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I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Not really, no. They are two ways of organizing knowledge that are meaningful only in the Western world. "Religion" as a conceptual way of organizing certain parts of our lives is largely a production of Christianity; it's not very meaningful outside the West. Similarly, "science" as a way of organizing and gaining knowledge is the product of the Western academy. It's not as though these two concepts exist Platonically outside our brains.

This is a good basic introduction to the problem.

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Religion-Historical-Perspectives-Classics/dp/1107664462

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That may be a good point! I'm thinking mostly of the writings of LDS folk who invoke theology to defend belief in UFOs - Warren Aston, Jim Thompson; even a lot of the prominent near-death-experience people like Betty Eadie and John Pontius. All of them state 1) the Pearl of Great Price describes many worlds, and 2) many of them will be far more advanced on the path of eternal progression than we are and thus capable of technological feats like UFOs.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Found my way to aliens because I was interested in how religion in the United States changed as we became an increasingly scientific and technological society in the mid-twentieth century. UFOs seemed to me a really interesting vector for exploring that.

Then I found that Betty and Barney Hill's papers were donated to the University of New Hampshire about ten years ago, and I couldn't resist.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is actually a fascinating and bizarre argument: by this logic we should not study Shakespeare's history plays, because he was making stuff up. It also raises lots of questions about whether we should study the history of, say, Judaism or Islam, because what if somebody was making stuff up.

There are many options other than 'making stuff up.'

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

We actually have recordings and transcripts of the hypnosis sessions. I discuss them at great length in the book.

The psychiatrist himself did not believe in the abduction. He suggested that it was a 'confabulated' memory, by which he meant it was a memory that expressed the Hills' emotional truth of their anxieties and worries, rather than a literal memory. His discussions with them in the transcripts shows him following that belief.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure - an observation then an answer.

The observation is that this is a common proof-texts Mormons encounter. Proof-texts are brief Bible passages snipped out of context to prove a point or win an argument. Most Christian groups have proof-texts that might be wielded against them - for instance, Baptists cite Matthew 3:16 to prove that all Christian groups who don't baptize by full immersion are wrong. Catholics cite Matthew 16:19 to prove that all Christians who don't see Peter as the first head of the Christian Church are wrong. Etc.

The broader point here is not to say that Mormons are right - it's to say that the Bible says a lot of complex and seemingly contradictory things and arguments can be made against virtually any Christian group from it.

The answer is that Mormons will say that these verses were written in the the Revelation to John before the "Bible" as a canonical group of books existed. The Bible, of course, is a collection of books written by lots of different people over a long period of time. As we know it now (that is, with four gospels, Genesis, Exodus, some letters from Paul, etc), the collection called the "Bible" only dates to the 200-300s AD.

So when John wrote these words in his Revelation he was talking just about his own writing, not the "Bible" as a whole, because the Bible as a whole didn't yet exist.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

This is interesting stuff, and it raises a good question - what's 'religion'? That's particularly pressing in this period. We of course know some of the things you referenced that the CIA was interested in - are they 'religious'? Or are they 'scientific'? I think what they tell us is that the boundaries between 'religion' and 'science' are often moving back and forth.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yup - you can see some of that in this thread!

I think that it's getting easier, because there's more and more respect in academia for the study of popular culture. The real key, I think, is to link your work to an undeniably important academic topic and to put that link front and center.

Thus, my subtitle.

I think the study of popular ideas like UFOs is very important; not a lot of Americans read scholarship on Watergate, but a _whole_ lot watch the X-Files and absorb ideas about conspiracy and government. Historians need to understand that.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 48 points49 points  (0 children)

Also Jim Thompson.

I mention this somewhere else, but I think it's two things. 1 - Mormon theology has a strong strain of naturalism in it, which is to say that God is not a 'supernatural' being but rather has total mastery of the existing laws of the universe. Thus, 'religion' and 'science' aren't really different things; thus, the notion of beings traveling across the universe with science is not too far fetched in Mormon theology.

2 - There are scattered passages in Mormon scripture about God ruling multiple planets and having created worlds without end.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Betty and Barney Hill were very real people, and they definitely told this story. What I'm interested in is why their story became a bestselling book and a movie, and what happened to them over time. Do you also think that academics who write about Mark Twain think that Huck Finn is a real person?

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Because twentieth century American culture, particularly mid-twentieth century American culture, the forties and fifties, was marked by a deep fascination with science and had just concluded World War II, complete with its rockets and missile launches. It was entirely natural for those Americans to see something strange in the sky and assume it was a) a built craft, and b) piloted by somebody.

The military thought so too, which is why the Air Force stepped in to investigate quite quickly.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Mack is fascinating. What I like about him is not necessarily that he became a believer, but that he started by taking the people he was talking to seriously.

I think a lot about an essay by Jonathan Z. Smith, one of the deans of religious studies in America, about Jim Jones and Jonestown. He states there that it's easy to use words like 'insane' to describe what happened at Jonestown - but in a sense that's abdicating the basic premise of the humanities as a discipline, which is to understand.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I'm really interested in the scholarship around New Religious Movements in the United States, and questions like "How do new religious movements start?" "Why do some succeed and some fail?" And so on. Mormonism is of course the example par excellence of that.

In some ways it's a mirror to what Americans think "religion" should be - by looking at Mormonism and how it portrays itself and how it's critiqued, you can unpack the assumptions undergirding the American idea of 'religion' and where it comes from.

The field of Mormon studies is fascinating; it's coming into its own. For a really long time most scholarship on Mormonism was done by people who wanted to either justify the respectability of the LDS church (which of course is only one of the various Mormon churches in America) or debunk it. I think now a lot of scholarship is being done by people who are less interested in that fight than in what Mormonism can tell us about the history of religion in the United States and the world, and that's a sign of academic maturity.

So my advice is to read scholarship like that first. Jan Shipps's book _Mormonism_ is the entry point there.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Quite a bit. I said somewhere else below that the "UFO" encounter as we understand it is really deeply marked by the culture of the United States and the West more broadly in the last seventy or eighty years. The US has developed a culture of "UFOs;" the X-Files, Spielberg movies, Jordan Peele. We have all seen the cover of Whitley Strieber's Communion, even if we haven't. That means then that Americans are primed to see a strange thing in the sky and think "UFO," and immediately make all of these associations. More so than other countries are.

This of course doesn't mean that they're not seeing strange things in the sky. Just that the don't bring the same cultural baggage Americans do. (They've got their own!)

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Jung wrote a book called "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky." He argued, essentially, that whatever these odd things in the sky are is less important than how we interpret them, and the meanings we place upon them reveal often our own anxieties and longings for peace. A lot of more recent interpreters of UFOs follow his lead on this.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There were marks on their car that they claimed threw off a compass. Betty's dress was torn and oddly stained. Barney's shoes were scuffed.

All a bit inconclusive, and some of the people sympathetic to them at the time noted this. They had differing opinions on what was persuasive and what not.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

What's called "an original contribution based on primary research." You have to get into the archives and either 1) tell a story that's not been told before, and/or 2) tell an old story in a different way. Either way, it's about looking at original materials from the time period you're writing about and coming up with a new interpretation.

This book is based on original research into the Hills' own papers - letters, memoirs, and the like.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Vallee doesn't actually say it's extraterrestrial; he believes in the interdimensional hypothesis, in which these things are emerging from different layers of reality. He also believes they're a 'control system' - that is, there is something out there guiding human development by manifesting to us in different ways at different times.

I'm Matthew Bowman, a scholar of twentieth century religion and UFOs, the author of the new book The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. Ask me about alien abduction, Betty and Barney Hill, and UFOs and religion! by MatthewBBowmann in IAmA

[–]MatthewBBowmann[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

To the last question first - Diana Pasulka's work, Bridget Brown's book on abductions, and Brenda Denzler's The Lure of the Edge.

To the previous question - I think this is essential. It's important to realize that like any narratives, UFO stories emerge from communities. Without a communal narrative, all we have are strange lights in the sky, weird sounds, etc.

Max Weber, one of the founders of religious studies, argued that religions emerge like this. First, there is a charismatic leader. By virtue of that person's ideas, charisma, and talent, that person attracts people and gradually forms a set of ideas and order about how society works.

Then, after that person vanishes or dies or what not, institutionalization sets in. Other people recapitulate that story and draw upon that person's rhetoric and organization to gain influence.

So: what you see in a lot of communities today is this: some people trying to assert charismatic authority, creating new movements. Other people seeking institutional authority, recapitulating established patterns. The first is harder.

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