AHC: Little or no interest/belief in UFOs

Given the pre-existing belief in angels and other celestial visitors, was it just inevitable that the emergence of air-travel as a viable phenomenon would give rise to the belief that creatures from outer space were coming here using advanced flight technology?

Or was there something about early-to-mid 20th Century politics or culture that could be jettisoned to make UFOs less of an attractive belief? I am taken to understand that Carl Jung, for one, thought that the belief in alien visitors was connected to the realization that, with the dawn of nuclear weapons, the mass extinction of humankind was indeed a possibility, and this put people in the mindset of pondering possible forms of supposedly higher existence in the heavens. Though most summaries of his views have seemed rather sketchy to me.

EDIT: When I say "interest", that also includes things like comic books and Hollywood movies portraying UFOs, even if the creators and most of the audience don't actually believe in them.
 

Archibald

Banned
The landmark year was 1947, with the Roswell case and Kenneth Arnold sighting.
Yes, air travel did helped, because pilots are keen to seen strange things in the sky, much more than people on the ground. WWII made aircrafts flying much higher and faster.
 
Yeah, Roswell and(I'd assume, since I'm less familiar with it) the Arnold sighting were major landmarks.

But that still leaves the question as to why people were ready to believe that Roswell was a UFO crash to begin with.
 
But that still leaves the question as to why people were ready to believe that Roswell was a UFO crash to begin with.

I think it was because the intelligence officer of the 509th bombardment wing (atomic) called in the national press and announced that the Army Air Force had recovered the wreckage of a UFO. (Recanted quickly, but it's the rare UFO controversy that the United States Army Air Force itself started).
 
Yeah, Roswell and(I'd assume, since I'm less familiar with it) the Arnold sighting were major landmarks.

But that still leaves the question as to why people were ready to believe that Roswell was a UFO crash to begin with.

By the 1970s, Americans' trust in their government had taken a massive hit with the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal. So when the claims of G-men covering up an alien spaceship's existence started to become more prominent, people were a lot more open to the possibility than before.
 
Isn't belief in UFOs something that's been there all along? I mean today it's UFOs... a thousand years ago it was witches and succubi, a thousand years before that it was something else. People always look for patterns and ascribe a supernatural cause to things. Witches might not seem very plausible sources of weirdness in the post-WW2 era, but superscience controlled by advanced alien beings, well, that's totally different!
 
No secret aircraft development in the C20th.

It's certain that some UFO's are military or private aircraft that are protected by a veil of legal secrecy, the people who work on them take oaths or sign NDA's, and the people who spot them have no way to confirm what they were.
 
I think, to answer this AHC, we need to figure out why they became such a big thing in the first place... And I have no idea why that is. Jung's hypothesis is the closest I've seen to a real explanation, but I don't really buy it. The UFO explosion following Arnold's sighting has the taste of an idea whose time had come - but why that particular idea, and why then? I've never seen a convincing answer.

I think it was because the intelligence officer of the 509th bombardment wing (atomic) called in the national press and announced that the Army Air Force had recovered the wreckage of a UFO. (Recanted quickly, but it's the rare UFO controversy that the United States Army Air Force itself started).

Roswell didn't become a big story until much later, though - the late '70s/early '80s - long after UFOs were a well-established topic. At the time, the press release and subsequent correction seem to have sunk without a trace.

Isn't belief in UFOs something that's been there all along? I mean today it's UFOs... a thousand years ago it was witches and succubi, a thousand years before that it was something else. People always look for patterns and ascribe a supernatural cause to things. Witches might not seem very plausible sources of weirdness in the post-WW2 era, but superscience controlled by advanced alien beings, well, that's totally different!

But why did they ascribe it to aliens instead of something else? Especially since, of the people who are interested in this stuff, there's a substantial overlap with the people who still believe in the traditional supernatural.
 
a potential POD . . .

with the interest in criminals in the 1930s, people become more sophisticated about the pluses and minuses of eyewitness testimony. In particular, the human mind seems to put together a narrative from scant observations.

For example, my own state of Texas in the 2000s, the evolving standard is to tell someone looking at photos: the suspect may or may not be among these photos. We will of course continue the investigation either way.
 
But why did they ascribe it to aliens instead of something else? Especially since, of the people who are interested in this stuff, there's a substantial overlap with the people who still believe in the traditional supernatural.

Is there that much of an overlap? I know UFO cults like the Raëlians sneer at traditional religions and the whole point of the 'Chariots of the Gods'-theory is that ancient 'gods' are not supernatural at all but technologically advanced aliens.

If anything I wonder if the belief in UFOs is a byproduct of the decline of overt religiousity in the Western World.
 
Is there that much of an overlap? I know UFO cults like the Raëlians sneer at traditional religions and the whole point of the 'Chariots of the Gods'-theory is that ancient 'gods' are not supernatural at all but technologically advanced aliens.

If anything I wonder if the belief in UFOs is a byproduct of the decline of overt religiousity in the Western World.

I think its just a new thing that captures people's imaginations. I'd argue the rise of the sci-fi genre and technology becoming more space focused in the 50's and 60's helped contribute to the zeitgeist of UFO's
 
Is there that much of an overlap? I know UFO cults like the Raëlians sneer at traditional religions and the whole point of the 'Chariots of the Gods'-theory is that ancient 'gods' are not supernatural at all but technologically advanced aliens.

The Raelians are kind of unusual among UFO cults in being strictly materialist. Most UFO cults are aligned more with theosophy and its various off-shoots. They may not believe in "magic", but they tend to believe in "spiritual strength" or telepathy or whatever that might as well be magic.

But the cults aren't really where the action is in UFOs. These days, it's more about conspiracy theories, but back in the '40s and '50s, it seems to have been more aligned with contactees and "space brothers" - definite religious/supernatural overtones, but nothing as organized as a cult. A lot of overlap with the subculture(s) that ultimately became the New Age movement.

If anything I wonder if the belief in UFOs is a byproduct of the decline of overt religiousity in the Western World.

I've seen that speculation, and it's as good a hypothesis as any, but I don't really find it satisfying.
 
Wasn't the belief in UFOs there all along since ancient times, just not as widespread and cross-cultural as in the 20th century?

I've read that there was a Roman epic called "True Story". While it was largely intended as a political satire, it also featured extraterrestrial beings, one of the first examples of sci-fi literature.

Extraterrestrial and even extra-dimensional beings are also featured in Indian and I believe, Islamic literature.


What I'm trying to say is that the belief in beings from other worlds, not necessarily supernatural like the belief in angels or similar spiritual beings has been around since ancient times. Their widespread popularity in the 20th and 21st century seems to be the result of more advanced media technology and more cross-cultural influences.
 
Personally, I'd say less funding to aerospace and more funding to the navy (and possibly underground super tunnelers. We've gone on land, in the water and in the air. We haven't gone in the land. We cannot allow a mine shaft gap!) However, that isn't feasible in the age of the Cold War, when aerospace became pivotal to national defense.
 
WI if the "alien corpse" allegedly found at Roswell was a freeze-dried American airman?
WI one of Captain Joe Kittinger's buddies suffered a pressure-suit leak at high altitude?
 
...
If anything I wonder if the belief in UFOs is a byproduct of the decline of overt religiousity in the Western World.

Some part of the population may have shifted belief from Saints and miracles to Aliens & incomprehensible technology.

I think its just a new thing that captures people's imaginations. I'd argue the rise of the sci-fi genre and technology becoming more space focused in the 50's and 60's helped contribute to the zeitgeist of UFO's

Very likely. Instead of Madam Blatavasky, or a religious aunt & her saints, the UFO believer is influenced by a pulp magazine cover or rush for a sci fi movie.
 
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