The Science Fiction Origins of UFO & Alien Abduction Accounts

During the epidemic of alien abduction accounts in the 1980s and ’90s, the most notable researchers, Budd Hopkins, David M. Jacobs, and John E. Mack, were adamant that the influence of science fiction (SF) on the imagery of aliens and alien spacecraft reported by their subjects was negligible. The notion that SF was the cause of alien abductions seemed detrimental to their campaign to establish alien abduction as an objective reality worthy of study, and separate from already understood social phenomena. 

Budd Hopkins

In Missing Time Hopkins writes:

He chose to only focus on the most widely distributed sources of alien imagery, completely ignoring the fact that people had been reading and talking amongst themselves about SF ideas involving aliens and alien spacecraft since before the turn of the century.

Hopkins claimed SF cleaves aliens into two distinct camps gods or demons and bizarrely points to the ambivalent posture of the aliens reported by abductees as evidence that SF was too one dimensional to have been their cause.  

David M. Jacobs

Jacobs also seems only able to consider the major Hollywood products, citing the usual suspects for SF influence: Spielburg’s 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind ¹(CE3K), Star Wars, and Star Trek. He ignores the fact that musings about alien contact had been explored by SF writers well before these blockbusters existed. In fact Jacobs freely admits his disinterest in SF “I was never attracted to science fiction”. Yet he makes a definitive statement about all of SF:

An often repeated argument from abduction researchers is that abductees share Jacobs’ disinterest in SF and so could not have been influenced by it. 

John E. Mack

Mack argued this point on numerous occasions. He claimed:

Later in the same book he writes,

In a post-conference interview at the Abduction Study Conference held at M.I.T. in Massachusetts in 1992 he maintained that abduction accounts were different: 

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However, we have to wonder why these three researchers all took this stance vociferously, while also failing to display any substantial knowledge of SF or acknowledge the significant evidence found within it that could counter these arguments

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Bertrand Méheust 

With the most deferential of hat-tips to Bertrand Méheust who wrote the most thorough study of SF influence on UFO lore, Science-Fiction et soucoupes volantes . Méheust focuses on SF literature pre-1945 i.e. before the advent of modern UFOlogy.

It is worth reviewing how some of the literature he cites has paralells with cases that have occured in the 45 years since he published his study.

Many of the texts Méheust cites are from French writers of merveilleux-scientifique² the antecedent by some 20 years to SF popularised by American pulps. These works may not be as well known as they should be to English speakers since few, including Bertrand Méheust’s own books, have been translated.

“It is worth pointing out that Méheust’s intention is not simply to reduce all UFO testimony to having been derived from science fiction (although this is debatable as we’ll see in part 3 of this series). His position is more nuanced. For example, he perceives a genuine mystery in the coincidental predictive quality, including minute details in some cases, of SF imagery and UFO and abduction reports. This is particularly intriguing when the possibility of the witness having encountered the SF material beforehand seems almost impossible. I suggest a thorough reading of his work to understand his position as neither that of an outright skeptic nor a believer.

So, with that said, let’s look more closely at one of the authors Bertrand Méheust cites frequently as being uncannily prophetic in his anticipation of many of the exacting details later found in UFO lore. 

José Moselli (1882-1941)

José Moselli³ was a merchant marine and a prolific writer who’s works were published between 1910-1938.

Méheust, likely because of space considerations in his book, does not pick out every detail in Moselli’s writing but cites several of his works that anticipate UFO lore in precise detail. So I felt it a worthwhile exercise to create a series of posts that summarise this (and other texts) in the interest of making it explicit that SF writing in the 1920s preempts themes and motifs in real witness accounts of encounters with UFOs and aliens decades later in the 1940s, as well as those reported in alien abduction accounts in the 1960s through to the 1990s. 

To begin this series let’s consider:

Le Messager de la Planète [The Planetary Messenger]

This short story, printed in the short-lived Almanach Scientifique⁴ in 1925, concerns two scientists who are Antarctic explorers. They discover an extraterrestrial craft and encounter its alien occupant.

There are many details in this story that will be familiar to a modern audience – even those with little to no interest in SF.

I will leave it up to the reader to keep score of how many of the following details in this story outline they recognise. But here are some things to look out for:

• description of a crashed alien spaceship
• descriptions of entry to / exit from an alien craft
• descriptions of the interior of an alien craft
• depictions of alien “greys” and their attire
• descriptions of alien “touch”
• descriptions of alien technological devices, star maps, image projection
• spheres, spheres, spheres!
• extraterrestrial scientific knowledge that would benefit all life on earth
• alien “biologics”
• control of physical matter via a mastery of sound / vibration

Story Outline (with Spoilers!)

• Norwegian adventurers Olaf Densmold (51) an astronomer, and Ottar Wallens (42) a geologist, are exploring Antarctica with Kobyak their Alaskan-Indian guide.
• It’s cold, 28° below zero.
• They have left their ship, the Sirius, with their guide, sled, dogs, and food for six weeks.
• They are heading for the South Pole. 
• They encounter a storm.
• Both of their watches stop at exactly 14:11 and they realise that Kobyak has been missing for three hours. 
• Densmold searches for him and finds him dead. The dogs have started to eat Kobyak, Desnmold, in a rage, kills two of the dogs.
• Their compass and barometer go haywire and show strange readings as if they were above the magnetic pole. 
• They see a greenish glow coming out of the ground in the distance.
• They investigate and find a cavity, a funnel of snow 15m diameter 30m deep.
• Inside the cavity is a 7m in diameter hexagonal shape, a “polyhedral multi-faceted emerald”.
• A fragment of ice rolls down and hits the “emerald polyhedron” object and it makes a whistling noise and begins to change shape.

• It morphs between a cone, cube, rectangle, pyramid and cylinder eventually becoming a smooth sphere.
• It makes soft sounds on a chromatic scale. 
• The scientists deduce that since the device is large it could not have been transported there and they conclude it is from another planet. 
• They believe it is made of a material that does not exist on earth.
• They investigate sliding down the funnel toward the object. 
• They see that the thing is inhabited.
• They are excited to be the first to communicate with a being from another planet. “We will have the honour of being the ones who have welcomed them”.
• The sphere is warm. It feels smooth and soft. It is generating heat which is causing it to slowly sink further and further into the ice. 
• A an opening appears in the sphere.

• An “unimaginable” being appears. A “small man” wearing a tight-fitting one piece suit made of grey material looking like lead. 
• He wears large glasses with lenses. A mask of shaggy hair covers his nose and mouth.
• He has ear coverings somewhat like large headphones.
• He moves slowly, awkwardly and clumsily.
• The being touches them and they feel a sensation of comfort and lightness.
• The creature communicates with them by drawing geometric forms in the ice wall. The scienctists begin a dialouge by also drawing shapes.
• The being goes inside the sphere and they follow.

• They find themselves in a spherical compartment 4m long; the walls produce a phosphorescent green glow.
• The being shows them a black sphere less than a metre in diameter that hovers in in the air in front of them. It is illuminated from within and suddenly becomes a map of the stars and planets.

• The sphere then shows them visions of the earth, New York, Europe, London, then the strange architecture of alien cities and a red planet that they take to be on Mars.
• The being performs a kind of alchemy demonstration transforming Densmold’s knife in to silver ore.
• Exhausted from their journey they touch “two balls like diamonds” on the wall and instantly feel rejuvenated and able to consider the most difficult of problems.
• Another vision in the sphere shows the gaunt faces of inhabitants of Venus or Mercury. They gaze with “curiosity and anguish” as if in pity for their fellow being stranded on earth.

• Using a gong and a golden chest the being treis to communicate using different wavelengths of light and sound. 
• The scientists realise “The world is only a set of vibrations” “sound, light, matter are only vibrations whose intensity alone differs”
• They believe if they could understand the being they would gain “10 centuries” of scientific knowledge.
• The being indicates the machinery beneath a trap door in the floor of his device is broken. They don’t understand it and have no way to help the being fix it.
• The being goes outside of the sphere and the scientists follow.

• The being climbs up the funnel of ice. They follow. 
• The being begins to try to communicate something to them by pointing at the sun and the cardinal points.
• Suddenly the being is attacked by their dogs.

The alien being is killed. His body and that of two dogs appears to ignite then dissolves into the snow. 

• The scientists make a plan to return to humanity to tell the story of the “extraordinary apparatus” they have found. They stay up all night discussing how their discovery of the alien object would solve countless problems of science & mathematics.
• They dream of their names never being forgotten “what glory!”
• In the night their dogs break free and eat and spoil their food rations before running away.
• When he sees they will not make the journey together Densmold starts to abandon Wallens with the last of the food rations. 

• They argue and Wallens shoots Densmold in the head, killing him.
• Wallens, too weak to complete the return journey, is never found.
• The warm sphere continues its slow descent into the ice never to be found.

Read Part 2 of This Series – La Fin d’illa

References

Footnotes

1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075860/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_close%2520encounters ↩︎
2. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merveilleux_scientifique ↩︎
3. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Moselli ↩︎
4. The original French text of Le Messager de la Planète – [The Planetary Messenger] José Moselli (1924-25) can be read and downloaded here: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9936559  ↩︎