Introduction, Diana G. Tumminia PART ONE: Contactee Religions 1. Hagiography and Text in the Aetherius Society: Aspects of the Social Construction of a Religious Leader, Mikael Rothstein 3 2. The Odyssey of Sister Thedra, Jerome Clark 3. Galactic Messenger! Overview of the Universal Industrial Church of the New World Comforter , Diana G. Tumminia 4. Presumed Immanent: The Raelians, UFO Religions, and the Postmodern Condition, Bryan Sentes and Susan Palmer 5. In the Dreamtime of the Saucer People: Sense-Making and Interpretive Boundaries in a Contactee Group, Diana G.

Tumminia PART TWO: Abductees and Contactees 6. Toward an Explanation of the ''Abduction Epidemic": The Ritualization of Alien Abduction Mythology in Therapeutic Settings, Georg M. R0nnevig 7. Secondary Beliefs and the Alien Abduction Phenomenon, Benson Saler 8. Alien Abduction Narratives and Religious Contexts, Scott R. Scribner 9. Close Encounters of the French Kind: The Saucerian Construction of "Contacts" and the Controversy over Its Reality in France, Pierre Lagrange PART THREE: Myth, Folklore, and Media 10. Consciousness, Culture, and UFOs, Jacques Vallee 11.

Aliens from the Cosmos: A Discourse of Contemporary UFO Myths, Anna E. Kubiak 12. All I Ever Want to Be, I Learned from Playing Klingon Sex, Honor, and Cultural Critique in Star Trek Fandom, Jennifer E. Porter PART FOUR: Ufological "Science" and Therapy 13. Observations from Archaeology and Religious Studies on First Contact and ETI Evidence, James F. Strange 14. A Confederacy of Fact and Faith: Science and the Sacred in UFO Research, Anne Cross 15. Ancient Alien Brothers, Ancient Terrestrial Remains Archaeology or Religion? Pia Andersson 16.

The Raelian Creation Myth and the Art of Cloning Reality or Rhetoric? Christopher Helland 17. UFO Abduction Support Groups: Who Are the Members? Christopher D. Bader Appendix A: Some Known Contactee Religions Appendix B: Some Types of Aliens References Index.