One of the schools of
thought in ufology is described as the so-called “psychosocial hypothesis”
(PSH). It is a loose group of writers, mostly centered on the Magonia magazine. Some of its authors are better known in
ufological circles, such as David Clark, Hilary Evans and Peter Rogerson.
Although there are some variations in their opinions, and their central point
of contention has evolved over time, they are today in agreement to say that
essentially ALL UFO events are of a mundane nature. Yet, contrary to their less
sophisticated debunking brethren, they also consider that psychological and
sociological factors are important in the understanding the overall UFO
phenomenon.
The focus
of their writings is on UFOs, so they are to be considered as ufologists,
even if they do not see anything unusual in the phenomenon. To their merit,
they highlighted a number of important, yet very problematic, points regarding
UFOs. Some of their keys points can be summarized as follow:
-
UFO events
are described by witnesses using descriptions that are “fashionable,” and such descriptions
will change as fashion changes. For instance, in the 1950s aliens were described
as coming from Venus or Mars. By the 1960s, we knew that Venus and Mars were
lifeless, and the UFO reports of aliens from Venus or Mars disappeared. The
grey aliens only became a common description after the story of Betty and
Barney Hill became famous, especially after the diffusion of a telefilm on the
topic in the early 1970s.
-
UFO events
tend to describe machines that are meaningful to a specific era: airships in
early 20th century, ghost planes and rockets in mid-20th
century, triangles in the age of stealth bombers, etc.
-
UFO
reports tend to follow ufological reporting frenzies created by ufologists in the mass
media. The wave of 1947 launched the ball for flying saucers reports until the
humanoids reporting wave started in the 1960s. Then, it became quieter until
the 1973 wave, followed by quiet times until the Roswell hysteria unfolded. The
abduction phenomenon started to peak after several key books on the topic were
published in the 1980s, etc.
-
In a
number of well-known sightings events, further investigations have shown that a
common description of events emerged after the fact and “fitting” a more
socially conducive story line, either through the influence of a particular
witness (think here how Betty Hill had an influence over Barney in interpreting
their experience), or by the wishful thinking of a ufologist (think here of
Budd Hopkins and the story of the UN Secretary-General allegedly witnessing an
alien abduction).
These issues are
well-documented and they indeed point towards the UFO phenomenon in general being an expression of larger social phenomena. The ETH ufologists have not
provided any meaningful answers to these issues, and given their simplistic and
fundamentally materialist approach I doubt they will ever come up with
any substantive answers to the issues raised by the PSH.
The real problem with
the PSH is not about the critique and questioning they have put
forward, it is about what they imply. Out of their critique of ETH ufology,
there is an implicit idea that if the UFO phenomenon is embedded in social
phenomena, then by definition there is nothing possibly anomalistic about UFOs.
This implicit idea is actually a logical fallacy, and it can only be held if
one does not understand key sociological phenomena.
PSH writers rarely use proper sociological terminology, and if they do
they never fully embrace its implications. Many of their critiques are
pointing out what should have been described as the social
construction of reality, for which the key authors are Berger and Luckmann. This is a central concept in sociology that explains why any social structures
or dynamics are essentially based on an implicit socially shared consensus. This
is true for any social forms. For example, when people talk about “science”, it is a
social construct defining the reality of "science", about what constitutes “science”
and what it does not. In the Anglosphere, “science” means natural sciences and
engineering. Yet, in different cultures like in continental Europe (Germany,
France and Italy), “science” is defined as "organized knowledge" and covers both
natural and human sciences. The consensus will vary from one culture to the
next. Hence, what is science and what it is not is a social construction that determines where its reality starts and ends.
Does this mean that
because something is socially constructed then there is nothing to it? No, of
course not. It only means that how something is defined is based on social
conventions. So, no one should be surprised if the notion of UFO is defined based on
social conventions too, like anything else. To that effect, American ufologists
tend to describe UFOs in very reductive ETH terms, whereas their European
counterparts tend to describe UFOs with much more open terminology. Hence, UFO
sightings tend to be described according to prevalent conventions, which will change
over time, but it is actually quite normal. People use words that are available to
them at a specific time. So, yes, UFOs are socially constructed; and that's no big deal!
The second problem
with the PSH’s lack of sociological terminology is that they refer essentially
only to what sociologists called “dominant narrative”, also known as “meta-narrative”
or “grand narrative”. There are many key authors in sociology studying this
phenomenon, but they tend to owe a lot to the ideas of the Germany philosopher
Jurgen Habermas.
A dominant narrative
is essentially a particular way of looking at reality which becomes the
dominant view, even if facts are not always matching. More importantly, such
dominant views are maintained and reinforced by those who benefit the most from
such perspective. A classic dominant narrative is in the realm of medicine
where only members of the medical profession (namely Medical Doctors) can speak
about health issues. Over the years, abuses by medical doctors, narrow-mindedness in refusing to consider innovative treatments, refusal to accept the
effectiveness of alternate medicine, and refusal to acknowledge patients’
rights in selecting their own treatment have all contributed to erode the
dominant narrative that “doctors know best”. But in the end, it still remains
the dominant narrative. Members of the medical profession have resisted and
protected this narrative because, obviously, their social power and monopoly
over health treatments depend on it. Dominant narratives exists in all spheres
of life, be it about science, religion, politics and governance, in defining
terrorism, etc.
Are there dominant narratives
in ufology? Of course there are, like any in other sphere of life! The main dominant
narrative is essentially the one maintained by ETH ufologists, who have a
vested interest in making sure that it is the only one perceived as valid, because
their social reputation, and sometimes livelihood, depend on it. And yet, like
any dominant narrative, the facts do not fully match. If one takes the time to look
at actual UFO reports, the variety of experiences is quite astonishing, and
oftentimes do not match at all what ETH ufologists are portraying. Hence, the
PSH writers are correct in identifying “fashions” and “coloring” of UFO events
due to the actions of ufologists and the mass media. But they are only showing the
normal dynamics that dominant narratives create when one looks only at the mass
media representations of the UFO phenomenon. The “suppressed narratives”
(i.e. the reports that are not fitting the ETH, which rarely surfacing in the public realm) provide a much more complex and diversified perspective. Again, the existence
of a dominant narrative in ufology is in no way a proof that there is nothing anomalistic
to the overall phenomenon, because it is only about how things are represented
by a few influential voices. It is also interesting to note that many PSH writers put
the caveat that they are not interested in analyzing individual cases, but just
in the “big picture”. Now you know why.
A third problem with
the PSH is the idea that particular images may shape actual sightings, for
those who venture in explaining individual cases. In such situation, one will typically
read from a PSH article that images from an obscure sci-fi magazine or B series
movie are the original images that was reported by the witnesses, speculating
that the witnesses must have seen such images before, yet without feeling the
need to prove such assertion. Here there is an implied notion that socially
shared images may have a specific psychological and cognitive effect on specific
UFO witnesses. Once again, key conceptual terminology is absent in their
analyses. In this case, however, it is much more problematic. The linkages
between sociological phenomena and psychological ones are yet to be done; establishing
a real bridge between sociology and psychology remains to this day an
incomplete task. How could the PSH proposes such explanations while the key
disciplines involved can’t!
Authors in cultural
studies, like the psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek,
have proposed a number of ideas to bridge the two, but they all remain
speculative and unsatisfying. Before him, sociologists like Erich Fromm
produced similar unsatisfying results. Social psychology has been very
effective in studying small group interactions, but very much unable to explain
in a detailed way how larger social dynamics connect with individual psyche.
Here is an interesting article
for non-specialist on this topic.
In my opinion, there
might be one school of thought that can provide some ways to establish a partial
bridge between the two disciplines, it is Serge Moscovici’s “theory of social
representation”.
Moscovici, and those who followed his lead, studied how ideas and images become
prevalent in the popular culture of a society. His first research was on how
ideas and notions from psychoanalysis became part of the popular culture in France and
used by ordinary people. Notions such as Freudian slip of the tongue,
projection, neurotic behavior, Oedipus complex, etc., are part of the specialized
terminology of psychoanalysis which eventually became part of the common
language, oftentimes with a meaning significantly distinct from its original
psychoanalytic roots. What is key in his research is that for something to become
part of popular culture and where individuals start using such ideas or images,
there is a need for key people to actively promote such ideas and images, i.e., what
Moscovici calls the agents (usually through the mass media). As well, there is
a two-step process where such ideas and images are at first anchored in the
collective psyche and then objectified (or institutionalized). This is not a
random process. The presence of the very widespread images related to flying saucers and gray aliens can
definitely be explained through the theory of social representations. But when
it comes to pick arbitrarily an image from an obscure sci-fi comic book to
explain a particular UFO sighting, there is nothing in psychology, social
psychology or sociology to support that. In the end, the PSH is doing exactly what it accuses everybody else of doing about UFOs: explaining a
mystery by another mystery.
