Ufology

Framing

Aerial anomalies have a very long history (see the bibliography section for several historical sources), and appear in the vast majority of societies for which records exist. In the context of the twentieth century most, if not all, social actors involved in their study tend to link unidentified aerial phenomena inseparably to contact with non-human extraterrestrial (and not supernatural) beings. In fact, there has arisen a special class of investigators who claim to do a scientific study of aerial anomalies. These UFO investigators have developed and pursued an often explicitly anti-establishment science known as "ufology," many advocating the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) for the origin of the phenomenon. Those scientists who claim to speak for orthodox science(s) have continued to ignore, downplay, or attack self-described ufologists as de facto assailants on science, even though many ufologists earnestly believe their work is just as scientific as mainstream research, if in a different way.

Contemporaneous with this contest over who is (not) scientific, people with little or no connection to either camp continue to see strange things in the sky, even claim to contact non-human beings. They continue to report these experiences, at the rate of about one in ten, to authorities. And they continue to contribute their personal stories to developing narratives about UFOs. It would be worthwhile to examine the role of ufologists, in interaction with their orthodox scientific critics, and especially in interaction with the UFO lore and reports in society at large. Such an examination can reveal a good deal about the place of science - as institution and as cultural resource - in society.

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Ufology, Orthoscience, and the Nonspecialist Public

I should begin by noting that the study of UFOs has been around longer than the term "ufology" has. And not everyone who studies UFOs in a way they claim is scientific likes to be known as a ufologist; we'll get into that shortly. What they all agree on is using scientific methods and theories, but tweaked to take account of the quirks of UFOs. That tweaking and the controversial status of their subject matter conspire to elicit the stigmatization of UFO investigators.

Though ufology itself has not found a place in the academy or elsewhere, quite a few ufologists have accredited scientific training and even positions in universities: for instance, John Mack (Harvard - psychiatry), Ron Westrum (Eastern Michigan - sociology), and J. Allen Hynek (Northwestern, Ohio State - astronomy). And they retained those positions despite their ufological research, usually thanks to tenure. However, even tenured investigators don't have the leverage or patronage that parapsychologists do, with several departments and endowed chairs around the world. Yet many ufologists find their position at the margins useful; they are not beholden to funders (since there are so few), and they are free to critique orthodox science with impunity.

At face value, the on-going argument between ufologists and orthodox scientists - or, more accurately, spokespeople for each side - is about the scientific status of the subject matter and the methods that should be used to study it. A number of scientists and skeptical/debunking voices continue to assert that, since UFOs are not a physical reality, "real" science is impossible, so scientists should leave the field to its hard-core believers and the social scientists who study them. But a good number of experts within academic sciences consider UFOs worth studying as misidentified natural phenomena, whether pertaining to human neurology or environmental processes or the interaction of the two.

Scratching the surface, we see that the UFO debate fits into several larger debates. One is the debate over the lay public's (mis)understanding of what science is. Experts on both sides realize that UFOs provide an ideal opportunity to educate nonspecialists; needless to say, they differ on the content of the lesson. For spokespeople of orthodoxy, it's a lesson on critical or scientific thinking, or at the very least on how to be informed consumers of science (i.e., reject "junk" science). For ufological advocates, the lesson is about how Big Science has made a double move--away from truly free scientific inquiry, and away from the understanding (and control) of the nonspecialist citizenry. This shades into another debate, one about which sciences and scientific experts should have authority in society and influence in political decision-making.

The on-going argument also highlights disputes within ufology and orthodox sciences, undermining the monolithic view of either. From very early on but especially since the 1970s, UFO research has experienced a tension between advocates of a "hard" science approach and those leaning toward social-psychological or folkloric research. This feeds disputes over who should be considered a member: should membership be based on allegiance to (conventional) scientific research? should there be standards for investigation, or membership? who determines them? This internal tension informs many ufologists' concern over the public image of UFO research as a heterodox and stigmatized pursuit.

Sociology of Ufology

There are several interesting projects that ufology affords to social scientists, especially those studying science in society. First would be to examine the system of actors directly involved with UFO study and its critique. As hinted above, the characteristic of the UFO social field is the interplay between observers in the lay public, experts within the various scientific communities, and investigators pushed to the margins of those communities. Agents of various military and security agencies contribute in their own way to this system of interactions, a contribution which should be considered separately but not be glossed over. I would argue that this system of interactions centering on UFOs ought to be a social-scientific research priority of a high order, as it allows us access to something tangible in a subject too often shunned as delusion or mystification. That it still is not - while it leaves a few social scientific researchers with more work that they can handle at a time when it seems most everything has been done already - is lamentable, though not surprising.

A second avenue is the examination of the sociological theories of ufologists themselves. Ufology functions as both a counter-science and a counter-sociology (as I argued, rather clumsily, in my MA thesis). Ufologists do not simply take on Science employing some version of its methods and theories. By taking for granted, as many ufologists do, the intervention of extraterrestrials in human affairs - for some a full partnership with the federal government - and the various cover-ups keeping their influence always just beyond proof, ufologists construct social models at some variance with orthodox views of society. These models have consequences in the political realm: Jodi Dean (1998) highlights the political import of narratives of alien abduction in the US; Michael Barkun (2004) illuminates the convergence of ufology and far-right conspiracism. The same could be said for the study of abductions and of UFOs more generally, as it interfaces with conspiracy theories implicating the government (see my conspiracies page). The ideals of unhampered research combined with local and global conspiracy theories pushes not a few ufologists into political action--for instance, lobbying government agencies for the declassification and release of UFO-related documents, as do Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), the Disclosure Project, and the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee (X-PPAC).

A third avenue might be to examine the interface of this system with larger social systems of communication and action. Experiencers contribute to the system mostly through collaboration with self-described ufologists and alien-abduction therapists, but they also get involved with the increasingly pervasive electronic news and entertainment media. Narratives and epistemological claims are circulated through various media, used as fodder for entertainment. Of particular interest here is the issue of mutual influence between the study of UFOs and UFO-themed entertainment, a weird chicken-and-egg situation. There is also the matter of the transnational nature of ufology. It is not simply international, in that such phenomena exist in multiple different nations, it exists across borders (cf. Appadurai 1996). There are not just national communities and traditions, but transnational connections between those communities that only partially reflect the world system of political, economic and cultural influence. That is, though UFOs may well be "an American thing," ufologists in other societies are not as swayed by the interpretations and methods that dominate US ufology.

Works Cited

Bibliography

The first section is comprised of books either explicitly about the practice of ufology or what are arguably foundational works in that field. The section below it lists analytical and critical works dealing with the study of UFOs. As mentioned in the main page, some of the works cited below are out of print.

Primary Sources (English)

Secondary Sources (English)

Links

There are many, many UFO-related sites on the Internet, as any search engine will affirm--though, as with everything else on the 'Net, quality varies widely. The following are a few particularly rich or insightful sources of ufological information. Since I am especially interested in ufology in the US and Mexico, I offer sites specific to those two areas.

UFO Research Organizations - selected

UFO Information Sites

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