A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

Recall for a moment the three phases of close encounter, one of the primary organizing
structures of mainstream ufology. The first includes cases in which a craft is viewed from a
distance of less than 500 feet—visual verification of the craft’s presence. The second concerns
cases in which the craft exerts some physical effect on the witness or the witnesses’
environment—physical verification of the craft’s presence. An interaction of a sort takes place
here but one that exists on a purely physical plane. Close encounters of the third kind concern
sightings in which the human percipient establishes visual contact with the occupants of a craft.
Here we reach the threshold of potential communication between human and extraterrestrial. A
witness sees the occupants of a craft and ostensibly the occupant sees the witness as well.
Beyond the threshold of this seeing and being seen we might find contact in the sense thus far
understood in the iterations of the displaced utopian imaginary discussed in this dissertation—the
exchange of meaningful communication. But the rubric of close encounters extends only to this
threshold, not beyond it.
Beyond the threshold of close encounters of the third kind we find ourselves again in the
realms of meaning traversed by the displaced utopian imaginary. At the very point of physical
contact between human and extraterrestrial, questions about physical presence give way to much
messier questions of meaning. Once contact beyond visual apprehension begins—the purely
physical world of the object shades over into the world of the subject, and thus beyond pure
action and reaction (moments largely measurable and explicable) into questions of volition and
intent. What is the purpose of the craft’s visitation? What are the intentions of its occupants?
What is the nature of the relationship between visitor and human?
The communication between human and extraterrestrial that played out in the context of
earlier iterations of the displaced utopian imaginary was different from that which occured in the
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