The Science-Fictionalization of Trauma: Remarks on Narratives of Alien Abduction

Abstract

The cultural phenomenon of alien abduction narratives has been met with silence or contempt by most of the academic community. This is an understandable response, given the mix of credulity, pseudo-scientific legitimation and uncontrolled paranoia surrounding the discourse of abduction. This essay argues that however outlandish the claims of UFOlogists and abduction researchers, the phenomenon is worthy of study for its evidence of an increasing “science-fictionalisation” of certain aspects of contemporary American culture. Four vectors are identified as being responsible for the emergence of abduction stories: shifts in conceptions of memory and subjectivity in American psychiatry (particularly claims surrounding “recovered memory” and hypnotic regression); increasing fears around the intrusiveness of a technologically saturated world, and subsequent extension of the discourse of the American technological sub-lime; the emergence of a distinctive counter-cultural New Ageism, which articulates the visitation of UFOs in larger discourses of spiritual evolution; an intensification of post-war American conspiracy theory and suspicions of “big government. ” Ending with a reading of the way in which these elements are synthesized by The X-Files, the essay concludes by suggesting that abduction narratives are the science fictionalised products of a felt intermittency of subjectivity in contemporary America. (RL)