James R. Lewis is Senior Editor for the Center for Academic Publication and Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for the Study of American Religion. He is co-editor of Perspectives on the New Age, also published by SUNY Press, and editor of Syzygy: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture.

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Contactees: A SurveyJ. Gordon Melton 2. Religious Dimensions of UFO PhenomenaJohn A. Saliba 3. Religious Dimensions of the UFO Abductee ExperienceJohn Whitmore 4. Unarius: Emergent Aspects of an American Flying Saucer GroupDiana Tumminia and R. George Kirkpatrick 5. Women in the Raelian Movement: New Religious Experiments in Gender and AuthoritySusan Jean Palmer 6. Waiting for the Ships: Disillusionment and the Revitalization of Faith in Bo and Peep's UFO CultRobert W. Balch 7. Spiritualism and UFO Religion in New Zealand: The International Transmission of Modern Spiritual MovementsRobert S. Ellwood 8. Exo-Theology: Speculations on Extraterrestrial LifeTed Peters 9. UFO Contactee Phenomena from a Sociopsychological Perspective: A ReviewJohn A. Saliba 10. The Flying Saucer Contactee Movement, 1950-1994: A BibliographyJ. Gordon Melton and George M. Eberhart Index

"The whole idea of taking seriously, in a scholarly sense, a phenomenon that has a widespread following but has so far been largely scorned by serious scholars is quite appealing; it means that this book is breaking new and important ground." — Timothy Miller, University of Kansas"It provokes interesting intersections with ancient and modern religious ideas. Its strength is in taking the religious dimension of UFOs and abductees' experiences seriously. I particularly like its historical framework and the extensive bibliography." — David Christopher Lane, Mount San Antonio College