In a brilliant stroke, Keith Thompson takes a subject usually confined to sensational tabloids and reveals its surprising literary richness, intellectual energy, and symbolic depths. By offering a new, open-ended perspective which avoids the dogmatism of true believers and debunkers alike, Angels and Aliens invites readers to enter a fascinating world with profound implications for our understanding of the human spirit. It was Carl Jung who first spoke of the UFO phenomenon as "A modern myth in the making," and Joseph Campbell who insisted that the first function of myths is "opening mind and heart to the utter wonder of all being." Now Keith Thompson makes it possible for us to share that sense of wonder as he explores the UFO against the timeless backdrop of visionary experience: angelic vision, near-death experiences, shamanic journeys, religious miracles, and folkloric encounters with fairies. Angels and Aliens offers a compelling interpretive history of the UFO phenomenon, beginning in 1947 when the first reports came in describing nine disc-shaped objects moving in the sky "like a saucer skipping water." In Thompson's even-handed telling it is difficult to say which is more outrageous: the stories of temptresses from outer space disembarking for impregnation by sexually self-confidant farmers, or the government's ham-handed explanations for ambiguous events that nonetheless did take place, having been confirmed by both radar and independent visual sightings. Thompson argues that the need for clear distinctions in the Western mind obscures the rich sense in which the UFO phenomenon becomes not less real but more so for its mythic, metaphoric, allegorical dimension. No matter whether the reported sightings were caused by literal aliens from another galaxy or summoned from some poorly understood dimension of the human psyche, we may come to fathom the distinctively modern longing to recover lost intimacy with deeper currents of the universe. Angels and Aliens prepares us for the provocative conclusion that, where mind and matter intersect, what we term reality may in fact be a limited spectrum within a much larger realm of possibilities. "I enjoyed the book immensely, and read it through at one sitting. It is a spellbinding tale that deepens our understanding of the UFO phenomenon. The central value of the book for me is its ability to break down the mental categories that the Western mind has developed. It attacks the boundaries between the material and the psychological, the mythic and the real, as well as distinctions between symbolic and literal, and even challenges the polarities of true versus hoax. Thompson's 'cosmic chameleons' prod us to take apart easy ideas about the supposedly interminable gulf between mind and matter, spirit and body, masculine and feminine, nature and culture, and other dichotomies. This book is an important work. It will help to inspire the serious attention that the UFO/abduction phenomenon deserves and should encourage serious researchers to follow the 'multiple sets of tracks in the snow' that have been before us." —John E. Mack, M.D. "Magnificent... Angels and Aliens , no matter what your beliefs, is the most fascinating book written on the subject." —San Francisco Chronicle "An especially sophisticated book whose basic thesis—that the UFO as an imaginal reality is at once mental and material—is still light years beyond the present either-or muddle-headedness of our present worldview and public conversation around the subject (or object)." —Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University "Just when we thought there was nothing new to be said...here comes Angels and Aliens, as original and provocative a book as you're likely to run into this year. Keith Thompson has issued a bold new challenge to our imagination, and our perception." —George Leonard, Esquire "A breakthrough...[A] lucid, intuitive, erudite understanding of the UFO as it presents itself in that realm between mind and matter...Thompson is a beautifully skilled writer, using words precisely and expressively." —Gnosis Magazine Keith Thompson is an independent scholar and journalist with particular interest in the cultural imagination. The author of "The UFO Paradox," his articles have appeared in the "New York Times," "Esquire," and the "San Francisco Chronicle."