Edgar Cayce was an American attributed clairvoyant who purported to trance and give readings, often claiming to diagnoses disease and recommending treatments for ailments. During the sessions, Cayce would answer questions on a variety of subjects such as healing, reincarnation, dreams, the afterlife, past lives, nutrition, Atlantis, and future events. Cayce described himself as a devout Christian and denied being a Spiritualist or communicating with spirits. Cayce is regarded as a founder and a principal source of many characteristic beliefs of the New Age movement.
Extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) refers to hypothetical intelligent extraterrestrial life. No such life has ever been verifiably observed to exist. The question of whether other inhabited worlds might exist has been debated since ancient times. The modern form of the concept emerged when the Copernican Revolution demonstrated that the Earth was a planet revolving around the Sun, and other planets were, conversely, other worlds. The question of whether other inhabited planets or moons exist was a natural consequence of this new understanding. It has become one of the most speculative questions in science and is a central theme of science fiction and popular culture.
In ufology, a close encounter is an event in which a person witnesses an unidentified flying object (UFO) at relatively close range, where the possibility of mis-identification is presumably greatly reduced. This terminology and the system of classification behind it were first suggested in astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek's book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry (1972). Categories beyond Hynek's original three have been added by others but have not gained universal acceptance, mainly because they lack the scientific rigor that Hynek aimed to bring to ufology.
Ruth Shick Montgomery was a journalist with a long and distinguished career as a reporter, correspondent, and syndicated columnist in Washington, DC.
The term "exotheology" was coined in the 1960s or early 1970s for the examination of theological issues as they pertain to extraterrestrial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with either conjecture about possible theological beliefs that extraterrestrials might have, or how our own theologies would be influenced by evidence of and/or interaction with extraterrestrials.
The Aetherius Society is a new religious movement founded by George King in the mid-1950s as the result of what King claimed were contacts with extraterrestrial intelligences, to whom he referred as "Cosmic Masters". The main goal of the believer is to cooperate with these Cosmic Masters to help humanity solve its current Earthly problems and advance into the New Age.
Contactees are persons who claim to have experienced contact with extraterrestrials. Some claimed ongoing encounters, while others claimed to have had as few as a single encounter. Evidence is anecdotal in all cases.
Unarius is a non-profit organization founded in 1954 in Los Angeles, California, and headquartered in El Cajon, California. The organization purports to advance a new "interdimensional science of life" based upon "fourth-dimensional" physics principles. Unarius centers exist in Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and various locations in the United States.
The phrase "Earth Changes" was coined by the American psychic Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) to refer to the belief that the world would soon enter on a series of cataclysmic events causing major alterations in human life on the planet.
William Francis Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, 7th Marquess of Heusden, was a prominent ufologist. He was an Irish peer, as well as a nobleman in the Dutch nobility.
A UFO religion is any religion in which the existence of extraterrestrial (ET) entities operating unidentified flying objects (UFOs) is an element of belief. Typically, adherents of such religions believe the ETs to be interested in the welfare of humanity which either already is, or eventually will become, part of a pre-existing ET civilization. Other religions predate the UFO era of the mid 20th century, but incorporate ETs into a more supernatural worldview in which the UFO occupants are more akin to angels than physical aliens, but this distinction may be blurred within the overall subculture. These religions have their roots in the tropes of early science fiction and weird fiction writings, in ufology, and in the subculture of UFO sightings and alien abduction stories. Historians have considered the Aetherius Society, founded by George King, to be the first UFO religion.
In ufology, Nordic alien is the name given to alleged humanoid extraterrestrials, purported to come from the Pleiades, who resemble Nordic-Scandinavians.
Ashtar is the name given to an extraterrestrial being or group of beings that a number of people claim to have channeled.
Star people or starseeds are a variant of the belief in alien-human hybrids in New Age belief and fringe theory. Introduced by Brad Steiger in his 1976 book Gods of Aquarius, it argues that certain people originated as extraterrestrials and arrived on Earth through birth or as a walk-in to an existing human body.
There are a number of planetary objects proposed in religion, astrology, ufology and pseudoscience whose existence is not supported by scientific evidence.
Ancient Aliens is an American television series produced by Prometheus Entertainment that explores the pseudoscientific hypothesis of ancient astronauts in a non-critical, documentary format. Episodes also explore related pseudoscientific and pseudohistoric topics, such as: Atlantis and other lost ancient civilizations, extraterrestrial contact and ufology, and popular conspiracy theories. The series, which has aired on History since 2010, has been a target for criticism of History's channel drift, as well as criticism for promoting unorthodox or unproven hypotheses as fact. According to Smithsonian, episodes of the series overwhelm the viewer with "fictions and distortions" by using a Gish gallop.
The interdimensional hypothesis is a proposal that unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings are the result of experiencing other "dimensions" that coexist separately alongside our own in contrast with either the extraterrestrial hypothesis that suggests UFO sightings are caused by visitations from outside the Earth or the psychosocial hypothesis that argues UFO sightings are best explained as psychological or social phenomenon.
Ruth E. Norman, also known as Uriel, was an American religious leader who co-founded the Unarius Academy of Science, based in Southern California. Raised in California, Norman received little education and worked from an early age in a variety of jobs. In the 1940s, she developed an interest in psychic phenomena and past-life regression. These pursuits led to her introduction to Ernest Norman, a self-described psychic, in 1954. He engaged in channeling, past-life regression, and attempts at communication with extraterrestrials. She married Ernest, her fourth husband, in the mid-1950s. Together they published several books about his revelations and formed Unarius, an organization which later became known as the Unarius Academy of Science, to popularize his teachings. The couple discussed numerous details about their alleged past lives and spiritual visits to other planets, forming a mythology from these accounts.
The Ground Crew Project is a UFO religion based in the United States. It was founded in the 1980s by Sheldan Nidle, moved operations online in 1996, and later split into the "Ground Crew" and "Planetary Activation Organisation". It has been described as an optimistic UFO religious group who believes the Earth is on the verge of a cosmic transformation. According to adherents, such a transformation was expected to happen as the Earth passed through the high energy properties of a ‘photon belt’ in the 1990s. Members say the religion's aim is to prepare humanity for large-scale, first contact between Earth and the “Galactic Federation”, claimed to be an extraterrestrial organisation which will help in the supposed transformation. Members of the group are being prepared to play key roles as intermediaries between the claimed extraterrestrials and the population of Earth. Even after failed predictions, the group believes contact will happen “as soon as possible” and they must assist in ‘raising’ mankind beforehand.
