UFO
Mythology: The Escape to Oblivion
Paul
Kurtz
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heaven's
Gate has stunned the world. Why would thirty-nine seemingly gentle and earnest
people in Rancho Santa Fe, California, voluntarily commit collective suicide?
They left us eerie messages on videotapes, conveying their motives: they wished
to leave their "containers" (physical bodies) in order to ascend to
a new plane of existence, a Level Above Human.
It
was a celestial omen, Comet Hale-Bopp, that provoked their departure. For they
thought that it carried with it a UFO spacecraft -- an event already proclaimed
on the nationally syndicated Art Bell radio show when Whitley Strieber and Courtney
Brown maintained that a spaceship "extraterrestrial in origin" and under
"intelligent control" was tracking the comet. According to astronomer
Alan Hale, co-discoverer of the comet, what they probably saw was a star behind
the comet. Interestingly, the twenty-one women and eighteen men, ranging in ages
from twenty-one to seventy-two, seemed like a cross section of American citizens
-- though they demonstrated some degree of technical and engineering skills, and
some even described themselves as "computer nerds." They sought to convey
their bizarre UFO theology on the Internet. Were these people crazy, a fringe
group, overcome by paranoia? Or were there other, deeper causes at work in their
behavior?
Heaven's
Gate was led by Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles (who died in 1985),
who taught their followers how to enter the Kingdom of God. They believed that
some 2,000 years ago beings from an Evolutionary Level Above Human sent Jesus
to teach people how to reach the true Kingdom of God. But these efforts failed.
According to documents left on the Heaven's Gate Web site, "In the early
1970s, two members of the Kingdom of Heaven (or what some might call two aliens
from space) incarnated into two unsuspecting humans in Houston [Applewhite and
Nettles]. . . ." Over the next twenty-five years Applewhite and Nettles transmitted
their message to hundreds of followers. Those who killed themselves at Rancho
Sante Fe (including Applewhite) -- plus the two former members who subsequently
attempted to take their lives on May 6, one of them succeeding -- did so to achieve
a higher level of existence.
Reading
about the strange behavior of this cult of unreason, one is struck by the unquestioning
obedience that Applewhite was able to elicit from his faithful flock. There was
a rigid authoritarian code of behavior imposed upon everyone, a form of mind control.
Strict rules and rituals governed all aspects of their monastic lives. They were
to give up all their worldly possessions, their diets were regulated, and sex
was strictly forbidden (seven members, including Applewhite, were castrated).
The entire effort focused on squelching the personal self. Independent thinking
was discouraged.
The
followers of Heaven's Gate lived under a siege morality; they were super-secretive,
attempting to hide their personal identities. They were like nomads wandering
in the wilderness, seeking the truths of a Higher Revelation from extraterrestrial
semi-divine beings. What has puzzled so many commentators is the depth of their
conviction that space aliens were sending envoys to Earth and abducting humans.
They kept vigils at night, peering for streaks of light that might be UFOs, waiting
for spacecraft to arrive.
We
read on their Web page: "We suspect that many of us arrived in staged spacecraft
(UFO) crashes, and many of our discarded bodies (genderless, not belonging to
the human species), were retrieved by human authorities (government and military)."
This
form of irrational behavior should be no surprise to the readers of the Skeptical
Inquirer. I submit that the mass media deserve a large share of the blame for
this UFO mythology. Book publishers and TV and movie producers have fed the public
a steady diet of science fiction fantasy packaged and sold as real. Alarmed by
the steady stream of irresponsible programming spewing forth claims that were
patently false, last year CSICOP (the Committee for the Scientific Investigation
of Claims of the Paranormal), publisher of Skeptical Inquirer, established the
Council for Media Integrity, calling for some balanced presentation of science.
We said that, given massive media misinformation, it is difficult for large sectors
of the public to distinguish between science and pseudoscience, particularly since
there is a heavy dose of "quasi-documentary" films. Why worry about
these programs? Because, I reply, the public, with few exceptions, does not have
careful, critical knowledge of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. So far,
the Council for Media Integrity's warnings have gone largely unheeded. What drivel
NBC, Fox, and other networks have produced! (A notable exception to this is ABC,
which we are glad to say has called upon CSICOP skeptics to present alternative
views on 20/20, Prime Time, and other shows.) TV is a powerful medium; and when
it enters the home with high drama and the stamp of authenticity, it is difficult
for ordinary persons to distinguish purely imaginative fantasies from reality.
Many people blame the Internet. I think the media conglomerates, who sell their
ideas as products, are to blame, not the Internet. We are surely not calling for
censorship, only that some measure of responsibility be exercised by editors and
producers. Interestingly, the Heaven's Gaters were avid watchers of TV paranormal
programs.
CSICOP
and the Skeptical Inquirer have been dealing with UFO claims on a scientific basis
for more than twenty years. We have attempted to provide, wherever we could, scientific
evaluations of the claims. We have never denied that it is possible, indeed probable,
that other forms of life, even intelligent life, exist in the universe. And we
support any effort to verify such an exciting hypothesis. But this is different
from the belief that we are now being visited by extraterrestrial beings in spacecraft,
that they are abducting people, and that there is a vast government coverup of
these alien invasions -- a "Luciferian" conspiracy, according to Heaven's
Gate.
In
my view, what we are dealing with is "the transcendental temptation,"
the tendency of many human beings to leap beyond this world to other dimensions,
impervious to the tests of evidence and the standards of logical coherence, the
temptation to engage in magical thinking. UFO mythology is similar to the message
of the classical religions where God sends his Angels as emissaries who offer
salvation to those who accept the faith and obey his Prophets. Today, the chariots
of the gods are UFOs. What we are witnessing in the past half century is the spawning
of a New Age religion. (This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Kenneth Arnold's
sighting of the first flying saucers over the State of Washington in 1947.)
There
are many other signs that UFO mythology has become a space-age religion and that
it is not based on scientific evidence so much as emotional commitment. Witness
the revival of astrology today; or the growth of Scientology, which proposes space-age
reincarnation to their Thetans and attracts famous movie stars such as Tom Cruise
and John Travolta; or the Order of the Solar Temple, in which seventy-four people
committed suicide in Switzerland, Quebec, and France, waiting to be transported
to the star Sirius, nine light-years away. Perhaps one of the most graphic illustrations
of this phenomenon is what occurred on April 21, 1997, when the cremated remains
of twenty-four people, including Gene Roddenberry (father of Star Trek), Timothy
Leary (former Harvard guru), and Gerard O'Neill (scientific promoter of space
colonies), were catapulted into space from the Grand Canary island off of the
Moroccan coast aboard an American Pegasus rocket. This celestial burial is symptomatic
of the New Age religion, in which our sacred church is outer space. The religious
temptation enters when romantic expectations outreach empirical capacities.
Science
is based on factual observation and verification. It was perhaps best illustrated
by the discovery of Comet Hale-Bopp. That the comet has been captured by the paranormal
imagination and transformed into a religious symbol is unfortunate. Alan Hale
deplored this extrapolation of his observations. Yet the transcendental temptation
can at times be so powerful that it knows no bounds.
Incidentally,
the paranormal -- which means, literally, that which is alongside of or beside
normal scientific explanation -- was involved in other aspects of the Heaven's
Gate theology. The members expressed beliefs in astrology, tarot cards, psychic
channeling, telepathy, resurrection, and reincarnation. That is why it is often
difficult to ferret out and examine these claims dispassionately, for New Agers
are dealing with faith, credulity, and a deep desire to believe, rather than with
falsifiable facts; and they are resistant to any attempt to apply critical thinking
to such spiritual questions.
Quotations
from the Heaven's Gate videotape are instructive. Those who committed suicide
affirmed that: "We are looking forward to this. We are happy and excited."
"I think everyone in this class wants something more than this human world
has to offer." "I just can't wait to get up there." These testimonials
sound like those of born-again fundamentalists who are waiting for the Rapture
and whose beliefs are self-validating. These confirmations of faith are not necessarily
true; they are accepted because they have a profound impact on the believers'
lives. Heaven's Gate gave meaning and purpose to the lives of its followers. As
such, it performed an existential, psychological function similar to that of other
religious belief systems. Obedience to a charismatic leader offered a kind of
sociological unity similar to that provided by traditional belief systems.
One
might well ask, what is the difference between the myth of salvation of Heaven's
Gate and many orthodox religious belief systems that likewise promise salvation
to the countless millions who suppress their sexual passions, submit to ritual
and dogma, and abandon their personal autonomy, all in quest of immortality? Their
behavior is similar to the more than nine hundred Jewish Zealots who committed
suicide at Masada in 73 c.e., or the early Christians who willingly died for the
faith, or the young Muslim Palestinians today who strap explosives to their bodies
and blow themselves to kingdom come in the hope of attaining heaven. I recently
visited Cairo and the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, where a ship of the dead had been
uncovered. The Pharaohs had equipped a vessel to take them to the underworld,
hoping thereby to achieve immortality after death. This has been transformed into
a UFO craft in modern-day lingo.
The
bizarre apocalyptic theology of Heaven's Gate is interpreted by its critics as
absurd and ridiculous; yet it was taken deadly serious by its devotees, and a
significant part of the UFO scenario is now accepted by large sectors of the public.
In
one sense the New Age paranormal religions are no more fanciful than the old-time
religions. Considered cults in their own day, they were passed down from generation
to generation, but perhaps they are no less queer than the new paranormal cults.
No doubt many in our culture will not agree with my application of skepticism
to traditional religion -- CSICOP itself has avoided criticizing the classical
systems of religious belief, since its focus is on empirical scientific inquiry,
not faith.
I
am struck by the fact that the Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons,
and Chassidic Jews were considered radical fringe groups when first proclaimed;
today they are part of the conventional religious landscape, and growing by leaps
and bounds. Perhaps the major difference between the established religions and
the new cults of unreason is that the former religions have deeper roots in human
history.
The
Aum Shinri Kyo cult in Japan, which in 1995 released poison gas into a crowded
subway station, killing twelve people, was made up of highly educated young people,
many with advanced degrees. Unable to apply their critical thinking outside of
their specialties, they accepted the concocted promises of their guru. Thus an
unbridled cult of unreason can attract otherwise rational people.
The
one thing I have discovered in more than two decades of studying paranormal claims
is that a system of beliefs does not have to be true in order to be believed,
and that the validation of such intensely held beliefs is in the eyes of the believer.
There are profound psychological and sociological motives at work here. The desire
to escape the trials and tribulations of this life and the desire to transcend
death are common features of the salvation myths of many religious creeds. And
they appear with special power and eloquence in the case of the misguided acolytes
of Heaven's Gate, who, fed by an irresponsible media that dramatizes UFO mythology
as true, found solace in a New Age religion of salvation, a religion whose path
led them to oblivion.
About
the Author
Paul Kurtz is the founder and chairman of the Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Many of our readers
perhaps are aware that Paul Kurtz underwent open-heart bypass surgery in early
December of last year. We are pleased to report that he has fully recovered and
is back on a full schedule. -- Ed.
