The Powers & Principalities’ Alien Savior Mythos

The Powers & Principalities’ Alien Savior Mythos



By Cris D. Putnam
In reference to my discussion tonight with George Noory on Coast to Coast, the UFO phenomenon is nuanced, complex, multidimensional, and, above all, uncooperative to analyze. No matter what one believes, it cannot be denied that a UFO mythos permeates modern culture. It subtly animates and steers cultural consciousness. A myth is a tale believed as true. It’s usually sacred, and is set in the distant past, otherworlds, or other parts of the world featuring heroic, superhuman, or nonhuman characters.[1] In this sense, the alien invasion has already occurred. Psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim explains: “Myths and fairy stories both answer the eternal questions: What is the world really like? How am I to live my life in it? How can I truly be myself?”[2] Myths answer fundamental worldview questions. Thus, rather than trying to explain flying saucer propulsion technology, perhaps we are better served by asking what sort of worldview it promotes. Jacques Vallée has pointed out, “If UFOs are acting at the mythic and spiritual level it will be almost impossible to detect it by conventional methods.”[3] It is important to analyze how myths function in order to assess how the UFO phenomenon shapes public opinion.
UFO accounts influence society in subtle yet important ways. The mythos has a factual basis—photographs and video, physical effects, radar data, radiation signatures, ground impressions, abductees with physical trauma—that cannot be dismissed. Yet, the mythic elements forecast a future evolution, communion with our space brothers, and the savior from above. By examining its mythological impact, perhaps we can discern something about its true intent. From a literary and psychological perspective, the UFO myth evokes psychic symbols deep in our unconscious minds, influencing our thinking and worldview. A range of experts—Carl Jung, Jacques Vallée, and Ted Peters, among others—recognizes that a UFO savior myth is molding modern man, irrespective of contact. Many people who have never seen a UFO still believe in them. In this way, the phenomenon exerts broad influence with minimal exposure. After a brief examination of myth, we will suggest a connection between Jacques Vallée’s control-system hypothesis and biblical theology in order to draw some conclusions.
Jung saw this mythos as filling the gap left by the waning Christian consensus. Speaking to secularization, he wrote: “The dominating idea of a mediator and god who became man, after having thrust the old polytheistic beliefs into the background, is now in its turn on the point of evaporating. Untold millions of so called Christians have lost their belief in a real and living mediator.”[4] He argued that secularized man projects his deep psychological need for a savior and that the UFO mythos “has a highly suggestive effect and grows into a savior myth whose basic features have been repeated countless times.”[5] He saw them as a replacement for Christ. No matter what the underlying reality is behind UFOs, the myth is molding culture and forming a worldview. We think this is by design.
Building on Jung’s analysis, Lutheran theologian Ted Peters writes, “I suggest that the study of UFOs has the appearance of being scientific—hence, it offers the opportunity to discuss religious feelings in seemingly scientific terms. Whether we say it in public or not, many of us believe science is good and religion is bad. Science is for modern educated people; religion is for old-fashioned superstitious people.”[6] He suggests that some people see aliens as diplomats or scientific explorers, but his third explanatory model, the “celestial savior,” resonates best with our hypothesis.[7] This savior model, common in channeled messages and contactee literature, was thought to be a projection of Cold War angst. Peters writes: “He or she is the messiah from a ‘heavenly’ civilization where there is peace and no more war. In this religious model, we believe that the reason for the alien mission to earth is to help us achieve the same utopian level of existence that the aliens have.”[8] Similarly, astrobiology and SETI serves this religious need as much as, if not more than, a scientific one. Yet, there is compelling evidence UFOs are not space aliens. In 1990, Jacques Vallée published a paper, “Five Arguments against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects,” in the Journal of Scientific Exploration arguing against the space alien explanation. His opposition is discounted by many prominent ufologists, prompting Vallée to refer to himself as a “heretic among heretics.”[9] He adds humorously, “I will be disappointed if UFOs turn out to be nothing more than spaceships.”[10] But this begs the question of what he thinks UFOs really are…

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Great post.