In this witty, erudite, and thoroughly researched book, art historian John Moffitt discusses the popular iconography depicting alleged extraterrestrial (ET) visitors and the widespread appeal of this New Age craze as a mass cultural phenomenon. A thorough skeptic, Moffitt is interested in kitschy ET portraiture, not as evidence of aliens among us, but for what this imagery reveals about contemporary culture. By brilliantly placing the present cultural moment in historical context, he demonstrates how typical portrayals of aliens reflect long-running (even ancient) cultural motifs.

Whether we realize it or not, among ET's precursors are the ecstatic maenads of ancient Greek art, early depictions of Christ in Byzantine icons, the religious visions shown in 15th-century Spanish paintings, and the popular images of witches and incubi from the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, in our postmodern space age, these timeless figures of imagination and art have taken on the otherworldly trappings of alien creatures. By the same token, centuries-old beliefs, whether in nature gods and goddesses, demons, witches, Satan, or saints, have evolved into the current New Age mythology that often surrounds the stories and pictures connected with aliens. Fueled by a huge entertainment industry, mass media, and the relentless profit drive of capitalism, alien imagery has become ubiquitous, and in the process the line between fantasy and reality ever harder to discern.

This sweeping and above all entertaining perusal of popular culture presents a sophisticated yet very accessible and often funny dissection of our current obsession with the possibility that "we are not alone."

The Believer is the weird and chilling true story of Dr. John Mack. This eminent Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer risked his career to investigate the phenomenon of human encounters with aliens and to give credibility to the stupefying tales shared by people who were utterly convinced they had happened. Nothing in Mack's four decades of psychiatry had prepared him for the otherworldly accounts of a cross-section of humanity including young children who reported being taken against their wills by alien beings. Over the course of his career his interest in alien abduction grew from curiosity to wonder, ultimately developing into a limitless, unwavering passion. Based on exclusive access to Mack's archives, journals, and psychiatric notes and interviews with his family and closest associates, The Believer reveals the life and work of a man who explored the deepest of scientific conundrums and further leads us to the hidden dimensions and alternate realities that captivated Mack until the end of his life.

Charles Fort's classic recording of unexplained, paranormal events and phenomena offer fascinating insights into bizarre occurrences the author felt had been unjustly damned from formal, scientific study. The title derives from the author's perception that the book's subjects were so stigmatized and excluded from ordinary scientific inquiry that they had become 'damned'. Perhaps permanently forbade for formal study, the oddities and unexplained events in this text were felt worthy of attention by the author, who eventually became an authority on anomalous phenomena. The topics in Fort's thesis include unexplained disappearances of large groups of people, frogs and fish suddenly raining from the sky, the possibility that mythical beasts such as giants exist, UFOs manifest as glowing and sometimes moving lights in the sky, and bizarre weather phenomena. Fort attributes credence to many of these oddities, and argues that science - by dismissing them - has become a religion in itself.