Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist

Since the 1950s, men and women around the world have claimed to have had contact with human-like visitors from space. This book explores how the “contactee” subculture has critiqued political, social and cultural trends in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Not merely quaint relics of the 1950s Atomic Age, contactees have continued their messages of transformation into the 21st century. Regardless of whether these alleged contacts took the form of physical meetings or channeled paranormal psychic communications, or whether they actually happened at all, contactees have provided a consistently relevant source of commentary on this world and beyond.

Aaron John Gulyas is a history instructor at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, where he specializes in the modern United States and American military history.

Aaron John Gulyas
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 260
Bibliographic Info: 13 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2013
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7116-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0168-7
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Meeting the Saucer People 1

1. The Saucers Arrive 15

2. A Brief History of Flying Saucers 32

3. The Dawn of Contact: George Adamski 60

4. Contactees in the Space Age: George Adamski’s Legacy in the 1950s and 1960s 87

5. The New Age: Extraterrestrial Contact Since the 1970s 130

6. Dark Contact: Men in Black, Demons and the End of the World 176

7. Sex, Gender and Flying Saucers 201

8. Contact, Humanity and the Future 224

Chapter Notes 231

Bibliography 241

Index 247

• “Well-researched and organized…recommended”—Choice
• “A significant contribution to the body of literature on the UFO phenomenon in general and the contactee movement in specific”—Journal of American Culture
• “An informative overview of saucer lore and some of its main figures as well as an examination of the political and cultural context of contact narratives…useful”—Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
• “Engrossing and revealing analysis”—Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions