Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

(Aug 21, 2026 11:05 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]"In 1972, American astronomer J. Allen Hynek proposed a three-part “Close Encounters” framework for classifying UFO experiences that has shaped the field since the late 1940s.

A “Close Encounter of the First Kind” (CE-1) is a visual sighting from less than 150 metres away. A CE-2 involves physiological effects on the surrounding environment. A CE-3 involves observing non-human entities operating the UFO.

Five years after Hynek’s book appeared, Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind established CE-3 in popular culture.

I didn't know it originated with Hynek. Learned something new...hurts my brain, oww!

Quote:CE-5 is not just a category of experience, though. During the past three decades, it has developed into a ritual protocol practised by a global community...

...Practioners of CE-5 ritual protocol also report telepathic communication, “photon dialogue” through flashing lights and bodily sensations from UAP that they interpret as interspecies communication.

Shamanism with a technological twist

Is CE-5 a new religious movement?

Yes, the similarities are obvious. People have been seeing things in the sky since ancient times and probably long before into prehistory. And for most of that time, the heavenly visions have been given religious interpretations.

So what would be more natural in our secular "post-religious" age for the heavenly visions to be reinterpreted in "scientific" forms, as spaceships. It would still be heavenly visitors beinging transcendant knowledge, social and personal transformation etc. Just as they were when it was angels rather than aliens.

Quote:Although practitioners reject the label “religion,” their activities constitute a protocol enabling extraordinary experiences with superior, sky-dwelling entities. The fact that their efforts to connect with extraterrestrials draw upon telepathy and altered states of consciousness suggests a ritual form commonly associated with shamanism, yet with advanced technological mediation.

Yes.

I imagine there is a sort of life-transforming rush one gets from realizing one had a CE-5 experience in one's childhood and that you are among a chosen few selected by the otherworldlings to make contact with them with a laser pointer in the middle of the desert. Just like we saw with those people in Close Encounters who had visions of Devils Tower. I myself could not handle that sort of fanatical mania in my life, obsessing about it all the time and seizing on every synchronicity as a special sign. I actually feel sorry for them. My studies and experiences with otherworldlings has taught me over the years that while they are quite real you can't rely on anything they tell you. There's always this distinctive tricksterish element to their manifestations going back centuries, like all they are doing is just fucking around with the monkey people in new and creative ways.