AMBIGUOUS INTRUSIONS: THE UFO / ALIEN ENCOUNTER PHENOMENON (original) (raw)
Despite a growing body of scholarly and scientific literature, the topic of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) – and the related question of alien encounters – still elicits profound scepticism, dismissal, and ridicule within the academic community and the sciences. This reaction is indicative of a ‘UFO taboo’ – a concerted effort to marginalize and suppress recognition of the UFO. The UFO taboo operates in society as an ‘epistemology of ignorance’ that relegates the subject to the realm of science fiction, tabloid journalism, fringe theories and collective cultural fantasy. A literature review of the leading scholarly work on the subject will serve both to contextualize the history of the UFO problem, and counter the inviolability of the taboo. This paper will outline some disciplinary perspectives beginning with an examination of the political theory behind the taboo. The school of Transpersonal Psychology, the pioneering work of John E. Mack, and a parallel approach in Anthropology will help us conceptualize the most controversial aspect of the phenomenon: the alien abduction experience. The paper concludes with a summary of the major explanatory hypotheses for UFOs and abductions, and points to the need for an international interdisciplinary research project. This paper makes no attempt to solve the UFO problem. But by asking what the UFO – through its insistent presence and our strange apathy towards its presence – can tell us about our world, our systems of knowledge, and our systems of rule, the paper argues for the importance of the phenomenon and the onus that is placed on science and the academy to legitimate its study and contribute to our understanding of it.
Sign up for access to the world's latest research.
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.