One of the subtle mega-trends in American culture in the
second half of the twentieth century has been UFOs and alien
symbolism. Whether the early events centering around Roswell,
New Mexico and such groups as Project Blue Book are true or not,
what is a fact is that interest in aliens came onto the "radar
screen" of American culture around the late 40s.
Carl Jung was
one of the first to try and analyze these "blips" on the "radar
screen" in a symbolic way. As early as 1946 he started
collecting data on UFOs and reading every book on the subject.
In a 1951 letter to an American friend he wrote, "I'm puzzled to
death about these phenomena, because I haven't been able yet to
make out with sufficient certainty whether the whole thing is a
rumor with concomitant singular and mass hallucination, or a
downright fact."
An event in 1958 led Jung to conclude that it was more
desirable for people to believe UFOs exist than to believe they
don't exist. One of his final works, Flying Saucers, was an
attempt to answer why it was more desirable to believe in their
existence.
Jung came to the conclusion that UFOs were examples of the
phenomena of synchronicity where external events mirror internal
psychic states. As usual, he saw the UFO situation in a broader
perspective than most. For Jung the UFO images had much to do
with the ending of an era in history and the beginning of a new
one. In his introductory remarks to Flying Saucers he writes
about the UFO events:
" As we know from ancient Egyptian history, they are
manifestations of psychic changes which always appear at the end
of one Platonic month and at the beginning of another.
Apparently they are changes in the constellation of psychic
dominants, of the archetypes, or 'gods' as they used to be
called, which bring about, or accompany, long-lasting
transformations of the collective psyche. The transformation
started in the historical era and left its traces first in the
passing of the aeon of Taurus into that of Aries, and then of
Aries into Pisces, whose beginning coincides with the rise of
Christianity. We are now nearing that great change which may be
expected when the spring point enters Aquarius."
In a similar manner that the medieval alchemists projected
their psyche into matter, Jung felt that modern man projected
his inner state into the heavens. In this sense, the UFOs became
modern symbols for the ancient gods which came to man's
assistance in time of need. The need perhaps was for wholeness
again out of the increasing fragmentation of the modern world.
In the early 50s and the beginning of the Cold War, when UFOs
began to infiltrate popular culture, there was a great
fragmentation in the world. Jung writes, "At a time when the
world is divided by an iron curtain...we might expect all sorts
of funny things, since when such a thing happens in an
individual it means a complete dissociation, which is instantly
compensated by symbols of wholeness and unity." It was very
relevant to Jung that the shape of the flying saucers was round,
the shape of the ancient Mandala, symbol of wholeness throughout
history.
The UFO events of the 50s which Jung turned his focus on have
certainly not gone away. In fact they seem to increasingly
dominate contemporary American popular culture. In the almost
half century along the way they have gone a long way towards
creating and boosting the literary/film/television genre of
science fiction, as well as creating a huge marketing empire and
a division in culture between the believers (contactees) and
non-believers.
In the process, UFOs and aliens have moved out of cults and
into the mainstream of popular culture, their symbolism
continually evolving. An important investigation into the
current symbolism of aliens and UFOs is political scientist
professor Jodi Dean's Aliens in America. Dean sees aliens as
repositories for the fears and phobias of our segmented,
cyberculture rather than merely another broad-based cult
phenomena.
These fears center around the inability to distinguish truth
from fiction and the fact that many contemporary political
matters are simply undiscipherable. The conspiracy theory which
fuels them offers a type of conflicting symbolic duality to that
of consensus reality. As Dean notes, "The claim to truth and its
challenges to our practices for establishing it are what enable
the alien to function as an icon of postmodern anxieties." She
notes that aliens are cultural icons in which the new conditions
of democratic politics at the millennium can be seen.
But in the end, aliens are really modern Americans and our
feelings of alienation. As Dean says, "We have too much data,
but not enough to make any decisions because we are uncertain
about the contexts and networks into which we might integrate
this information. Enabled by technology we become aliens,
connected outside the state." And, just as often, "we're
abducted by the same technology." In this strange new world,
Dean notes that our neighbors are aliens. "Assimilation has been
discredited as an ideal, and multiculturalism hasn't become much
more than a marketing strategy...Better to forget the neighbors,
go inside, and enjoy cyber-citizenship on the World Wide Web."
And alien abduction, notes Dean, "narrates the predominant
experience of the familiarity of strangeness in the
techno-global information age."
The symbolism of alien abduction is very different than the
old one of colonization dominating much of the nineteenth
century. "Unlike metaphors of colonization that presupposes
borders to be penetrated and resources to be exploited," Dean
notes, "abduction operates with an understanding of the world,
of reality, as amorphous and permeable." Dean adds that
colonization moreover brings with it the possibility of
struggle, of emancipation and independence. Abduction, however,
recognizes the futility of resistance even as it points to other
possible freedoms. Colonization implies an on-going process with
systematic limitations. Yet abduction involves the sense that
things are happening behind our backs. A great paradox is
perhaps at the end of this symbolism as Dean concludes her book
with the following: "To fight colonization, we take control. We
don't fight abduction; we simply try to recover our memories,
all the while aware that they could be false, that in our very
recovery we participate in an alien plan."
Copyright 1998 John Fraim.
