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Alien Worlds: Social and Religious Dimensions of Extraterrestrial Contact.Edited by Diana G. Tumminia. Syracuse University Press, 2007. xlii + 364pages. $34.95 paper.

The week I started reading Diana G. Tumminias anthology AlienWorlds: Social and Religious Dimensions of Extraterrestrial Contact, theDirector of the Vatican Observatory declared that Catholic theologypermitted the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Onewould be hard-pressed to find a better example of the mainstreaming ofthe religious engagement with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) andextraterrestrials (ETs) than the statement of the Jesuit priest in chargeof the Roman Catholic Churchs astronomy division. Tumminia, for her

part, has assembled eighteen essays that consider the much less main-stream movements and individuals who claim not only the existence of,but actual contact with, UFOs and ETs. The book draws from a varietyof social scientific perspectives, and includes contributors and groupsfamiliar to scholars of NRMs.

In her introduction, Tumminia indicates that the included essays sur-vey the societal discourse that ranges from obvious science fiction to thesocial construction of scientific facts around aliens and UFOs (p. xxxviii).Readers of Nova Religiowill be pleased to find that the book not onlyaccomplishes that goal, but includes noteworthy chapters on UFO-related new religions. This includes the Aetherius Society, the Seekers

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Unarius Academy of Science, but all of the essays touch on material rel-evant to scholars of new religions. In each of the cases considered, indi-viduals and groups construct religious worldviews, practices, andcommunities centered around a (sincere or playful) belief in contactwith extraterrestrial intelligences. Some of these communities are actual

religions, others Tumminia and her contributors consider quasi-religions, such as alien abductees support groups or Star Trekfandom.

Tumminias introductory essay sets the tone and theoretical ques-tions for the contributions that follow. She notes what I have collapsedinto three central characteristics of the UFO subculture: it has tremen-dous cultural presence, as indicated by its diffusion through mass mediaand the marketplace; it functions as what Tumminia calls a societalinkblot; yet it is a stigmatized subculture. The juxtaposition of the firstand third of these characteristicseveryone knows what a UFO is, but

everyone also assumes that contactees must be crazyand the analysisof the second characteristicthat responses to the ideas of UFOs andETs reveal much about individuals and communitiesform the overar-ching themes of the anthology. The majority of the contributions con-sider these themes from various angles. In addition to the chapters onparticular NRMs that I have highlighted below, the essays include: mul-tiple surveys of the mythologies, causes, narratives, and social construc-tion of alien abductions, UFO sightings, and extraterrestrial contact;several analyses of the worldview and science of ufology; and a fascinat-

ing discussion of ritual among Star Trek fandom.Several of the chapters will most strongly appeal to scholars of new

religions because they focus on particular NRMs. Mikael Rothsteinswork on the hagiography of Aetherius Society is an excellent study of theroutinization of charisma. Using both Max Webers original formulationand the subsequent work of Roy Wallis, Rothstein presents a convincingcase that the leaders and members or Aetherius have socially con-structed the charisma of their founder George King, then routinizedthat charisma through hagiographic literature.

Jerome Clarks The Odyssey of Sister Thedra details the group sur-rounding Dorothy Martin, the pseudonymous Marian Keech of WhenProphecy Fails. Filling in details of Festingers much earlier work andcontinuing the story of Martin-cum-Thedra, Clark fits the group into thewider subculture of Theosophy, occultism, and channeling, as well as thegrowing UFO contactee movement.

Alien Worldsincludes two selections on the Ralian movement. BryanSentes and Susan Palmers chapter, Presumed Immanent: TheRalians, UFO Religions, and the Postmodern Condition, will be famil-iar to readers of this journal, since the essay appeared as an article inNova Religio4, no. 1. The essay describes Ralian beliefs and practices,

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much repeated here, though the chapter focuses more exclusively onthe centrality of science in the Ralian worldview. Christopher Hellandscontribution, The Ralian Creation Myth and the Art of Cloning:Reality or Rhetoric? narrows the focus to how the movement uses sci-ence as a legitimating technique. Though both chapters are insightful,

they are repetitive and I would assign only one of them in the classroom.Diana Tumminias overview of the Universal Industrial Church of the

New World Comforter provides a fascinating look at a contactee religionthat blends utopian Marxism, psychedelic utopianism (in Tumminiaswords), free-love, biblical apocalypticism, communal living, and thebelief in karma. Though the group is itself interesting, Tumminia admitsto it being the worlds smallest contactee religion, with only ten mem-bers (p. 42). Though I concur with the author that the church is worthstudying, the chapter would have benefited from a methodological dis-

cussion of the value of focusing on so small a group. Tumminia has alsocontributed a third essay, which considers the plausibility structures andworldview-building enterprises of the Unarius Academy of Science, andher ethnographic relation to them.

Alien Worldshas much to recommend it. In addition to the afore-mentioned chapters on particular NRMs, the other chapters detail andanalyze the UFO contactee subculture from a variety of angles. Theauthors use a plethora of theoretical perspectives, ranging from sociol-ogy of religion to the social construction of scientific knowledge. (I am

very pleased to see the use of Max Weber and Bruno Latour in the samevolume!) As such, Alien Worldswould be an excellent addition to eithersociology of religion or sociology of knowledge undergraduate courses.Scholars of new religions interested in science, UFO religions, or reli-gions predicated on alternative epistemologies will likewise benefit fromthe volume.

Benjamin E. Zeller, Brevard College

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