During the latter half of the twentieth century, a narrative tradition around purported abductions by the hands of extraterrestrial entities has emerged. Narratives detailing such events were originally made famous by the purported capture of Betty and Barney Hill on September 19, 1961, and has become more and more prominent within both ufology and general mass marketed popular culture. Recurringly, alien abductions include motif relating to sexuality and interspecies hybridization, and further place humanity in relation to a perceived non-human and superior other. As such, these narratives have often been compared to historical examples of beliefs around supernatural assault or capture. The present essay investigates this narrative tradition from a folkloric perspective, looking upon the development of alien abductions, and the narrative function of first-person memorates. Ultimately, the essay argues that abductions can be read as a contemporary legendry or mythology.

The arrival of pandemic diseases (of which COVID-19 is the latest, but not likely to be the last) could be understood, along with impending ecological disaster and global warming, to be the major existential threats envisioned by, and facing, our contemporary culture. This article focuses on the use made of the theme of COVID-19 in the theology and ideology of the Westboro Baptist Church – a Calvinist and Primitive Baptist church founded in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s by Fred Phelps Sr (1929–2014). While numerically small, the church has become infamous through its practice of picketing funerals, and has been characterized as a hate group espousing antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ positions. Through a reading and analysis of sermons and other published materials from the Westboro Baptist Church, the article maps the motif of COVID-19 as it is used by a church whose members perceive themselves as the heralds of an angry God.

This chapter deals with the issues of death and the afterlife within the Raelian religion, a religious group claiming over 90,000 members worldwide. Ideas relating to the fact of death and to possibilities of an afterlife existence are intimately tied to notions of what constitutes a person. The history of religious ideas and systems of thought are teeming with notions of special substances, be they labeled souls or spirits, that somehow are able to make the transition into an existence in another realm after death. The Raelian religion offers a self-image of being not only an atheistic religion, but, further, a scientific religion. In March 1997 Rael announced the purchase of a Bahamian offshore company entitled Valiant Ventures, through which the services of human cloning would be offered. Notions of eternal life through cloning and memory transfer lend it well to discussions on the classical philosophical problem of personal identity.

This essay will discuss the religious creation of the Frenchman Claude Vorilhon, currently known as his holiness Raël. Following an alleged encounter with an extraterrestrial in 1973 he founded the Raëlian religion. The main tenets of his religion are the notions that humankind is the creation of a group of extraterrestrial scientists; that bodily sensuality and sexuality is something positive; that immortality can be achieved through scientific means; and that if we prove ourselves worthy and rid our world of all destructive tendencies we will inherit the knowledge of our creators and become able to continue the creative cycle by creating life elsewhere in the cosmos. The present article will situate this religion within the context of ancient astronaut theories