A recent survey found that more than half of all Americans believe in aliens, an idea mainstream enough that even Hillary Clinton's brought it up. Still, it's hard to take seriously anyone who says he was abducted by ET.
Such stories usually bring to mind little green men with an affinity for putting probes where no one wants a probe. But the 20 true believers in Phenomena, by photographers Tobias Selnaes Markussen, Sara Galbiati and Peter Helles Eriksen, insist nothing that weird happened, even if one of them does think she has 13 alien children.
Phenomena is a spellbinding look at the common fixation with life beyond the exosphere and people like the nuclear physicist who says he lived among aliens for two years. "It’s a portrait of a diverse community that shares the belief that we are not alone in the universe,” Eriksen says.
The Danish photographers spent two weeks roaming Nevada to New Mexico, visiting lonely towns, kitschy roadside attractions, and, of course, Area 51 and Roswell. They used Pentax 67, Mamiya 7, Mamiya 656, and Fuji 645 medium format cameras to make quiet, almost dreamy photos with washed out colors.
They met a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom warned them that the government was watching. That didn't keep anyone from introducing the photographers to fellow travelers like Linda Moulton Howe, a documentary filmmaker who believes aliens are mutilating cattle in the desert. Kenneth Langley calls himself Agent 0051 and spends his free time gathering evidence of alien existence. Miesha Johnston says she has extraterrestrial children in space, and invited the photographers to an alien abductee therapy session. It included a crystal and a chart for establishing contact with the unknown. "It felt like we were invited into another world, a world where the reality looks very different when you are certain that there are aliens interacting with our planet,” Galbiati says.
Meeting Travis Walton was the highlight of the trip. Walton was the inspiration for the 1993 movie Fire in the Sky. Forty-one years ago, the story goes, aliens abducted Walton from a national forest in Arizona and left him at a gas station in New Mexico five days later. He's a quiet man who mostly chatted about his grandchildren. “He was a totally regular guy who had the most paranormal story, which made the meeting seem a bit surreal,” Galbiati says. “He calls the people who don’t believe in aliens and UFOs 'flat-earthers.'"
The portraits reveal a vulnerability that suggests these people truly believe the stories they tell. Walton's eyes meet the camera through the window of a warmly lit but empty gas station, alluding to the Exxon station where he says the aliens left him. His expression brings to mind the weariness of someone who’s survived something traumatic.
It’s easy to dismiss these people as hucksters or say they're crazy. Phenomena doesn't do that. It portrays them as people seeking answers to questions that fascinate, or trouble, them. Questions that many Americans apparently don't find all that outlandish.
Phenomena will be exhibited at Rencontres d'Arles from July 4 through September 25.
