A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture
A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture
A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture
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scope <strong>of</strong> serious <strong>in</strong>quiry. It would take some twenty years after <strong>the</strong> first broadly discussed case<br />
<strong>of</strong> alien abduction—<strong>the</strong> Hill case—for ufology to fully embrace <strong>the</strong> abduction narrative and thus<br />
cast its fate outside <strong>the</strong> conf<strong>in</strong>es <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> rationally possible.<br />
As we enter <strong>the</strong> realm <strong>of</strong> abduction, <strong>the</strong> stakes <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> both confirmation and<br />
rejection <strong>of</strong> percipients’ claims <strong>in</strong>crease, just as <strong>the</strong> gap between reported experience and<br />
available explanations not solely dependent upon psychosocial factors widens. The perception<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>in</strong>explicable objects is central to all modes <strong>of</strong> encounter, and thus <strong>the</strong> percipient is always a<br />
functional component <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> phenomenon. But with <strong>the</strong> shift to abduction, <strong>the</strong> level and nature<br />
<strong>of</strong> contact shifts away from <strong>the</strong> relatively abstract space <strong>of</strong> visual perception and simultaneously<br />
br<strong>in</strong>gs vision to <strong>the</strong> fore <strong>in</strong> a very different sense—where<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> witness becomes <strong>the</strong> witnessed.<br />
Visual contact is abstract <strong>in</strong> that <strong>the</strong>re is always a potential gap between <strong>the</strong> see<strong>in</strong>g and <strong>the</strong> th<strong>in</strong>g<br />
seen. Thus we see quotidian explanations for such encounters framed <strong>in</strong> terms <strong>of</strong> misperception,<br />
with supposed spacecraft expla<strong>in</strong>ed away as misconstrued conventional aircraft, celestial objects<br />
or swamp gas. Third k<strong>in</strong>d encounters up <strong>the</strong> ante <strong>in</strong> terms <strong>of</strong> posited explanations, push<strong>in</strong>g<br />
rationalization past frames <strong>of</strong> misperception and <strong>in</strong>to <strong>the</strong> realm <strong>of</strong> psychopathology. One is<br />
unlikely to simply "misrecognize" a terrestrial creature as a space monster. Abduction fur<strong>the</strong>r<br />
<strong>in</strong>creases <strong>the</strong> weight borne by quotidian explanations. As Jodi Dean observes, “<strong>the</strong> closer <strong>the</strong><br />
alien gets, <strong>the</strong> more foreign it becomes.” 253<br />
Abduction is an embodied experience that <strong>of</strong>fers no<br />
mundane correlate for <strong>the</strong> purposes <strong>of</strong> debunk<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
This chapter tracks both <strong>the</strong> emergence <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> abduction narrative, primarily via an<br />
exam<strong>in</strong>ation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> Betty and Barney Hill, and <strong>the</strong> implications <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> shift from contact<br />
<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> style <strong>of</strong> space bro<strong>the</strong>r communiqués to <strong>the</strong> more bizarre and violent mode <strong>of</strong> abduction.<br />
253 Jodi Dean, “The Familiarity <strong>of</strong> Strangeness: Aliens, Citizens, and Abduction” <strong>in</strong> Theory and Event V.1#2<br />
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/<strong>the</strong>ory_and_event/v001/1.2dean.html, 6 (accessed June 12, 2005).<br />
167