Overview
As governments continue to release additional records on unidentified aerial phenomena, one anthropologist is looking at a different part of the UFO story: the people who say they have already made contact. Shayne Dahl, an assistant professor of anthropology and archaeology, has spent years studying Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, or CE-5, a movement in which believers organize meditation sessions, use laser pointers, and travel to remote wilderness sites in hopes of initiating contact with UFOs or nonhuman intelligences. Rather than focusing on whether aliens are real, Dahl’s work examines how people build meaning, community, and ritual around the possibility that they are.
A Movement Built Around Contact Rituals
Within CE-5 communities, participants often gather in small groups and combine meditation, visualization techniques, and amateur technology as part of coordinated attempts to reach something beyond human experience. The practice usually unfolds in secluded natural settings, where members believe the quiet and isolation may improve their chances of contact. Dahl’s research suggests the movement is not simply about passive belief, but about structured, repeatable action: people are not waiting for a sighting so much as actively trying to summon one. That combination of spiritual practice and hands-on experimentation has made CE-5 a distinctive corner of the wider UFO landscape.
From Curiosity to Fieldwork
Dahl said his interest in the overlap between religion and UFOs began in 2017 after reading a New York Times article on the subject. What started as curiosity eventually led him to interview CE-5 participants directly and develop a broader research project. He has framed the movement as a worthy subject for religious anthropology, not because it proves anything about extraterrestrial life, but because it reveals how people create systems of belief and ritual around uncertain phenomena. In Dahl’s view, the fact that participants insist they can establish contact makes the movement sociologically significant, regardless of whether the underlying claims can be verified.
“Techno-Shamanism” and Cosmic Belonging
To describe what he observed, Dahl has used the term “techno-shamanism” — a label that captures the movement’s mix of modern tools and spiritual aspiration. He argues that CE-5 operates as a functioning religious practice, even if it does not resemble traditional faith traditions in form. In his account, the movement reflects a deeper longing he calls cosmic belonging: a desire to feel connected to something larger than Earth and humanity. That theme, he says, runs through many CE-5 communities and helps explain why the practice resonates at a moment when public interest in UFO disclosure has grown.
Studying Belief Without Adjudicating Truth
A central point in Dahl’s research is what it does not attempt to prove. He is not trying to determine whether extraterrestrial beings are visiting Earth, nor is he advancing UFO disclosure efforts. Instead, he is studying how people respond to the possibility of contact and what those responses reveal about contemporary spirituality, uncertainty, and community formation. In that sense, CE-5 serves as a case study in how belief can be organized into ritualized practice, especially when scientific answers remain elusive.
What the Research Suggests
Dahl plans to expand his findings into a fuller academic essay later this year, building on an August article for The Conversation. For now, his work highlights a broader shift in the UFO conversation: beyond reports, documents, and official investigations, there is also a lived culture of contact seekers who turn to meditation, wilderness retreats, and improvised technology in search of meaning. Whether or not they ever encounter anything anomalous, the movement itself offers a window into how people navigate mystery in an era of heightened disclosure and persistent uncertainty.
