extraterrestrials that are usually associated with heavenly divinities: transcendence, omniscience, perfection, the power of redemption. Do they not come from heaven? Do they not claimed to have created us? Are they not constantly watching us, our actions, our thoughts, with what the ancient called the all-seeing eyes of gods (Arnauld 2008:444)? Like most qualities that are attributed to a divine being, the extraterrestrial being carries connotations of immortality and sacred knowledge. Additionally, the idea of being chosen is a prevalent quasi-religious theme in UFO abduction narratives. For abductees that experience this form of theophany, the alien shows a beneficence towards the human race. Robert E. Bartholomew has written about the spiritual dimensions of UFOs in America, stating that, functionally and symbolically, these contemporary accounts of otherworldly contact have more in common with Biblical revelations than profane airship inventors. For instance, the experience of having been chosen as an intermediary between otherworldly inhabitants and humanity to impart a vital message is a classic close encounter percipient report which typically advocates a particular moral position (Bartholomew 1991:7). In many abduction narratives, the victim reports the extraterrestrial relaying cautionary warnings about the future of humanity. In this sense, the aliens can be equated to angels and prophets of the past. Finally, the idea of prophesy and apocalypticism is a prevalent in abduction scenarios. In many cases, the chosen abductees return with visions of the future. It is these characteristics that spark New Age or quasi-religious movements within UFO milieus. Anthropologists Susan Harding and Kathleen Stewart explored the phenomenon of optimistic apocalypticism in detail and remarked that, From their studies of present-day New Age healing and the ufological prophesy of the Heavens Gate movement, we come to understand both movements in terms of their negotiations of polarized cultural values in which future events, which are fixed in the known, determine the shape, the content, and the significance of present events and actions (Harding and Stewart 1999:270). These anthropologists of religion have identified a common theme in UFO abduction narratives. After an initial capture, the victim is sometimes returned with ideas about the fate of the human race. In fact, many informants report that the aliens themselves address the need for environmental preservation and global peace. Folkloristics also has contributed to the study of UFO stories. Studying the components that make up these experiences elucidates the similarities of the phenomenon with more traditional folkloric forms, illustrating that these are traditional experiences. According to Thomas Bullard, what matters here is not the ultimate nature of the reports but their status as narratives, their form, content, and relationship to comparable accounts of supernatural encounter (Bullard 1989:148). Bullard identified eight episodes that usually characterize the alien abduction story. These include the capture, examination, conference, tour, otherworldly journey, theophany, return, and aftermath, all of which have structural similarities to other supernatural assault traditions. Bullard published a study the same year as Whitley Strieber released his bestselling book in 1988 and cited a bewildering array of alien abductors, with the typical grey only one species among a panoply that included mummies, trolls, sasquatches, and robots (239). Whitley Strieber is an author who purportedly was captured and taken aboard an alien craft. In Communion , he relays a personal narrative of being examined and probed by extraterrestrial greys. These greys are the prototypical and most popular alien being in popular culture. Strieber suggests that he experienced supernatural assaults similar to what we find in Huffords Old Hag phenomenon. He states that, In the wee hours of the night I abruptly woke up. There was somebody quite close to the bed, but the room seemed so unnaturally dark that I couldnt see much at all. I caught a glimpse of someone crouching just beside the bedside table. I could see by the huge, dark eyes who it was. It was hell on earth to be there, and yet I couldnt move, couldnt cry out, couldnt get away. I lay as still as death, suffering inner agonies. (Strieber 1997:190). The release of the book made Strieber an instant celebrity and millionaire. David Hufford also asserts that UFO abductions are a modern version of more traditional assault traditions. He states that, UFO legends display a continuity of described features because the narrators are drawing from a common language and otherwise share a frame of reference which enables them to appropriately set up similar narrative structures combining similar contents (1985:119). Like more traditional folkloric forms, UFO narratives utilize a common language with which they can be identified. These continuities were apparent in Huffords study of sleep paralysis and the Old Hag phenomenon. His study used a methodology largely based upon verbal accounts and survey techniques to document the consistencies of supernatural assaults across different cultural contexts. In many of the narratives, victims describe waking up from a sound sleep and feeling as it someone is holding you down. You can do nothing but cry out. People believe that you will die if you are not awakened (Hufford 1982). Much like the UFO abduction, paralysis is a common feature of the Old Hag assault. Also, cultural models determine the way the experience is interpreted. As context changes, the interpretation of these experiences adapt to meet current cultural settings. Hufford concluded that Old Hag phenomenon occurs independent of cultural conditioning and regardless of whether or not the victim is aware of this type of supernatural attack. Hufford states that, The Old Hag, then, can be as easily assimilated to UFO beliefs as it can to Vampirism, witchcraft, or anxiety neurosis