Carl Jung on UFO’s – Anthology
I think it [UFO’s] is chiefly an obstinate rumour, but the question whether there is something real behind it is not answered. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 5-6.
This, too,[UFO’s] is an expression of something that has always claimed my deepest interest and my greatest attention: the manifestation of archetypes, or archetypal forms, in all the phenomena of life: in biology, physics, history, folklore, and art, in theology and mythology, in parapsychology, as well as in the symptoms of insane patients and neurotics, and finally in the dreams and life of every individual man and woman. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 397-398.
I do not believe and do not disbelieve in the existence of UFOS. I simply do not know what to think about their alleged physical existence. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 403-404
As it is questionable in how far UFOS are physical facts, it is indubitable that they are psychological facts. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 403-404
Hoyle’s book has arrived and I’ve finished it already. It is extraordinarily interesting to see how an astronomer collides with the unconscious and especially with the Ufo problem. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 408.
I myself recently dreamed that a UFO came speeding towards me which turned out to be the lens of a magic lantern whose projected image was myself; this suggested to me that I was the figure, himself deep in meditation, who is produced by a meditating yogi. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 476-477
These [UFO] symbolisms, which are cropping up everywhere nowadays, paint a picture of the end of time with its eschatological conceptions: destruction of the world, coming of the Kingdom of Heaven or of the world redeemer. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 476-477
Although I have been studying the UfO phenomenon for about 12 years now and have read practically all the relevant literature, I a m still unable to form a satisfactory picture of it or to assert that anything adequate is known about the nature of UfO’s. I cannot even say whether they exist or not. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 627-628
The science fiction about travelling to the moon or to Venus and Mars and the lore about Flying Saucers are effects of our dimly felt but none the less intense need to reach a new physical as well as spiritual basis beyond our actual conscious world. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 592-597
Have you ever met any people who have seen Ufos
QUESTION 8: Have you ever met any people who have seen Ufos, and were they prepared to interpret this experience purely psychologically and not insist on the physical reality of the Ufos?
Dr. Jung: I actually do know of four cases of people who have seen Ufos or said they did. They are not in the least prepared to interpret the Ufos psychologically.
They are more inclined to ask me, Do you think this is psychological? because for them it was felt as thor- oughly real.
There was, for instance, the case of a doctor in an American city who together with many other people ob- served a Ufo for three-quarters of an hour in the form of a small silvery sphere or disc which then suddenly vanished.
Knowing this man to be a regular camera fiend, I assumed he had taken a marvellous photo of this phenomenon.
But astonishingly enough he hadn’t, although he carried his camera with him, “as always.”
Another man was driving with his wife over the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, when she saw in the west about twenty Uf0s flying in the Pacific.
She drew her husband’s attention to them and he saw them too. The spheres or discs gleamed like silver in the sun.
Both sent me eyewitness reports and some time later I saw the man personally, whereupon he expressed his astonishment at my interest in such things.
But this, you see, is also a contribution to psychology. Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Pages 389-391
