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Dahl The Conversation Monday 10 August 2026 15:43 BST Bookmark Comments Go to comments Bookmark popover Removed from bookmarks Close popover open image in gallery Those who claim to have had such encounters are commonly called — as in Spielberg’s newly released film, Disclosure Day — ‘experiencers’ ( Getty Images ) The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice For years, whistleblowers have publicly alleged that the United States government is withholding what it knows about UFOs (now formally referred to as “unidentified anomalous phenomena” or “UAP”). Those allegations gained new weight this past May, when the U.S. Department of War began the process of releasing hundreds of declassified documents , images and videos as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. These recent disclosures raise an old question: If the U.S. government is officially acknowledging that UAP have been observed, could claims of contact with the non-human intelligence allegedly operating them also be true? To understand what a claim of actual contact would even mean, it helps to start with the framework that first tried to categorize these encounters. 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. open image in gallery For years, whistleblowers have publicly alleged that the United States government is withholding what it knows about UFOs ( Getty Images ) Communicating with UAP Later researchers expanded Hynek’s classification. A “Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind” refers to abduction into a UAP. A “Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind” (CE-5) alleges human-initiated communication with the non-human intelligence operating UAP, whether extraterrestrials, time-travellers or so-called interdimensional beings. Those who claim to have had such encounters are commonly called — as in Spielberg’s newly released film, Disclosure Day — “experiencers.” 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. Groups gather in wilderness settings around the world with the intention to initiate contact using various techniques. Some use laser pointers to send visual signals into the sky and geiger counters to measure fluctuations in radiation levels. Stroboscopic light and musical entrainment have also been observed alongside mantra recitations, and transcendental meditation focused on “coherent thought sequencing” (where practitioners visualize their consciousness extending into deep space before sending a telepathic invitation to the operators of UAP to visit Earth). 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? 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. Calling CE-5 a “religion” may also reduce convictions about extraterrestrial presence from questions of reality to matters of belief or conspiracy, reflecting the long-standing cultural dismissal of UFOs and “little green men.” Religious or not, CE-5 practitioners draw on 80 years of UFO lore to advance a cosmology in which consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe that enables telepathic communication with superior, non-human intelligence visiting Earth. CE-5 protocol also resembles a ritual séance. It combines transcendental meditation, cosmic visualization, telepathic communication and an experience of “internal communication” through which bodily sensations become direct signs of extraterrestrial contact. This has interesting parallels with anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s research on Evangelical Christianity in America and how church-goers feel themselves to be in direct communication with God through bodily sensations and religious interpretations of their inner voice. CE-5 practitioners regard extraterrestrials as benevolent, highly intelligent beings physically present in space and around Earth. Are they, as religious studies scholar Diana Pasulka asked in her 2019 book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, the angels of the secular space age? Rather than genuine contact, do they instead represent an unconscious desire to re-enchant the de-spiritualized cosmos? A salvation narrative Many CE-5 practitioners believe that the U.S. government, in tandem with defence contractors, possesses recovered extraterrestrial craft and that scientists have secretly reverse-engineered alien technologies. These claims have been advanced by figures with overlapping views such as former military and intelligence officers Col. Philip J. Corso, Luis Elizondo and David Grusch (who testified under oath before U.S. Congress that a secret arms race exists to recover and exploit non-human technology that has crashed or landed on Earth). The U.S. government has denied these claims. Within CE-5 communities, the “disclosure” event in which the government admits to possessing alien technology also functions as a salvation narrative. That’s because official confirmation promises technological liberation from fossil fuels, leading to the dawn of a free energy civilization. As in millenarian movements, the anticipated post-disclosure world is always imminent but perpetually deferred. About the author Shayne A. P. Dahl is an Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University of Calgary. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article. What if close encounters are real? CE-5 bears many hallmarks of a new religious movement emerging from the intersection of science, technology and modern anxieties. It may indeed re-enchant a desanctified universe viewed through secular scientific frameworks. Yet, UAP present an unusual challenge. The U.S. government has acknowledged that UAP are real, even as it maintains there’s no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial origin. And so it’s possible that CE-5 may not be based solely on faith and imagination but on experiencers’ interpretations of authentic encounters with an advanced, non-human intelligence. Regardless of whether the anomalous experiences reported during CE-5s involve genuine contact with non-human intelligence, the practice has certainly emerged as a ritual of cosmological transition. It encourages participants to experience the universe not as dead empty space but as a cosmic community in which we, ancient by our own reckoning, have only just awakened to our place in the galactic neighbourhood. Either way, it’s time for scholars of the humanities and social sciences to take seriously UAP and the possibility of non-human intelligence. The stigma is fading. 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