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 Flying Saucers by Carl Jung Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, London, 1959 Review by Sheryl Gottschall 2005 Rights to all articles are held by the author and permission to reprint must be sought from ACUFOS. It was with some trepidation that I opened the cover of this book in my attempt to understand the famous Carl Jung's interpretation of the UFO phenomenon. It had been 20 years since I first endeavoured to pore over some of his works which at the time left me quite bamboozled so I was unsure whether this attempt would be any different. However, to my amazement, I found this book relatively easy to read most of the time. Although Jung expresses his views of the UFO phenomenon as being physically real in a skeptical light, he does give the reader something to think about while he explores a psychological basis for people to be seeing things in the sky. Jung's primary question is, are UFOs real or are they mere fantasy products? Although he explores the question with a self proclaimed open mind, he pushes his personal view most of the way through the book, that being, that people see UFOs as a projection of their unconscious mind. His hypothesis is that this is due to emotional tension which has its cause in a situation of collective distress or danger, or in a vital psychic need, e.g. dissociation where there is a split between the conscious attitude and the unconscious contents opposed to it. Jung goes on to explore the muddy waters of possible psychic projections of the human mind noting that things can be seen by many people independently of one another, or even simultaneously, which are not physically real. Also the association processes of many people often have a parallelism in time and space, with the result that different people, simultaneously and independently of one another, can produce the same new ideas as has happened numerous times in history. In addition, there are cases where the same collective cause produces identical or similar effects, i.e., the same visionary images and interpretations, in the very people who are least prepared for such phenomena and least inclined to believe in them. This fact gives the eyewitness accounts an air of particular credibility usually emphasizing that the witness is above suspicion. Throughout the entire book Jung struggles with the question of UFOs being a psychic projection and the implications of this if it is true. He states that, “our consciousness is fleeting but our psychic foundations are timeless and everything that has lasted longer, and will last longer than the whirligig of modern political movements, is regarded as fantastical nonsense that should studiously be avoided. It is here that we are reminded of the rift that exists between science and the mystical and that the scientist's interest is too easily restricted to the common, the probable, the average, for that is after all the basis of every empirical science. Nevertheless a basis has little meaning unless something can be erected upon it that also leaves room for the exceptional and the extraordinary.” The unasked question for Jung left dangling before the reader is, how do we discover whether UFOs are real or psychic projections. With the benefit of 46 years of hindsight including the physical evidence gathered in that time, today most UFO researchers could answer that easily, but 46 years ago it would have been a dilemma for Jung as access to UFO evidence would have been much more controlled so soon after a world war. Consequently, Jung is left to explore the psychic aspects free from the burden of reconciling the psychic with the hard facts due to this lack, but he would not be let off the hook so easily today. In Jung's favour he does consider it no less meaningless or fortuitous if shining objects in the sky are regarded as visions, archetypal images or involuntary automatic projections. In fact, he considers it of great importance and a warning that our culture is in deep crisis looking for a redeeming supernatural event. As we know, many today see aliens as saviors for our current world problems and as Jung states, “the present world situation is calculated as never before for this to occur.” He also states it is characteristic of our time that, in contrast to it's previous expression, the archetype should now take the form of an object, a technological construction, i.e. a spaceship. In the chapter entitled “UFOs in Dreams”, the reader is taken on an expedition of the mind, which is what I had anticipated when I first thought of reading this book. Here I have to admit I merely browsed through the great mounds of “psychobabble” that has made Jung famous in other works. However, it is in the very midst of this chapter that Jung makes his thoughts plain, that if UFOs are psychic projections they can be interpreted as an archetypal God experience. His rationalization of this seems to be drawn from the notion that the subconscious mind will compensate for anything that is lacking in the individual either physically or psychologically, e.g. in the life of ascetics and anchorites who would deny themselves of food and normal human contact in order to achieve their spiritual goal, spontaneous psychic phenomena rose up to compensate their biological needs. ”....Ioaded dishes and flagons and luscious meals stilled their hunger, seductive and voluptuous beings yielded themselves to their pentup sexual desires, riches and worldly power took the place of poverty and lack of influence, and bustling crowds, noise and music enlivened the intolerable silence and loneliness.” Jung states, “today, as never before, men pay an extraordinary amount of attention to the skies, for technological reasons. This is especially true of the airman, whose field of vision is occupied on the one hand by the complicated control apparatus before him, and on the other by the empty vastness of cosmic space. His consciousness is concentrated onesidedly on details requiring the most careful observation, while at his back, so to speak, his unconscious strives to fill the illimitable emptiness of space. His training and his common sense both preclude him from observing all the things that might rise up from within and become visible in order to compensate the emptiness and solitude of flight high above the earth. Such a situation provides the ideal conditions for spontaneous psychic phenomena, as everyone knows who has lived sufficiently long in solitude, silence, and in the emptiness of deserts, seas, mountains or primeval forests.” It is known that pilots and truck drivers are prone to hallucinations caused by these situations and I think this is where Jung seems to make a valid point, one that should not be forgotten particularly when researching the modern day abduction phenomenon. When people report alien abduction experiences, it is common practice for researchers to record the individuals first hand account. However, it often appears in the literature that this is usually done with less consideration of the abduction experience/s within the person's life context. If alien abduction experiences were created from a fantasy prone personality as some researchers propose, then should not the reasons for that fantasy proneness be explored too? Shouldn't we be seeking evidence for or against such statement when the fantasy proneness hypothesis is so damning? And would it be wise for us to ask if it is possible that some of these reported experiences are some sort of compensatory creation of the unconscious as Jung does? Further to this, not only are UFOs seen they are dreamt about, again a realm governed by the unconscious and another area still left to be explored, but it is the possibility of materialized psychism that still leaves Jung scratching his head. If UFOs are psychic projections how do they throw back radar echo? As he states, the discussion of it leads to psychological problems which involve just as fantastic possibilities or impossibilities as the approach from the physical side. Based on the works of Ruppelt, Keyhoe and Menzel at the time, Jung decided that even if UFOs are physically real they are so bizarre that they tax our understanding and credulity to the limit which reveals to the reader that even great minds can only tolerate so much. He could have simply proposed that if UFOs are physically real the technology is just beyond our understanding at the moment. Would this have been such a difficult idea to grasp? Finally, Jung himself admits that he must therefore content himself with having sketched out a few lines for future research and that the psychic aspects play so great a role that it cannot be left out of account. If military authorities have felt compelled to set up bureaus for collecting and evaluating UFO reports, then psychology too, has not only the right but also the duty to do what it can to shed light on this shadowy issue. Too few behaviourists have yet to add their expertise to the human dynamics of this enigmatic phenomenon and perhaps this is where Jung does the UFO community his greatest service to remind us of it. The unconscious mind is still far from being understood, in fact, what we do know should really be considered our best guess and modern day "researchers" have let themselves down by not exploring the psychological realms as fastidiously as they have done with the gathering of physical evidence. We have developed a lopsided view of the UFO phenomenon by leaving this vital area untapped. This needs to be rectified as soon as possible so as to regain a truer view of what is really transpiring. What l do admire about Jung's exploration was his obvious lack of hesitation to explore the field of UFOs which may have been even more of a taboo subject in his heyday than it is today. He had a reputation to uphold but was not afraid to go where others would have thought it prudent to steer clear. In this way he reminded me of the late Dr John Mack and the many problems he has had dealing with this subject while maintaining his position at Harvard University. Looking back on Jung's book from it's future, it acts as a beacon and a warning for researchers, showing us the lack of literature in the field of psychology which by now should have surpassed that produced decades ago. But this work is yet to be done, and if left to languish for too much longer may have us chasing our tails for eternity. Back to Articles Index  |
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