Photo: Marek Piwnicki | Unsplash
Brett Robinson had taken his 10-year-old son camping to see this year’s Perseid meteor shower when they saw a long trail of 12-15 bright lights moving in a perfect line across the sky. ”I felt like I had let my son down,” he says. “I promised him the stars and instead we got some internet satellites.” It leads him to reflect on what religious studies scholar Diana Pasulka calls a contemporary mythology situated at the intersection of religion and advanced technology. The fervor around unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) has similarities to the experiences of medieval Christian mystics - the connecting theme is the moment of shock, when something exceeds the normal cognitive framework. The membrane between religion and science is permeable enough that hardened fighter pilots can describe anomalous encounters in similar terms to those medieval mystics.
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