Hardcover
288 Pages

More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions.

Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, D.W. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens is due to a number of factors including their ubiquity in modern media like The X-Files, which can influence memory, and the believability lent to that media by the search for planets that might support life. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences, and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life.

Diana Walsh Pasulka is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Her research examines miraculous events within Catholic history to new religious movements. Recent books include American Cosmic: Religion, UFOs, and Technology (Oxford University Press 2019) and Spiritual Initiations in the 21st Century (forthcoming with St. Martins’ Essentials). She is widely published, recently in Tank, Vox, Vice, and is a featured speaker at conferences, on podcasts, radio, and television. Memorable engagements include a talk on technology and habitats at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, a keynote speech at Rice University, and ongoing presentations at Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research. She is lead investigator on an ongoing study of Catholic manuscripts about saints, levitation, and bilocation, in partnership with the Vatican Secret Archive and the Vatican Space Observatory.