WEBVTT - INTERVIEW 2: Stephanie Kelley-Romano 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.600 Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart Radio and 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:15.080 Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. In late May, I 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:19.320 spoke with Stephanie Kelly Romano, an associate professor of Rhetoric, 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.400 Film and Screen Studies at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:28.000 She has conducted research into alien abduction narratives, having collected 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.200 stories from over three people who believe they have had 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.919 abduction experiences and examining these accounts for common themes and 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.959 what they can tell us about issues of control, rights, reality, identity, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:46.120 and power in our society. I'm Toby Ball, and this 0:00:46.240 --> 0:01:07.680 is Strange Arrivals. I am Stephanie Kelly Romano. I'm an 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:11.920 associate professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies at Bates College. 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.480 And for my dissertation research, I interviewed people who thought 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.399 they had been obducted by aliens. So what what kind 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:25.520 of caused you to be interested in that particular subject. Yeah, 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:29.039 that's a question I get a lot. I became interested 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.440 in this because, truthfully, when I was in graduate school, 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:36.040 I was watching The X Files and I really liked 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.800 the X Files. And when you're in graduate school, you 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.319 don't have a lot of extra time to do things 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.240 that you like, unless it's part of your research. Additionally, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.760 I didn't necessarily want to just look at speeches of 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.640 like dead presidents, and so I started looking at the 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.800 X Files and conspiracy rhetoric, and of course there's the 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:01.120 whole theme about the abduction and Molder sister, and so 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.520 then I got interested in people who think they've been 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.480 abducted or claim experiences with extraterrestrials, and how do they 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.600 carve out space for themselves and legitimacy, right, Like, how 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.840 does that happen? I found when I was doing this 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:16.560 that there seems like there might be kind of a 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.840 feedback loop in between the X files and and the 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:26.959 population at large. Did do you have that perception that 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.079 you know, the X files obviously uses, you know, the 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.040 stuff that that Bud Hopkins at all have done to 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.119 kind of create this narrative, but then all these people 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.520 who get to see it, and it seems like the uh, 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:47.160 the instances of supposed abduction somebody to have an uptick. Um. Yeah, 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.919 I don't know if there's any type of uh correlation 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.560 in terms of the uptick and things like that. I 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.800 do know that, like, even I think it was Martin 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:01.120 Codomier did an article about Barney Hill and that episode 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.040 of the Outer Limits the Balero Shield and whether or 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.800 not there was a correlation or association there. So, like 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:11.400 the imprinting of cultural texts and the chicken or the 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.399 egg argument, you know, like which came first? I don't know, um, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.600 but I do know that with the X Files, what's 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.160 really interesting, or the piece that I really look at, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.280 is so in pop culture, we have certain characterizations of 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:30.640 extraterrestrial experiences and experiencers, right, and we have them not 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.080 only in the X Files but all kinds. People of 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.000 Earth was a recent sitcom about an alien abduction support 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.200 group that drew on those same tropes of abduction. What 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.880 I find interesting is that people who claim experiences with 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.840 extraterrestrials don't always have those same themes and tropes. But 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.320 people who are interested in the phenomenon but don't have 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.560 the experiences do so general pop culture. Like my students 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.240 when they come to my class and I say, what 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.440 do you know about alien abduction? They tell me all 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.240 the things that have been on the X Files or 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.800 in Steven Spielberg movies or whatever. But people who have 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.800 had actual encounters have a tendency to be a little 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.680 bit more distanced from that. Why don't you tell me 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.000 about the study that I guess form the basis for 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:26.280 your dissertation, and then um, several papers that I've read, right, So, So, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.960 like I said, when I started this, I just I 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.960 wanted to study something in graduate school that I found interesting. 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.680 When you're getting work, when you're getting ready to do 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.720 doctoral work and to write a dissertation, you're going to 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.479 be studying it for years, literally, like this is going 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:46.960 to be the beginning of my career, and so I 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.599 thought this would be an interesting thing that would keep 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.640 my attention. I had no idea, I had no idea 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:58.799 how big it was. Um, I came to it very underinformed. 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:04.520 And so when I first started this, the questions that 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.760 I asked people who thought they had had these experiences 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.839 were very simple. They're they're open ended narrative questions because 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.360 I am a rhetorical scholar, so I studied myth. I 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.720 studied narrative and study the way that people use language 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.680 to make sense of their lives and who they are 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.640 right their actual identity. So the questions were really open 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:28.520 ended because I just wanted people to talk about their experiences. 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.160 And then I also went to some conferences. I went 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.800 most notably to the Leo Sprinkles conference out in Wyoming 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.800 because I did my graduate work in Kansas, so it 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:47.440 was close by. I also solicited people on the internet 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.719 I had. I was on various message boards. I got 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:56.200 in touch with several different researchers and also UM therapists 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:01.320 who work with populations of experiencers, and they would hand 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:07.080 out the survey anonymously. The survey was anonymous UM, and 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.560 they would hand it out and then I would collect them. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.120 So after I first I got my first way back, 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.400 I realized how many questions I also needed to ask 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.440 right in addition, and several people were super good, I 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.640 mean amazing, amazing people in terms of answering my follow 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:28.760 up questions as I kind of learned what it was 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.920 I needed to know in order to answer my research questions. 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.360 So there were several people who would answer each time 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.320 I would send out another query UM. And then the 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.800 instrument grew little by little until I had a pretty 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:48.360 decent instrument to capture kind of the experience and how 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.719 people attributed it and what people thought of different aspects 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.320 of it. UM and then once I had all that. 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.760 I mean I have I have hundreds. I have over 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.120 three hundred people now who claim experience is And as 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.640 you probably know, most people who have an experience have 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.080 more than one. Most people that I've spoken with or 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.000 communicated with have been have had experiences since the time 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:12.800 they were a young child, over the course of their 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:17.960 lives for many years. So each experiencer might have two 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.720 three experiences that we have talked about or they've described 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.920 to me of where of where corresponded about. Um So 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.640 I have a humongous repository of information and then I 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.440 just look at it with different questions over the years. 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.240 I've been doing this now for twenty five years, and 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:41.280 so when different things happen oftentimes in the world, I'll say, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.800 you know, how does this relate? How does this go on? 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.160 And so for example, right now, UM, I just recently 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:51.520 did a program about coronavirus conspiracies, and on it we 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:56.840 were kind of talking about how science can be used 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.960 in order to prove non scientific or pseudos scientific things 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:06.680 like how do methods of research and gathering information gain legitimacy, 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:11.000 And it immediately made me think about alien abduction discourse, 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.920 and uh, David Jacobs and John mac and the various 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:19.640 things that they say in order to kind of co 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.600 opt the discourse of scientific legitimacy while at the same 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.400 time critiquing it. Right. So it's it's this tension that 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.680 goes on and so um. Over the years, I've just 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.640 kind of looked at race or gender or implants or 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:39.360 truth or whatever is interesting to me when you're getting 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.839 things back from people. How much does the believability of 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.480 the experience the reality of the experience, How important is 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.280 that or is that just not important at all? You know? 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.880 Truth is probably one of the biggest questions that I 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:02.640 grapple with that constantly, is underneath whatever questions we are 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:09.520 asking of extraterrestrial existence, experience, interaction, right um. And I 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:14.320 really like the distinction between something being true and something 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.920 being real. Right. So, I do not know the truth 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.360 of an experience, whether or not it empirically happened in 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.360 this reality in another reality. I have no idea. I 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.920 do not know, and that's not my area. I don't 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.800 have the means by which to evaluate that. I do 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.280 know that the criteria that I use is whether or 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.880 not these people believe these experiences to be real. If 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:39.760 they are real for them in the sense that they 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.720 have consequence in their life, then I care about it, right. 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.760 So it's very much similar to any type of faithful discourse. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.680 I I don't necessarily know if God is true, but 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.600 for me personally, God is real, right, So so that 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.360 distinction is one that I make. It's very hard for 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.000 me and I try very much to avoid making any 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:08.920 type of evaluations about which experiences are true, because this 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.120 is a phenomenon that we don't know things about UM 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.800 and David Jacobs talks about it in the beginning of 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.000 UM I think It's Secret Life, where he talks about 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.720 the fact that now he can kind of intuitively sense 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.880 which accounts are true and are in line with other 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:30.280 abduction narratives. But my problem is that as a culture, 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:35.160 as a society, as people, we naturally fill in our 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.760 stories so that they move toward other people. There's this 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:44.160 reciprocal thing that happens because we're building relationships, and so 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.880 that UM, that tendency to adhere is something that I 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.640 always think about in terms of truth, is it true 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.120 or is it not? And so I just deal with 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.400 what's real and if it's real. For the people who 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.920 claim to have experience, then I include them. I also 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.240 do do some kind of cross checking of narrative elements 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.640 and consistency, right, make sure that the stories that they're 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:15.400 telling me have coherence and fidelity insofar as they can 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.080 remain consistent over time. Um. But of course, what that 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.880 does is that then eliminates anyone who does not want 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.240 to be contacted again, who wants to remain entirely anonymous, 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.720 or those people who don't contact me, right, And those, 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:32.240 of course are the people I want to talk to, 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:37.839 people who have had experiences who don't tell anyone. Um. 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.960 But it's it's hard because we only get I only 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.959 get people who are willing to come forward with their experience. 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:53.760 What's um, so, so who's getting abducted? M hmm. Well, 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.480 most of the work that I did was in the 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:03.480 early two thousands, um and UM. At that point, you know, 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.640 Thomas Bullard Eddie Bullard had done that huge store, that 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:14.480 huge study about abduction accounts. Christopher Bader has also done 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.280 a lot of work in terms of religious studies, as 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.040 as Christopher Partridge. And then I also did a piece 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:24.160 for the general UFO studies, and and my sample of 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:29.199 experiencers was very similar to what other people's reports were 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:33.840 kind of reflecting. And so while in the past it 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:38.280 had seemed as though more women were being abducted, the 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.880 kind of balance between men and women even out it 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:47.560 seems as though it's just about equal now. My sample 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.280 seemed to be made up of people who have a 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:55.400 higher than average education or at least attend more school 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.280 than average kind of census data. But of course I'm 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:05.800 collecting my data at abduction conferences and via the internet, 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:11.160 both of which require disposable income, leisure time, and and 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:20.640 a class privilege that also is correlated with educational attainment. Right, So, um, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.800 I think that, Um, I think that the people and 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.080 totally I can tell you that the people that I 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:32.480 talked to about their experiences were not the people that 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:37.319 I anticipated. They were just regular people, and they had 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.439 regular lives and regular jobs and regular families, and they 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.800 just thought that they had been abducted by aliens or 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:48.440 had these encounters. And and there was also when I 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.200 was when I was reading your paper about this, there 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:57.640 was sort of racial disparity compared to the population at large. Yes, 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.679 absolutely alien abduction, at least those abjectives who are willing 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.640 to or experiencers who are willing to come forward are 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:10.559 overwhelmingly Caucasian. Um. But again, and and it does seem 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:12.480 to be And there have been several articles that have 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.600 been written about like, you know, why, you know, why 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.880 the aliens only abduct white folks? And I think it's 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:23.280 a valid question. Um, But you know, culturally, I think 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.240 there are several explanations for that in terms of the 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:31.239 way abduction stories can be used to kind of explore 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:37.400 racialized discourse or kind of race more broadly. Do you 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.760 have an example? Yeah, so the ones I'm thinking of 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.640 are all related. Oh I know, yes, Okay, I was thinking. 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.320 I think a lot about gender because a lot of 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.240 the stuff that I've been doing lately is more feminist stuff, 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.840 and so I have all kinds of gender examples at 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.680 the ready. In terms of um, you know, David Jacobs 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.000 writes about these extra gestational units that are implanted into 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.280 men so that they can then incubate and kind of 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:10.960 bring these alien human hybrid fetuses to life literally, and 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.840 so kind of I interpret that as somewhat this co 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:19.200 optation of birthing narratives and pregnancy narratives by men, right, 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.040 because that's historically a story that they've left entirely out 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.720 of that they're not allowed to experience and that they 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.040 can't have, but through these extra gestational units they can. 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.560 In terms of an example for race, I think that 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.840 just the fact that experiencers talk about a multiplicity of 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:41.560 types of aliens and that the aliens have different characteristics. So, 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.640 for example, the little gray aliens that are so popular 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:50.320 in pop culture are oftentimes those beings that are um 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.160 kind of worker beings. They don't necessarily have personality, they're 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.640 not particularly developed or advanced in a lot of ways. Technologically, 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:03.400 certainly they are, but they're very focused on conducting experiments 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:07.440 or um or doing that kind of thing. Whereas people 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.840 also talk about Nordic aliens, and Nordic aliens have a 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.040 tendency to be more human looking and they are, you know, 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:22.240 characteristically Caucasian and blonde. Um, and those aliens are the 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.800 ones that are compassionate. Those aliens are the ones that 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.160 are kind. So there have been a bunch of different 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:33.280 studies or a couple articles anyway, that talk about gray 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.400 aliens as being kind of the combination of black and white, right, 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:42.600 and so this ambiguous racialized mixture, But also the fact 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:47.680 that the advanced aliens are Caucasian, I mean, coupled with 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:53.720 ancient alien theories, which are inherently racist in some ways. Um, 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.560 you know, race is clearly underneath it all. The fact 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:03.480 that any um, non westernized, non on colonized society couldn't 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.320 have made whatever it is, the Pyramids and ask a 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:11.440 lines whatever, um, and they needed to have help from extraterrestrials, 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:17.960 but westernized Caucasian societies didn't is a little questionable. Okay, 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.760 So sort of change in direction a little bit. Can 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:26.800 you explain the concept of a living myth? Sure? Um, 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:33.240 so myth unlike kind of the pejorative negative connotation, right 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.840 that people have Oftentimes when people say when I say 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.679 I study myth, people who have had experiences get initially 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:42.800 really defensive. They're like, you're not going to tell me 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.639 this isn't real. You're not going to tell me this 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.640 is fake and made up. Because when we think about myth, 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.600 we think about fake stories. But when we talk about 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:57.440 myth academically, right intellectually, when we're talking about myth, we're 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:02.040 talking about those stories that orient us towards the world, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:06.600 those large framing stories that help us make sense of 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:12.600 our personal identities of our communities and literally of the universe. Right, So, 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:18.720 living myths can be or myths, It can be anything. Religions, 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.960 for example, our myths. And that's not to to be 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.560 disrespectful to religion. What it means to say is that 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.760 religions are orienting stories that tell people what their purposes, 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.800 what the universe is about, how the universe got here, 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.840 how society should be. They give us all of these 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.320 kind of ways to behave They tell us what we 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.120 should do and should not. Um So, so religions are 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.840 like living myths, And in my work I argue are 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.800 are like myths. Excuse me, And in my work I 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.760 argue that living myths are those stories that can bubble 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:58.960 up in communities or in societies that help do the 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:04.359 work that orienting work of myth, but aren't codified and 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.160 written down and aging in a way that makes them irrelevant. Right. 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.680 One one could argue that the Catholic Church, for example, 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:18.959 has not kept up with scientific knowledge, it has not 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.680 kept up with feminist positions, it has not kept up 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:27.879 with kind of cultural social justice issues, and so for 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:34.919 many the framework of of Catholic myths or Christian myths 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:38.160 might not resonate anymore, right, they might not feel as 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.720 though they can be a part of that. And I 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.880 think that people seek out most people seek out those 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:51.600 spaces of belonging and those explanatory ideologies and world views 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:55.800 that comfort us and inform us. And so I don't 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.760 think it's a bad thing. I always feel like defensive 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:00.920 when I have to talk about myth UM. I don't 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.600 think it's a bad thing. I think it's just an 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.640 amazing faculty of humans that we use narrative to make 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.240 sense of our lives. And these are the stories that 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:29.080 we tell. Strange arrivals will return in a moment. And 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.400 then so you took a look at these um, these 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:39.359 narratives and kind of identify some emergent stories right of 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:47.000 you know, thematically similar stories. Mm hmm, yeah I did. 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.480 There are several different themes, and themes have changed over 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:55.080 the years. Right in my initial dissertation, I wrote about 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.080 themes of physical salvation, where the extraterrestrials were here to 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:03.080 kind of rescue us, whether that was actual physical rescuing 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:08.480 like taking people off the planet via ships or collecting 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:13.239 our DNA to be able to um remake or you know, 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.920 keep alive humanity in the future. So those were narratives 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:22.840 of physical salvation. There were narratives of hybridization, which are 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.840 the stories that we hear about a lot in both 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:31.000 the abduction community, the UFO community, and also in pop culture. 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.440 And those are the stories about the alien human hybrid 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:40.399 kind of program, this UM drive to make a master race. 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:46.960 And and within narratives of UH narratives of hybridization, we 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:54.080 have this tension between both those stories where the extraterrestrials 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.720 are it's kind of the John mac story of they 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.840 are spiritually advanced. They're here to help us, They're here 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.800 to help us evolve, They're here to help us have 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.720 that ontological shock that will allow us to be integrated 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:13.840 into the galactic community UM, versus the stories that are 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.800 told by people like David Jacobs, where the aliens are 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.240 not at all good. They are very manipulative, they're very 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.720 deceitful UH, and they are not here for anything other 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.480 than their own personal use of the human as a 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:32.600 resource right to to carry out this program. So hybridization 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:37.679 has this tension between the two that I find totally fascinating. 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:42.680 So UM. The third narrative type was betterment of humanity, 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.920 and in those narratives, the extraterrestrials were coming in order 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:52.040 to help humans evolve themselves. But it's a very in 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.159 those So in those stories, people would be compelled to 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:59.840 advance spiritually, engage in meditation, they would be compelled to 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.040 change jobs and do things that were more service oriented 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:06.440 like e. M. T. S or doctors. And what's really 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:12.200 interesting or what distinguishes the betterment of humanity narratives from 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:18.080 the cosmic community narratives is the fact that embedterment of humanity, 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:23.840 the individual is the focus. So it's not about humanity, 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:29.679 it's not about UM the universe. It's about the individual's 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:35.400 personal journey of betterment um that and it's intimated that 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:39.760 that is for the betterment of humanity certainly, But in 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:42.520 terms of making distinctions, it was the fact that it 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:46.760 was still focused on the individual, whereas the later narrative category, 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:53.359 cosmic community, is much more about the collective whole and 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:59.600 the collective move towards UM, you know, integration. And then 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:03.080 the four thematic thing that I found in my dissertation 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:07.960 research was these narratives of cosmic community. And in the 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:12.800 narratives of cosmic community, it's really this more full articulation 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:17.960 of almost a religious discourse of this idea that the aliens. 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:20.880 Oftentimes it's the aliens are us and we are them. 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:24.280 The DNA is all shared, but it's not necessarily turned on. 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:28.080 Also in this category are narratives that talk about kind 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:33.800 of the inter dimensional or intergalactic nature of these entities 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:37.399 UM and whether or not they are us from the 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.280 future and uh and and other things like that. So 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:44.399 what I found and the reason why I did that 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:50.080 thematic analysis was I found that depending on the motive 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:54.119 that people believed right the individual experiencer, depending on what 0:24:54.400 --> 0:24:59.280 they believed why the aliens were here, the narrative qualities 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:04.919 of their store ease were similar. So, for example, in 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:11.320 stories of um cosmic community, oftentimes people didn't talk about abduction, 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:15.240 which I found fascinating um. Instead, they would talk about 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:17.840 the significance of the experience. They would talk about the 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.639 consequences of the experience. And so I argue that those 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:26.360 stories have kind of been internalized more and are much 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:31.119 more a part of the person's identity, whereas stories of 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:34.600 like physical salvation and evacuation, when the aliens are going 0:25:34.640 --> 0:25:37.040 to come in a ship and take us away, or 0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:41.680 take our d n A. Those stories are very granular 0:25:41.880 --> 0:25:45.879 in their detail. The textual detail is tiny. So they 0:25:45.960 --> 0:25:49.359 talk about the the the appearance of the beings and 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:52.080 of the ships. They can talk about the smells. Oftentimes 0:25:52.119 --> 0:25:56.520 people report smelling sulfur. They talk about the attitudes of 0:25:56.520 --> 0:25:59.920 the beings, they talk about telepathic communication and in play. 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:04.280 They're talk in great detail about what goes on during 0:26:04.280 --> 0:26:08.920 the experience, particularly um the capture portion of the experience, 0:26:09.119 --> 0:26:13.000 where they're paralyzed in bed or compelled to drive to 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:16.320 a remote location, whatever it may be. But those stories 0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:21.600 are very much specific in their in their details, and 0:26:21.920 --> 0:26:26.000 people are much more likely to use qualifiers and to 0:26:26.040 --> 0:26:28.800 say things like I know this might sound crazy, or 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:31.520 I don't know what I think about this, or I'm 0:26:31.560 --> 0:26:35.280 not sure, or this may have been a dream right. 0:26:35.520 --> 0:26:39.160 There are a lot more qualifiers in those other narratives 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:42.520 as well, and so with the four of them, I 0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:46.080 argue that they're kind of like Russian nesting dolls in 0:26:46.200 --> 0:26:50.240 terms of the process of belief, and so as someone 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:54.800 comes to believe something, as someone interprets their experiences right 0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:57.600 there having these anomalous experiences that they don't know what 0:26:57.680 --> 0:27:03.240 to do, with and then suddenly extraterrestrials make sense. It 0:27:03.440 --> 0:27:06.840 resonates as true for them, and so of course at 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:10.880 first they're going to say, I'm not sure about this. 0:27:11.040 --> 0:27:14.520 I don't know. But then as they come into their belief, 0:27:14.720 --> 0:27:20.359 as they get more affirming UM and and confirming evidence, 0:27:21.160 --> 0:27:24.040 then they get more and more developed in exactly the 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:27.760 significance of that experience. So is your sense that these 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:37.480 different themes UH can like sort of happily coexist, you know? 0:27:37.920 --> 0:27:43.120 I I do think that they can. They can well 0:27:43.200 --> 0:27:46.440 happily coexist. I don't know about happily coexist. I think 0:27:46.480 --> 0:27:52.639 that whenever UM reality is being created, which reality is 0:27:52.720 --> 0:27:55.879 always being created through language, like that's how we get 0:27:55.920 --> 0:27:59.679 things that are real, you know. UM. But whatever that 0:27:59.840 --> 0:28:06.320 is happening, there are inconsistent and other narratives that contradict 0:28:06.880 --> 0:28:10.760 the status quo or the party line. Right, So we have, 0:28:11.000 --> 0:28:14.320 for example, a history of race in the United States 0:28:15.280 --> 0:28:22.040 that until recently ignored the you know, colonization and murder 0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:27.679