Come visit us at one of our Roundtown UFO Society meetings on the 2nd Thursday of each month presently at the Pickaway County Public Library in Circleville starting at 6:00 pm and ending at 8:30 pm. There is usually a sign indicating where the meeting is.
Home of America's First Classic Close Encounter
& Circleville - Roswell Connection
Flying Saucers
by C. G. Jung
Princeton University Press, 1991, 138 pages
Dr. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was one of the world's most influential psychiatrists. Born in Switzerland, he was an early supporter of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. However. Jung eventually disassociated himself from most of Freud's views on religion and the paranormal. Freud was a rationalist who disbelieved in anything supernatural whereas Jung felt that there was a basis in reality for belief in God, religion and paranormal phenomena.
Flying Saucers is a reprint of Jung's 1958 book on the phenomenon. In it Jung does not seek to "prove" UFOs are physically real or that they are just an illusion. As he states he is a psychologist and he concerns himself with the psychological aspects of the subject regardless of the origins of flying saucers. However he does state that most of the eyewitnesses of UFOs have not been previously interested in the subject and therefore one cannot claim it's wish fulfillment. Jung also mentions that UFOs have been detected on radar and seen by reliable expert eyewitnesses such as pilots. He also mentions that Donald Menzel, a debunker, could not successfully debunk one authentic UFO report. Jung states that debunkers ignore certain facts in order for their explanation to fit. Jung states on page 109 "these things are real... by all human standards it hardly seems possible to doubt this any longer." Flying Saucers is not an easy book to read, Jung was a psychiatrist used to writing texts in his native German. Thus the book is aimed at people with an advanced knowledge of psychology and symbolism.
Jung also corresponded with the leading experts on UFOs in his day such as Major Donald Keyhoe. Included in the book is a letter to Keyhoe stating his belief that if any government covered up knowledge of UFOs then this is "the most unpsychological and stupid policy one could invent" (page 138).
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