American Cosmic Analyzes UFOs as a Cultural Phenomenon
The academic Diana Walsh Pasulka gains access to an exclusive group of scientists and engineers who investigate unidentified flying objects. Her work, American Cosmic, does not discuss whether these objects are real. It examines how the phenomenon acts as a catalyst that produces new forms of faith and religion in our technology-dominated time. The perspective shifts from asking what they are to inquiring what they awaken in society. 🛸
Ufology Understood as a Contemporary Belief System
Pasulka addresses ufology as a cultural and religious phenomenon. She dialogues with believers who hold high-level positions in science and technology, profiles usually associated with skepticism. The book reveals how these rational people incorporate the UFO phenomenon into their worldview, often using language that fuses the technical with the transcendent. Thus, technology and the numinous connect.
Key Points Explored in the Book:- Interviews with scientists and engineers who integrate UFO belief into their worldview.
- Analysis of the language that mixes technical terminology with transcendental concepts.
- Ufology treated not as a search for evidence, but as a socio-cultural phenomenon.
The approach does not seek to prove the existence of extraterrestrial spacecraft, but to understand the social and psychological impact of believing in them.
A Shift in Perspective on the UFO Phenomenon
This work is significant because it moves the center of the traditional debate. It analyzes how UFO narratives, their stories, and their symbolic artifacts operate similarly to classical religious myths, but adapted to a society that venerates innovation and scientific unknowns. For some, the server storing classified data is the new sanctuary, and incomprehensible code is sacred writing.
Elements Compared to Belief Systems:- Artifacts and UFO stories as modern equivalents of myths.
- Secret technological infrastructures (laboratories, servers) as new sacred spaces.
- Inaccessible code and data functioning as arcane writing and doctrine.
Faith in the Information Age
The book proposes that faith no longer resides solely in temples, but also in top-secret laboratories and data centers. American Cosmic illustrates how a technologically advanced society generates its own mythologies, where scientific unknowns and the possibility of the extraterrestrial fulfill a role once occupied by deities. The work invites us to observe the UFO phenomenon not with a telescope, but with the tools of social sciences and religious studies. 🔬