This thesis examines how science is constructed in relation to the UFO-movement. More specifically, it examines how the Swedish UFO organisation UFO-Sverige (UFO-Sweden) has changed when it, during the years of 1970-1996, adopted scientific ambitions. At its origin UFO-Sverige was based on values associated with the New Age movement, eventually they started to embrace more scientific methods. It is the meeting between ufology and science within UFO-Sverige that is examined in this thesis. The theoretical basis is Thomas Gieryns concept of boundary-work. The concept of boundary-work is based on the notion that science is constructed in relation to non-science. It is when science is separated from non-science that the conditions for what is considered as science are determined. The conditions of science are therefore dependant on the context of the situation in which it is separated from non-science. The change in UFO-Sverige is in the thesis examined through its organisational statutes and articles from the organisations paper. Furthermore, a debate between UFO-Sverige and the sceptical organisation Vetenskap och Folkbildning (Science and the People’s Education), VoF, is analysed. The thesis concludes that in their transition UFO-Sverige is using the notion of unbiased, the possibility to document, and critical thinking as reference for their scientific validity. They have shifted their view on what is considered as rational to base their knowledge production on, from personal experience to observable evidence. Through the study of the debate between UFO-Sverige and VoF different views on how science should relate to unexplained phenomenon has emerged. VoF consider the probability of a new discovery prior an examination of an unexplained phenomenon. UFO-Sverige instead claims that you cannot determine the credibility of relevant findings before the phenomenon in questionis examined. The thesis also concludes that because UFO-Sverige is constructed as an Other to science, to which the identity of science is dependent upon, it won’t be accepted as valid science, even if they try to adapt to scientific terms. There is almost always a way to find something unscientific in their construction, and by doing so VoF can keep UFO-Sverige as their Other.

<p>Denna undersökning målar upp en översiktlig bild av det exopolitiska fältet och några av frontfigurerna har lyfts fram, speciellt två personer i en separat temasektion. Exopolitiken strävar efter att på ett disciplinerat sätt studera politiska processer och aktörer förknippade med interstellärt samhälle.</p><p>Dessa frontfigurer drivs av gemensamma mål, men de har bitvis olika metoder hur att nå dessa mål. De kompletterar dock varandra bra, eftersom de täcker in olika områden av exopolitiken. Det exopolitiska fältet framstår till viss del som fragmenterat.</p><p>Den större bilden visar på många likheter med ufo-fältet, och även på vissa likheter med New Age och nyandliga rörelser. Utöver likheterna har exopolitiken även sina egna särdrag och en komplex bild av framträder. Exopolitiken är pro-aktiv och uppmanande, ibland ganska oppositionslysten i sin strävan efter att få politik, vetenskap och andlighet att sammansmälta till ett – på vägen mot vad den betraktar som det förestående interstellära samhället.</p> / <p>This study paints a general picture of the field of exopolitics and highlights some of the leading figures in separate thematic sections. Exopolitics endeavours for a disciplined way to study political processes and actors associated with interstellar society.</p><p>The front figures share common goals, although they at times have different methods of how to attain them. They complement each other well, however, since they cover different areas of exopolitics. The exopolitical field also seems to some extent fragmented.</p><p>The larger picture shows many similarities with the UFO field, and also some similarities to New Age and new religious movements. But exopolitics also has its own characteristics and a complex picture emerges. Exopolitics is pro-active and encouraging, sometimes rather defiant, eager to have politics, science and spirituality blend into one - on the road to what it regards as the impending interstellar society.</p>

Denna undersökning målar upp en översiktlig bild av det exopolitiska fältet och några av frontfigurerna har lyfts fram, speciellt två personer i en separat temasektion. Exopolitiken strävar efter att på ett disciplinerat sätt studera politiska processer och aktörer förknippade med interstellärt samhälle. Dessa frontfigurer drivs av gemensamma mål, men de har bitvis olika metoder hur att nå dessa mål. De kompletterar dock varandra bra, eftersom de täcker in olika områden av exopolitiken. Det exopolitiska fältet framstår till viss del som fragmenterat. Den större bilden visar på många likheter med ufo-fältet, och även på vissa likheter med New Age och nyandliga rörelser. Utöver likheterna har exopolitiken även sina egna särdrag och en komplex bild av framträder. Exopolitiken är pro-aktiv och uppmanande, ibland ganska oppositionslysten i sin strävan efter att få politik, vetenskap och andlighet att sammansmälta till ett – på vägen mot vad den betraktar som det förestående interstellära samhället. / This study paints a general picture of the field of exopolitics and highlights some of the leading figures in separate thematic sections. Exopolitics endeavours for a disciplined way to study political processes and actors associated with interstellar society. The front figures share common goals, although they at times have different methods of how to attain them. They complement each other well, however, since they cover different areas of exopolitics. The exopolitical field also seems to some extent fragmented. The larger picture shows many similarities with the UFO field, and also some similarities to New Age and new religious movements. But exopolitics also has its own characteristics and a complex picture emerges. Exopolitics is pro-active and encouraging, sometimes rather defiant, eager to have politics, science and spirituality blend into one - on the road to what it regards as the impending interstellar society.

The Chymical Wedding of Benjamin Roylance is a collection of poetry. It is interested in themes of occultism, identity, alchemy, ufology, and rebirth.

Somehow I’m Alive is a collection of short stories that deal with the strange reality of being human. Also included are four chapters from the novel Mount Fang.

<p>Narratives about UFO:s and extraterrestrials can be regarded as part of an everyday religiosity, yet the issue has been poorly studied outside an American context, within the discipline of Religious Studies. In this paper, I therefore seek knowledge about the further development of these narratives within the Swedish UFO-movement from the 1960’s until today. Influenced by social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss´ discussion about mythems as the smallest components of a myth, I argue that the stories which emerge within the Swedish context differ from the American ones. This difference consists of both loss of certain mythemes and the addition of others to this mythic complex. These changes are further to be found on three diverse levels. Sweden is on the first level given a role in the cosmic drama, and also a history of UFO-observations. On a thematic level, so called abduction stories lose their sexual overtones, while indigenous conspiracy theories are being created around the Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOA. On a third and ideological level, some narratives are strongly influenced by indigenous socialistic ideology. The changes which occur within the narrative complex are further analysed against the background of the Swedish political and ideological situation during the time of development of these narratives. Finally the differences between legend, myth and common tales are discussed. I conclude that the relevant way of referring to these stories is as to mythic narratives.</p>

This thesis argues that narratives about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) act as the central point of contact between conspiracist and popular millennial fields. Their confluence has come to form a field here termed ‘metaphysical conspiracism’, combining teleological narratives, the promise of soteriological knowledge and the threat of occluded malevolent agencies. I argue that metaphysical conspiracism offers a unique perspective on the interplay of knowledge, power and the construction of the other in contemporary popular discourse. Narratives about UFOs (and their extra-terrestrial occupants) have their roots in the Cold War period, but from the 1980s were increasingly constructed within a supernatural framework. Discourse analysis of popular literature from this period reveals a process of discursive transfer as the UFO narrative is contested and negotiated between conspiracist discourses concerning powerful, hidden agencies and popular millennial discourses of personal and planetary transformation, including ‘New Age’, 'Ascension' and '2012'. Using historical discourse analysis, supported by small-scale ethnographic sampling, I examine this discursive transfer in the work of three popular writers who together offer a broad overview of the field. Whitley Strieber was a central figure in the 'alien abduction' narrative in the 1980s, but his speculations on its meaning led him increasingly towards millennial and conspiratorial narratives. David Icke's well-known theory that a conspiracy of reptilian extraterrestrials has secretly seized control of the planet is demonstrated to have developed in the 1990s from a post-Theosophical narrative of benevolent UFOs as harbingers of the 'New Age'. Although less well-known, David Wilcock's work demonstrates that UFOs were also instrumental in the incorporation of conspiracist material into the recent '2012' millennial narrative. I seek to answer two questions with this thesis. Firstly, what is the common mechanism which facilitates the hybridisation I uncover between conspiracy narratives and popular millennialism? Secondly, how do the resulting metaphysical conspiracist narratives serve their subscribers? Despite a number of structural similarities, I argue that the common mechanism is the mobilisation of counter-epistemic strategies; that is, those predicated upon access to non-falsifiable sources of knowledge. The UFO narrative is particularly well-suited to suggesting sociological uncertainty about the boundaries between scientific and other strategies for the legitimisation of knowledge, encouraging its adoption by both conspiracist and millennial discourses. Secondly, metaphysical conspiracism reconciles the utopian vision of popular millennial discourse with the apocalyptic critique of modern global society announced by conspiracists. I therefore argue that metaphysical conspiracism supplies an effective popular theodicy with a Gnostic flavour in which these millennial prophecies did not ‘fail’, but were prevented from arriving by hidden malevolent others.

Narratives about UFO:s and extraterrestrials can be regarded as part of an everyday religiosity, yet the issue has been poorly studied outside an American context, within the discipline of Religious Studies. In this paper, I therefore seek knowledge about the further development of these narratives within the Swedish UFO-movement from the 1960’s until today. Influenced by social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss´ discussion about mythems as the smallest components of a myth, I argue that the stories which emerge within the Swedish context differ from the American ones. This difference consists of both loss of certain mythemes and the addition of others to this mythic complex. These changes are further to be found on three diverse levels. Sweden is on the first level given a role in the cosmic drama, and also a history of UFO-observations. On a thematic level, so called abduction stories lose their sexual overtones, while indigenous conspiracy theories are being created around the Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOA. On a third and ideological level, some narratives are strongly influenced by indigenous socialistic ideology. The changes which occur within the narrative complex are further analysed against the background of the Swedish political and ideological situation during the time of development of these narratives. Finally the differences between legend, myth and common tales are discussed. I conclude that the relevant way of referring to these stories is as to mythic narratives.

The following essay or thesis is a study over scientific endeavors in the fringe. It is a study of Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige, whose proponents aim to make the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena) a subject of scientific scrutiny. To achieve this, the ufologists first have to redefine common concepts of ufology as pseudo science or religion, mainly by challenging definitions given by scientific sceptics on the one hand, and proponents of conspiracy theories or the new age environment on the other. Thus UFO-Sverige seeks to construct an alternative scientific identity in contrast to adversaries on both sides, each unwilling to give the UFO phenomenon any further examination. Following the work of Tomas Gieryn's sociological grip on questions of epistemology, especially concerning the social boundaries of science from other cultural categories through what has been labelled as epistemic boundary work, during which proponents of a particular field aim to achieve epistemic authority and thus the legitimate right to define what is and what is not science, I seek to analyze how questions of science and legitimacy are actualized in an intellectual environment or culture not broadly accepted as scientific. The essay is a case study of a given organization in the ufologic subculture, analyzing material mainly from the 1990's, and the manner in which epistemic boundary work is made explicit. I further hint at the end to which the boundary work is means, which is mainly the hope of a growing professionalization of the ufologic field. Through this I further argue that the study points at something general, namely the importance of questions of science and legitimacy outside the boundaries of conventional science, not the least for those who are usually denied the recognition of scientific legitimacy and its fruits.

In December of 2002, an organization called Clonaid released the news that the first human clone had been born. This company is the offspring of an emerging religious movement, the Raelian movement. Whether the story is true or not, the emergence and growth of this movement suggest that people are looking beyond major world religions, creating a religious outlook (which is a hybrid of dominant religions) with the tenets of extraterrestrial intelligent design, human consciousness, and scientific and technological development. It is a new spin on science as religion, with components of science fiction.<p>To better understand the significance of this movement in contemporary North American culture, the following research is based upon a narrative analysis of the accounts of five members of the movement. The thesis will elaborate on such topics as the sociology of religion, science, biotechnology, social movements and cults, science fiction, and the role of stories in shaping meaning of our place and relationships in the world. The reason for this study is to ascertain characteristics of those participating in the movement: who is joining, why they are joining, and what they are getting out of it. The research uses narrative analysis to focus on the stories of individual members, to provide the best view of the movement, from the inside-out. What emerges is an elaborate depiction of the significance of the Raelian movement in the world through individual members interpretations.