UFO religions, also referred to as "UFO cults" and "flying saucer cults", are groups which deal with alleged communication between humans and extraterrestrial beings. Forms of communication include telepathy and astral projection. Groups often believe that humanity can be saved after being educated by the aliens as to how to improve society. Alien abduction belief can lead to formation of a UFO religion. I AM Religious Activity, founded in 1930 by Guy Ballard, is seen, according to one author, as the first UFO Religion, though Aetherius Society founded by George King has also been given this distinction. Scholars identify the 1947 Roswell UFO Incident as a key event within the history of UFO spirituality. Melodie Campbell and Stephen A. Kent describe Heaven's Gate and Order of the Solar Temple as among the most controversial of the UFO belief groups. Scientology is seen by scholars as a UFO religion, due to its Xenu cosmogony and the presence of Space opera in Scientology doctrine.

Background [edit]

J. Gordon Melton identifies the first UFO religion as the group "I AM" Activity, founded by Guy Ballard.^[1] St. Germain is pictured above the altar.

UFO religions generally deal with belief in communication with extraterrestrial beings.^[2][3] Stephen Hunt writes in Alternative Religions: A Sociological Introduction, "One form of quasi-religion that perhaps borders on a more orthodox form of religiosity is that of the flying saucer cults".^[2] In these groups, individuals believe that communication between aliens and humans can take the form of physical contact, telepathy, and astral projection.^[2] Typically the groups believe that humanity will be saved by these aliens when humans are educated as to a better way to live life.^[2] Some of the groups believe that aliens will come to take those that believe to a more positive location.^[2] Oftentimes the extraterrestrial beings are seen to plead with humanity to improve itself and to move away from a society of greed.^[2] UFO religions place an emphasis on spiritual growth, and the evolution of humanity.^[2] A UFO religion can be formed after an individual claims to have experienced an alien abduction and been taken aboard a spacecraft.^[4]

Christopher Hugh Partridge writes in UFO Religions that J. Gordon Melton identifies the first UFO religion as the group "I AM" Activity, founded by Guy Ballard.^[1] However, Guy Ballard did not mention anything about extraterrestrial spacecraft in the teachings of the I AM Activity; almost all communication from the Ascended Masters came telepathically. In the very few cases where Guy Ballard claimed to physically encounter ascended masters, he said they appeared to him from the etheric plane, not from a space vehicle. However, during Guy Ballard's claimed first encounter with an ascended master, the ascended master St. Germain, in a cave underneath Mount Shasta, he said that St. Germain showed him a television set that could receive transmissions from the planet Venus.

Partridge notes that within UFO religions, there is a belief that the supreme being or "evolved entity" did not ascend from Earth, but instead came from another plane or another planet and descended to Earth.^[5] Today, in the Ascended Master Teachings, the group of religions descended from the I AM Activity, these beings are referred to as cosmic beings, and some modern-day Ascended Master Teachings teachers such as Joshua David Stone do mention UFOs.

Partridge describes the 1947 Roswell UFO Incident as a key point in time within UFO spirituality, commenting: "Roswell is now firmly established as what might be described as a key ufological 'spiritual site' ";^[6] and James R. Lewis also calls attention to this event in his book The Gods Have Landed, noting that it is seen by Ufologists as the date of the "emergence of UFOs into the public consciousness".^[7] Partridge places UFO religion within the context of theosophical esotericism, and asserts that it began to be associated as "UFO religion" after the 1947 incident at Roswell, New Mexico.^[5] According to Partridge, most UFO religions still have many of the key points associated with Theosophy, such as belief in the same Spiritual Hierarchy, and he also draws parallels to New Age thought.^[5] He notes that within the thought processes of UFO religions after 1947, many of these groups maintained beliefs that extraterrestrial beings were "heralds of a new era".^[5]

Hunt describes the Aetherius Society founded by George King in 1955 as "probably the first and certainly the most enduring UFO cult".^[8] He places the Aetherius Society and Raëlism among the "most renowned" of the "flying saucer cults".^[2] Writing in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, contributors Melodie Campbell and Stephen A. Kent place the Aetherius Society and Unarius as among the "oldest and most studied" of the flying saucer cults.^[9] They describe groups Heaven's Gate and Order of the Solar Temple as the "most controversial groups combining UFO belief with variations of contactee assertions".^[9] Gregory L. Reece classes Scientology as a "UFO group" in his book UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture, and discusses elements of the Xenu cosmogony and Space opera in Scientology doctrine.^[10] He compares Scientology to the Aetherius Society and to Ashtar Command, writing: "While it bears strong similarities to the Ashtar Command or the Aetherius Society, its emphasis upon the Xenu event as the central message of the group seems to place them within the ancient astronaut tradition. Either way, Scientology is perhaps most different from other UFO groups in their attempt to keep all of the space opera stuff under wraps."^[10] A similar comparison is made in New Religions: A Guide, which describes the Xenu mythology as "a basic ancient astronaut myth".^[11] Author Victoria Nelson writes in The Secret Life of Puppets that "[t]he most prominent current UFO religion is probably the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology".^[12]

List [edit]

Image	Name	Founder	Founded
	Aetherius Society[2][3][9][13]	George King	1955
	Ashtar Galactic Command[10][11][14]	Thelma B. Terrill ("Tuella")	1977
	The Seekers (aka Brotherhood of the Seven Rays)[14][15]	Dorothy Martin (aka Marian Keech)	1950s
	Chen Tao[14][16][17]	Hon-ming Chen	1995
	Cosmic Circle of Fellowship[18]	William A. Ferguson	1955
	Fiat Lux[11][19]	Uriella	1980
	Ground Crew Project[11][14]
	Guardian Activation International[14]
	Heaven's Gate[9][20][21][22][23]	Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles	1970s
	"I AM" Activity[1]	Guy Ballard	1930s
	Industrial Church of the New World Comforter[14]	Allen Michael	1973
	Mark-Age[18][24]	Charles Boyd Gentzel and Pauline Sharpe	1962
	Ministry of Universal Wisdom[25][26]	George Van Tassel	1953
	Nation of Islam[27]	Wallace Fard Muhammad	1930
	The New Message from God[28]	Marshall Vian Summers	1992
	Nuwaubianism[29][30]	Dwight York	1970s
	Order of the Solar Temple[9]	Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret	1984
	Outer Dimensional Forces (aka Armageddon Time Ark Base Operation)[31]	Orville T. Nodrog	1966
	Planetary Activation Organization[11][31]	Sheldan Nidle	1997
	Raëlism[2][3][10]	Claude Vorilhon	1974
	Sanctuary of Thought[32]	Truman Bethurum	1954
	Scientology[3][10][11][12][33][34]	L. Ron Hubbard	1952
	Star Light Fellowship[18]
	Unarius[9][13][14][35][36]	Ernest Norman and Ruth Norman	1954
	Universe People[37]	Ivo A. Benda	1997
	Urantia movement[13][38]	Spiritual entities	1924 at the earliest and 1955 at the latest

See also [edit]

	Religion portal
	Space portal

• Doomsday cult
• List of new religious movements
• List of Ufologists
• List of UFO organizations

Notes [edit]

References [edit]

• Bainbridge, William Sims (1996). The Sociology of Religious Movements. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-91202-4. 
• Clarke, Peter Bernard (2006). New Religions in Global Perspective: A Study of Religious Change in the Modern World. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-25748-4. 
• Gallagher, Eugene V.; W. Michael Ashcraft (2006). Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-275-98712-4. 
• Hexham, Irving (2002). Pocket Dictionary of New Religious Movements. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 0-8308-1466-3. 
• Hunt, Stephen (2003). Alternative Religions: A Sociological Introduction. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0-7546-3410-8. 
• Landes, Richard (2000). Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92246-1. 
• Lewis, James R. (2003). The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of UFO Religions. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-964-6. 
• Lewis, James R. (1995). The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-2329-8. 
• Lewis, James R. (2001). Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-842-9. 
• Nelson, Victoria (2002). The Secret Life of Puppets. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-00630-5. 
• Partridge, Christopher Hugh (2005). Introduction To World Religions. Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-3714-3. 
• Partridge, Christopher Hugh (2004). New Religions: A Guide: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-522042-0. 
• Partridge, Christopher Hugh (2003). UFO Religions. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26324-7. 
• Reece, Gregory L. (2007). UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1-84511-451-5. 
• Saliba, John (November 2006). "The Study of UFO Religions". Nova Religio (Berkeley, California: University of California Press) 10 (2): 103–123. doi:10.1525/nr.2006.10.2.103. 
• Swatos, William H.; Peter Kivisto (1998). Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. AltaMira Press. ISBN 0-7619-8956-0. 
• Tumminia, Diana G. (2005). When Prophecy Never Fails: Myth and Reality in a Flying-Saucer Group. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517675-8. 

External links [edit]

• UFO Cults, Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained
• UFO Cults, Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network