PANTHEON
ExploreBuild My Library
© 2026 Pantheon — an atlas of the ideas that shaped how we think.
book1958

Flying Saucers

Disciplines:
psychology
jung
jungian psychology/archetypes
uap/ufo/ufo

Summary

C.G. Jung's 1958 study of flying saucer reports — Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies — arguing that UFO reports, whether or not they describe physical phenomena, express a psychological truth: the mandala symbol of wholeness projected onto the skies in a time of global anxiety.

Core Contribution

Applies Jungian archetypal analysis to UFO phenomena — the circular shape of flying saucers mirrors the mandala (a symbol of psychic wholeness and the Self) — and whether or not UFOs are physical, their eruption into collective consciousness in the nuclear age expresses a genuine psychological need for transcendent order.

Historical Influences

C.G. Jung

Intellectual Lineage

C.G. Jung Research Küsnacht

Allied Works

Aion Psychology and Religion

Contemporaries & Peers

Aion Collected Works

Minds Influenced

UFO research Jacques Vallee Jungian tradition

Intellectual Posterity

Flying Saucers Jung on UFOsUFO-mandala parallelJung's UFO study

Discussing

Flying Saucers

Ask anything about Flying Saucers — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.

Sign in to start a conversation.