Last Sunday's series finale of FOX's The X-Files appears to mark the end of a two-decade media infatuation with all things extraterrestrial, from abductions and UFO crashes to government cover-ups. There's no doubt that this obsession helped promote a mass following for The X-Files series, and widespread public interest in UFO claims. According to a recent survey by the National Science Board, some 43 percent of respondents indicated that they watched The X-Files at least occasionally. In the same survey, roughly 30 percent of respondents professed a belief that alien spacecraft from another planet had visited Earth.
How did a sizable minority of Americans fall under the spell of extraterrestrials? The answer lies in the giant storytelling mill of the mass media, a belief factory that discovered alien tales to be a veritable gold mine. Modern UFO fixation originated during the 1960s in the form of whispered rumors among a small community of convention-goers, pamphleteers, and conspiracy theorists. But in order for aliens to grow into a uniquely American national pastime and obsession, these claims bubbling on the fringes of society first had to be popularized by film and television.
Cultural historians point to Steven Spielberg's 1977 classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a major factor in the mainstreaming of UFO beliefs. In a masterful film with state-of-the-art effects, Spielberg -- himself a UFO enthusiast -- gathered together the collected artifacts of UFO lore: extraordinary accounts of alien contactees; speculative reports of secret government facilities in remote areas of the American West; and the eccentric personalities of crankish UFO-ologists. In isolation, the impact of Close Encounters on public belief is tough to gauge. However, the film sparked other media portrayals of UFOs such as E.T. and Starman, culminating in the past decade's cultural crescendo.
A key shift made this phenomenon possible. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the release of books by science-fiction writer Whitley Strieber and Harvard professor John Mack, the alien mythos moved from the realm of science fiction to that of alleged fact. Strieber's book Communion detailed his supposed personal experience with alien abduction and became one of the best selling "nonfiction" books of the decade. Mack's account of his "recovered memory" hypnotism sessions with self-described alien abductees also appeared on the best-seller list. Suddenly, the fringe claims of a subculture movement were given credibility by best-selling nonfiction books. And then they popped up in the news.
Alien and UFO stories fit the "soft," sensationalistic format of 1990s journalism perfectly. As a result, they became popular topics for the new magazine shows such as NBC Dateline and ABC Primetime Live, tabloid programs such as A Current Affair and Inside Edition, and docu-drama series such as Unsolved Mysteries. Even the respected PBS science program NOVA devoted an hour documentary to alien abduction claims. The typical reporting format in these programs put the extraordinary claims of a UFO abductee or UFO-ologist on equal footing with the skeptical evaluations of a credentialed scientist.
UFO lore was further promoted through the speculative elaboration of mundane occurrences, including a series of contrived hoaxes. Such urban legends took as a starting point the crash of a "flying disc" near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. In original news accounts, a rancher described the crash material as foiled paper, sticks, string, and tape (now identified as part of government spy balloon). Over time, though, the story was embellished through such hoaxes as the "MJ-12" documents (forged papers supposedly proving presidential involvement in the cover-up of a UFO crash) and the infamous 1995 "alien autopsy" television special (broadcast on the Fox television network and featuring alleged government footage of a humanoid figure). On the 50th anniversary of the Roswell crash in 1997, a Gallup Organization poll found that 31 percent of Americans believed an actual alien craft had crashed in Roswell. In a previous poll, 71 percent of Americans indicated a belief in some kind of U.S. government cover-up of UFOs.
When The X-Files arrived in 1993, creator Chris Carter blended reality with the paranormal. Capitalizing on UFO-lore and a decades-long decline in public trust of the government, the show quickly captured a large fan base, peaking in 1997 with an estimated audience of 20 million viewers per episode. The X-Files spawned several copycat programs, including NBC's Dark Skies and the syndicated Psi-Factor, and inspired several successful motion pictures including Independence Day, a $300 million blockbuster that prominently featured the Roswell mythology and the threat of alien abduction. Satires even emerged: Third Rock from the Sun, a fish-out-of-water farce involving a family of aliens who adopt suburban America as home; and Men in Black, an alien play on the typical interracial police tandem first made popular by the Beverly Hills Cop series.
How did all of this filter into what Americans think about aliens? Scientists are typically quick to dismiss paranormal beliefs, such as alien claims, as the failings of an irrational and scientifically illiterate public. If most of America were only more like scientists -- rational and knowledgeable -- the light of reason might burn away these "silly" beliefs. Yet any belief system, the traditional religions included, is the product of various cultural forces. People are social animals who look to others for cues about what to think and feel pressure to conform their beliefs to perceived majority opinion.
Decades of research on the mass media's effects on society reveal that the media often promote the diffusion of beliefs. In our complex world, we rely on the mass media for news and information about events outside our normal everyday experience, using them as an important source of cues about what other people in society think. The issues that the media pays closest attention to are often the issues that we pay closest attention to. How the media characterizes an issue also influences how we think about it. And for those of us that spend large proportions of our everyday lives enjoying the fruits of entertainment media, we often come to perceive reality as it is portrayed in the fictionalized narratives of television and film.
On testing the media's effects on belief in UFOs, the evidence is still preliminary, but existing data point to a positive link between increased media portrayals and enhanced public belief. For example, polling data from both the Gallup Organization and Yankelovich Partners indicate that UFO beliefs have increased over the past two decades in correlation with the rise in media portrayals. Moreover, Purdue University communication professor Glenn Sparks has found a link between television viewing and belief in UFO claims.
In an initial study, Sparks conducted a content analysis of three weeks of network programming and discovered that more than 50 percent of television shows mentioned paranormal themes, including UFOs and aliens, at least once. Later, Sparks edited an episode of CBS's 48 Hours so that one group of subjects would watch a one-sided report of a UFO encounter while a second group would watch a more balanced presentation. As expected, subjects viewing the pro-UFO version reported higher beliefs in UFOs while their counterparts reported a decrease. In a follow-up study, Sparks found a strong correlation between heavy television viewing and UFO belief.
Regardless of the quality of evidence linking media portrayals of UFOs with public belief, it appears the entertainment media's promotion of such claims has reached a downward trend. Yet if UFOs were the paranormal belief du jour of the 1990s, psychics and spirit mediums, including the likes of best-selling author James Van Praagh and Sci-Fi Channel performer John Edward, are the new paranormal grist for the mass media's storytelling mill.
Edward appears to be the psychic superstar of the moment, with his program Crossing Over with John Edward appearing five days a week on the Sci-Fi Channel and in syndication nationally. The typical format for the half-hour program features the fast-talking Edward in a darkened amphitheater surrounded by risers packed with audience members. Edward walks around the enclosure, focusing his attention on different sections of the audience at a time and throwing out fast successions of general and random statements like "I'm getting something about a hat, or a coat, or boots, and a name like Sal, Sarah, or Sally over here." Then he hones in on individuals who respond to his guesswork by nodding their heads hysterically, breaking out in tears, or raising their hands in excitement.
Last year in a Time magazine article, science writer Leon Jaroff explained what every good magician or mentalist already knew: Edward's "psychic" success is a likely result of two very earthly techniques. First, there is the old fortune-teller's technique of "cold reading." This involves a succession of quick generalizations by Edward meant to elicit a response from individual audience members, followed by a series of educated guesses based on demographics. Second, there is what Jaroff referred to as a "hot reading," a variation on cold reading in which the medium takes advantage of information surreptitiously gathered in advance.
Despite these very mundane mind tricks, Crossing Over has been enormously successful. The program follows in the tradition of the daytime television talk-show format that includes Oprah, Leeza, Sally, and Montel, all of which have packaged and sold New Age self-help. Crossing Over also mimics the more recent success of unscripted television programs such as MTV's The Real World and CBS's Survivor. For the producers of Crossing Over, the situation is ideal: Edward is the only actor on the payroll, the producers don't have to worry about employing writers, and they don't have to hassle with booking guests.
Edward's psychic shtick is nothing new. He is the latest in a century-and-a-half lineage of full-time flamboyants that have laid claim to spirit communication, from the nineteenth-century rappings of the Fox sisters to present-day fellow spirit mediums Rosemary Altea, Sylvia Browne, and Van Praagh. Fueled by their best-selling books -- which typically detail how they discovered their "gifts," describe their attempt to help those who have "crossed over," and dish out spiritual New Age self help -- Edward, Van Praagh, and their cohort of psychic performers have achieved media celebrity.
Big names in Hollywood have dispensed countless endorsements of the psychics' vast powers. Television has followed, giving away full hour talk segments on CNN's Larry King Live, promotional features on the network news magazines, and recently running a CBS miniseries based on the "true events" of Van Praagh's life. So although it appears that in the new millennium the mass media may have put to rest their alien infatuation, this televised conversation with psychics augurs ill for the next decade.
After all, at least The X-Files -- at its best -- told a gripping story.
