Dreamers and readers have always been fascinated with the idea of the otherworldly, the extraterrestrial, the alien. So long as we have been telling stories, those stories have contained life beyond what is seen—be they gods, monsters, or, for the purposes of this essay, aliens.
Some have argued that the scientist Johannes Kepler’s work of fiction—Somnium—published in 1634 is the first work of science fiction that features an alien. In it, a boy named Duracotus is magically transported to the moon by a demon. There is life on the moon and it is described in a scientific manner (apparently—I haven’t read the book). My earliest encounter with an otherworldly lifeform was in The Man in the Moone or the Discovrse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo Gonsales by the bishop Francis Godwin, published 1638. Godwin begins his tale with a suggestion that a voyage to the moon would be the equivalent of the early explorations into what is now the U.S. A man of means gains favor with a Spanish Duke by committing robbery and murder. A series of unfortunate events leads him to create a flying machine powered by creatures bred to counter the earth’s magnetic field and he finds himself on the moon. The moon people are true aliens—giants. Continue reading from The Millions
The 10 Most Influential UFO-Inspired Books, Movies and TV Shows (Popular Mechanics)
Alien Abduction or “Accidental Awareness”? (Scientific American)
Alien Abduction? Scientists call it Sleep Paralysis (New York Times)
Alien Abduction Story ‘Captured’ in the Works as Movie (Variety)
The Best and Worst Alien Abduction Movies (Den of Geek)
Holy grail' or epic hoax? Australian Kelly Cahill's UFO abduction story still stirs passions (ABC)
How Betty and Barney Hill's Alien Abduction Story Defined the Genre (History)
Mark Pilkington's top 10 books about UFOs (The Guardian)
Science Fiction: Alien Encounters (Encyclopedia Britannica)
The Surprising Origin of Alien Abduction Stories (Live Science)
