One of the relatively significant trends in American culture in the second half of the 20th century was UFOs and the symbolism of aliens. Whether the events around Roswell in New Mexico or groups like Project Blue Book were real or not, the fact remains that interest in aliens on American culture's "radar" sometime in the late 40s.

Carl Jung and the aliens

Carl Jung was one of the first to try to analyze these "flashes" on a "radar" in a symbolic way. As early as 1946, he began collecting data on UFOs and reading all available books on the subject. In a letter from 1951 to his American friend, he wrote: "I am embarrassed to death by this phenomenon because I have not yet been able to determine with sufficient certainty whether the whole thing is just a superstition accompanied by mass hallucinations or pure fact."

The 1958 incident led Jung to conclude that it was far more desirable for people to believe that a UFO existed, rather than not to believe it. In one of his last works called Mysterious on the horizon he tried to explain why it is far more appropriate to believe in their existence. Jung concluded that UFOs are a phenomenon of synchronicity in which external events reflect internal mental states. As usual, he looked at the whole UFO situation from a much broader perspective than the others. It had for Jung seeing UFOs dealing with the end of one historical epoch and the beginning of a new one.

In the introductory notes to the book The Mystery on the Horizon, he writes the following about UFO-related events:

"As we learn from ancient Egyptian history, they are manifestations of psychological changes that always occur at the end of one Platonic month and the beginning of another. Apparently they are a manifestation of changes in the constellation of psychic dominants, archetypes, or 'gods', as they have been called, who evoke or accompany long-lasting transformations of the collective psyche. The transformation began in the historical period and left its traces first in the transition of the eon of the bull to the period of the ram and then from the ram to the fish, the beginning of which coincides with the rise of Christianity. We are now approaching the great change that can be expected when the spring point enters Aquarius. '

Modern symbol of the ancient gods

In the same way that medieval alchemists projected their psyche into matter, Jung felt that modern man was projecting his inner mood into heaven. In this sense, UFOs have become a modern symbol of the ancient gods who came to humanity for help in times of need. This need probably took the form of a desire for reunification, which arose due to the increasing fragmentation of the modern world. At the beginning of the 50s and the beginning of the Cold War, at a time when UFOs were beginning to penetrate popular culture, there was great fragmentation in the world.

Jung writes:

"At a time when the world is divided by the Iron Curtain," we can expect all possible strangeness, because when such a thing happens in an individual, it means total detachment, which is immediately compensated by a symbol of wholeness and unity.

It was very important for Jung that the shape of the flying saucers was circular, the same as the ancient mandalas, which had been a symbol of unity throughout history.

UFO as a symbol of alienation

The UFO sightings that caught Jung's attention in the 50s certainly did not disappear. In fact, they seem to be increasingly dominating contemporary American pop culture. For almost half a century, they have trodden the path of the sciencefiction genre through books, movies, and television, creating a vast marketing world, but they have also divided people into those who believe in UFOs (contactees) and those who do not. Over time, UFOs and aliens moved from the cult to the mainstream of popular culture, and their symbolism gradually evolved.

Political philosopher Jodi Dean provided an important look at the topic of contemporary alien and UFO symbolism in her book Aliens in America. For Dean, aliens are more of a repository of the fears and phobias of our divided cyberculture than just another widespread cult phenomenon. These fears revolve around the inability to distinguish truth from fiction and also the fact that many current political events are simply indistinguishable.

The conspiracy theories that feed them offer a kind of conflicting symbolic duality to ordinary reality. As Dean remarked, "The claim to the truth and the difficulty in grasping it by our practices is precisely what has made extraterrestrials appear as icons of postmodern anxieties." . But as a result, the aliens are actually just contemporary Americans and their feelings of alienation.

Kidnappings

As Dean said, "We have too much data, but not enough to make decisions because we are not sure about the context and networks in which we can integrate this information. Thanks to technology, we have become aliens connected outside the state. ‟And just as often we experience“ abduction by this technology. ‟In this strange new world, Dean notes, our neighbors are foreigners. "Assimilation has been discredited as an ideal, and multiculturalism has become nothing more than a marketing strategy."

It is better to forget the neighbors, go inside, and enjoy the cyber citizenship of the Internet. compared to ancient colonialism prevalent for most of the 19th century. "Unlike the metaphor of colonization, which presupposes the penetration of borders and the extraction of resources," Dean remarked, "abduction works with an understanding of the world, of reality, as something amorphous and permeable."

Kidnapping, on the other hand, allows for futility of support, although it points to other possible forms of freedom. Colonization is an ongoing process with systematic restrictions. But kidnapping works with the feeling that things are happening behind our backs. The great paradox may well be at the end of this symbolism, just as Dean concludes his book with the following words: “If we want to fight colonization, we take control. We don't fight kidnapping, we just try to remember, and we realize that our memories can be false and that we share our extraterrestrial plan.

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