On May 8, Pentagon officials began releasing previously classified material related to unidentified flying objects. The UFO files may not prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. But their publication is nonetheless a significant event. By creating a government-sanctioned repository of content that can be consulted for the truth about unknown intelligence, the U.S. government has offered support and recognition to a new kind of religion: belief in UFOs.
UFO belief is not a religion in the traditional sense. There are no centralized leaders: no popes, no universally recognized doctrines, no sacred text and no institution capable of enforcing orthodoxy. Yet it increasingly performs many of the functions historically attributed to religion. It organizes communities of belief, creates narratives of revelation, offers cosmological meaning and establishes interpretive frameworks through which people understand mysterious experiences and humanity’s place in the universe.
