Page Content (OCR)
the group teachings and advice. They also predicted future events, landings of flying saucers, and visits from spacemen. One of these predictions was of a spacecraft landing at a nearby military airfield. The small group drove to a spot from which they could see the runways and observed the scene and the sky in vain, but suddenly a man approached the party and, upon looking at him, all present felt an eerie reaction to his appearance. No one had seen him approaching. He was offered something to drink and declined. He walked with a curious, rigid bearing. A moment later he was gone, but no one had seen him go away! As such stories began circulating the belief structure of the little sect became better established. It accumulated its own folklore and even created its own vocabulary — special words with special meanings. Mrs. Keech was now writing as much as fourteen hours a day. The teachings became increasingly concerned with religious matters, cosmology, and flying saucers. One day, the great message finally came through. It was forecasting a disaster, an earthquake and a flood, and the saving of the believers by their Space Brothers: The region of Canada, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico, into the Central America will be as changed. The great tilting of the land of the U.S. to the East will throw up mountains along the Central States. The group now felt a special responsibility to tell the world about these momentous events. They issued press releases, some of which were picked up by local papers. This in turn attracted the attention of a team of sociologists at the University of Minnesota who were investigating the behavior of individuals in social movements based on specific prophecies. They obtained a Ford Foundation grant to study Mrs. Keech's group and recieved logistical support from the University's Laboratory for Research in Social Relations. They began infiltrating the sect, pretending to be sincere converts, and attending meetings to monitor the evolution of its beliefs as the appointed time for the fulfillment of the prophecy drew nearer. Although the use of such deceptive methods by scientists is now very much under question, the book When Prophecy Fails, written by the sociologists on the basis of their investigations, is essential for anyone trying to understand the complex nature of the belief in UFOs. The book details the efforts made by members of the sect to warn mankind of impending doom and describes their belief that those who would be drowned would be spiritually reborn on other planets appropriate to their spiritual development, but that flying saucers would come down from the sky in time to save the believers from the flood. The predicted events, as the reader must be aware by now, did not come to pass. The midwestern part of the United States has not been engulfed by the ocean, and the many countries slated for destruction are still above sea level. What did this mean for the beliefs of aor _oW 1. or aos . 1 a twau4 moe a the sect? Jt actually served to reinforce their conviction, because they could take credit for the avoidance of the destruction! Some earthquakes did take place in desert areas around the date of the catalysm. Had they struck a populated region the damage would have been considerable. Hence, they speculated, it may have been the light shed by the small group of faithful believers that had spared the country from disaster. Some members of the sect also theorized that it had been another test of their ability to believe blindly, to follow without discussion the orders they recieved from their Guardians, and to face ridicule without fear. Why bring the story of Mrs. Keech into the discussion of a scientific study of UFOs? Many sociologists will argue that her case is typical of many small sects and cults and that adequate theories now exist to explain their behavior. To a very great extent this is true, but I am not convinced that the mechanism that gives rise to the founding of such movements is fully understood, and I do not believe that their potential impact on society has been made explicit. The case of Mrs. Keech is important to all scientists who have an interest in the UFO phenomenon because it provides a prototype for an increasing number of groups that establish themselves around similar belief systems. One of the most publicized of these groups in recent years is the network of Uri Geller devotees, which has succeeded in arousing the interest of several leading physicists. In Geller's case, like Mrs. Keech's, there are several unexplained phenomena that provide a basis for