This blog is a place for me to share updates, reflections, and outputs from my Royal Society of Edinburgh funded small grant project, ‘The narrative history of UFO practice in Scotland: a pathfinding study’ (RSE 2840).
This project does not ask whether UFOs are of extra-terrestrial origin or other unknown provenance! Rather, it pursues a path-finding narrative history of Scottish ‘UFO practice’, defined as the belief systems, activities, organizations, and cultures that engage with UFOs. It cover the period from c.1947 onwards — in other words, from the first ‘flying saucer’ sighting globally to the present day. Thanks to pioneers in the field such as Greg Eghigian and David Clarke we know about UFOs as a cultural phenomenon on a larger scale — whether globally, in N. America, or in the United Kingdom as a whole. This project though works on a smaller nation canvas, pursuing of course well-known narratives such as the Dechmont encounter and the Bonnybridge Triangle, but looking also for overlooked actors, incidents, and meanings. As well as archival research, I’ll also be using field visits and oral history interviews to get a fuller picture of UFO practice in Scotland.