Editing Apocalypticism (section)

==UFO religions==
{{Main|UFO religion|Ufology}}
{{Further|Ancient astronauts in popular culture|Elder race|UFO conspiracy theories}}

[[UFO religions]] sometimes feature an anticipated end-time scenario in which [[Extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial beings]] will bring about a radical change on Earth and/or "lift" the religious believers to a higher [[Plane (esotericism)|plane of existence]]. One such religious group's failed expectations of such an event, [[The Seekers (rapturists)|the Seekers]], served as the basis for the classic [[social psychology]] research on [[cognitive dissonance]] conducted by the American psychologists [[Leon Festinger]], [[Henry Riecken]], and [[Stanley Schachter]] and published in their book ''[[When Prophecy Fails|When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World]]'' (1956).<ref name="NovaReligio 1999">{{cite journal |last=Dawson |first=Lorne L. |date=October 1999 |title=When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical Overview |url=https://online.ucpress.edu/nr/article-pdf/3/1/60/302991/nr_1999_3_1_60.pdf |journal=[[Nova Religio|Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions]] |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |location=[[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=60–82 |doi=10.1525/nr.1999.3.1.60 |doi-access=free |issn=1092-6690 |lccn=98656716 |s2cid=144984626 |access-date=20 September 2021}}</ref> Some adherents of UFO religions believe that the arrival or rediscovery of [[Extraterrestrial intelligence|alien civilizations, technologies, and spirituality]] will enable human beings to overcome current ecological, spiritual, political, and social problems on planet Earth. Issues such as hatred, war, bigotry, poverty, and so on are said to be resolvable through the use of superior alien technology and spiritual abilities. Such belief systems are also described as [[Millenarianism|millenarian]] in their outlook.<ref>{{Citation |last=Partridge |first=Christopher Hugh |year=2003 |title=UFO religions |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-26323-8 |page=274 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aqhdas-u1UgC}}</ref><ref name="Grünschloß 1998">{{cite journal |last=Grünschloß |first=Andreas |author-link=Andreas Grünschloß |date=December 1998 |title=«When we enter into my Father's spacecraft». Cargoistic hopes and millenarian cosmologies in new religious UFO movements |url=https://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/ep/0004/article/view/3771/3587 |journal=[[Marburg Journal of Religion]] |publisher=[[University of Marburg]] |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=1–24 |doi=10.17192/mjr.1998.3.3771 |issn=1612-2941 |access-date=6 October 2024}}</ref> In the late 1990s, religious scholar [[Andreas Grünschloß]] applied the term "[[Cargo cult|cargoism]]" to adherents of UFO religions regarding their [[Millenarianism|millenarian beliefs]] about the arrival of [[Extraterrestrial intelligence|intelligent aliens]] on technologically advanced [[spacecraft]]s on planet Earth, in comparison to the [[Melanesians|Melanesian islanders]]'s faith in the return of [[John Frum]] carrying the cargo with him on the islands.<ref name="Grünschloß 1998"/>