A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

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The menace of the extraterrestrial both assaults abductees’ sense of coherent subjectivity and exemplifies the uncanniness of the individual’s collapse. In terms of the latter, abductees, upon recalling their experiences, point out how the individual e.t.’s seem bound together, as if they were merely iterations of the same being. The grays, in particular, appear to constitute a sort of “hive-mind,” in which apparently independent entities act and move in concert, not as a matter of choice, but as an expression of their very nature. With the exception of the figure of the “leader,” grays are often compared to drones or worker bees. The grays are described as consistently emotionless and expressionless. They exhibit no transparency in terms of “personality”— the outward manifestation of individuality. This lack of expressiveness or affect is one of the striking things about the e.t. according to abductee accounts. It is surprising for abductees, if not shocking, to see such creatures locomote, as if volition were incompatible with the affectless “self-presentation” so often exhibited by the grays. Their very appearance also renders their animation uncanny. One correspondent of Streiber’s notes that “They seemed to be made out of plastic, like one of those bendable action figures you buy at the store. They didn’t seem to have any sort of ‘structure,’ as far as I could see, in terms of skeleton or muscles or anything like that. They didn’t even seem like living creatures, more like animatronic puppets.” 294 This characterization recalls nothing so much as that exemplar of Freud’s uncanny, the doll. 295 To abductees, the gray’s lack of affect suggests a fundamental lack of recognition. The e.t. not only fails to exhibit individualist traits, but fails to recognize the abductee as a “person.” Abductees feel that the e.t.’s never see them as anything more than one iteration of “human.” As Jerome Clark has noted, “(t)he humanoids usually behave in a manner that leaves 294 The Communion Letters, ed. Whitley and Anne Streiber (New York: Harper Prism, 1997) 189. 295 Sigmund Freud, “The ‘Uncanny’” [Das Unheimliche] in Standard Edition, Vol. XVII, trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1955) 217-256. 205
abductees feeling like guinea pigs.” 296 Or as one abductee put it, his experience left him feeling like “something in a cage, an animal, being a specimen.” 297 Abductees do consistently report an exception to this rule of affectlessness. As discussed earlier, one sometimes finds included in the abduction scenario a creature that looks similar to the others, but is a bit taller (closer to average human height) and different in coloration (closer in color to a Caucasian human), a figure generally understood as the leader of the crew and often referred to by abductees as a “doctor.” This figure speaks directly to the abductee, generally without any apparent use of speech per se—the abductee simply “hears” the creature’s voice in her head. These taller e.t.’s offer consolation to the abductee; “You are safe. No harm will come to you. You will be returned safely and soon to your home.” One abductee recalls, “I remember one being, in particular, whom I perceived as male, who was always there. I knew him, and he was the only one who could always calm me.” 298 This figure generally offers the only point of identification for the abductee. In fact, abductee accounts often refer to a very intense identification with them. Given the overall vertiginous nature of the experience, any offer of consolation and/or recognition would be a strong point of cathexis. Put differently, the only available point of identification in such a scenario would accrue a force born out of the desperate search for meaning in a context that eludes comprehension. These more communicative grays seem related to the abductee in some intimate way. They appear to have a deep and abiding knowledge of the abductee as if they had longstanding links with them. John Mack, in his overview of the abduction phenomenon relates, “(t)he attitude of abductees toward the leader is generally ambivalent. They often discover that they have known one leader-being throughout 296 Jerome Clark, Abduction Phenomenon in “The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial” (Detroit: Visible Ink, 1998) 8. 297 John E. Mack, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994) 85. 298 Streiber 1997, 102 206
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The Extraterrestrial in US Culture
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The Extraterrestrial in US Culture
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III. Chapter 2: Contact…………
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oth in their rich and bizarre detai
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Fukuyama also describes the histori
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and belonging that are native to th
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modernity, Weber stressed over and
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While positivism would emerge as th
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figure that serves as a medium betw
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sources of Spiritualism, Swedenborg
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The series of moments and discourse
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estful comprehension. It straddles
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The second chapter examines the eme
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Ch.1 The Dead INTRODUCTION Since th
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sense this dream of perfected commu
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political registers as well. This c
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In the late eighteenth century, Mes
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inverted form) along which the unde
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consciousness that is highly mobile
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up the process of thinking”. 38 S
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umor - and irony - would have it, w
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sense that Swedenborg’s researche
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Spiritualist movement, whose medium
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minded, loves to roam in the woods
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etween humans and God as unthinkabl
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esearches was a tailor by the name
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concerns and from the fact that the
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simultaneously in the world of the
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which God has revealed to them and
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assessed the Fox sisters as the “
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each in turn Lockwood elaborated hi
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as miraculous or supernatural? 85 T
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hearts of men to help their brother
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the corrupting influence of the wor
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All manner of proscribed activities
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dawn of a new era, and you must not
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qualities the coarser and heavier t
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full of mischief as any child in th
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keynote in public (and much of the
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masculine traits), the figure of th
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The first was that all world religi
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space brother religion, The Great I
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and the menopauses.” 141 A genera
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Ch.2 Contact INTRODUCTION Contact w
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as spiritual aspirations embodied.
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magazine, the latter edited by icon
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featured female characters who were
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keeping with the recurring integrat
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harmony with the universe (“if yo
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world were still struggling to asce
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hermetic credo as above, so below,
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insistence on the survival of the i
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evolutionary nomenclature of the co
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Pelley exhibited a variety of trait
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Chelas, which in the Hindu traditio
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the Theosophical Society along with
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Ballard was told during his initial
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Masters. Members of the I Am Ascend
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operative in most later “space-br
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promises of evolutionary progress h
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such as St. Germain could make thei
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Ch. 3 The Saucer INTRODUCTION The t
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The arrival of the saucer promised
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salvation through the union of oppo
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potential public responses to the f
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as rationally comprehensible and a
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attached to cultivating a following
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percentage of unidentifieds to the
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extraterrestrial communicant suppli
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perpetrators of willful deception i
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signing.” 210 Gill’s amused res
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practicing theoretical astrophysici
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DOROTHY MARTIN While ufology began
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attention. Without knowing why, I p
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One message from an assistant of Sa
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Dr. Laughead first encountered Doro
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In the case of Dorothy Martin and h
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II space brother religions to large
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he could think of to obtain permiss
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Page 245 and 246: BIBLIOGRAPHY Aber, W.W. “A Guide
Page 247 and 248: _____. “Adamski, George (1891-196
Page 249 and 250: _____. Discipline and Punish: the B
Page 251 and 252: _____. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan
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Page 255: Streiber, Whitley and Anne, ed. The
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A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

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