Human Gods
Finally, a friendly-alien encounter situation that is not about extraterrestrials at all, but is a fundamental—and innocent—misunderstanding of one culture by another. The “cargo cult” phenomenon pivots on a belief among indigenous peoples of Melanesia, dating to the 19th century, that manufactured goods arriving with colonialist explorers were spiritual in origin. People in previously unmolested areas of Fiji, New Guinea, and other Melanesian regions neither needed nor developed manufacturing processes. A rifle, a greatcoat, or a can of meat, then, would seem to have come from the gods, or the gods’ emissaries.
Activity in the Pacific during World War II brought Japanese and Allied manufactured goods to many islands in the South Pacific. The greater proportion of this cargo arrived via airplane (when landing strips were available) or air drops. The arrival of goods from the sky seemed significant, and encouraged worship of the goods’ creators. Local assumption was that continued veneration ensured further deliveries.
Naturally enough, islanders noticed the visitors’ facial features and skin tones.
That perception of “otherness” helped foster beguiling cargo cults with echoes of Western preoccupations with UFOs and extraterrestrials. On the Vanuatu island of Tanna, the light-skinned god was (and is still) called “John Frum.” (The origin of this name inspires debate, but the most reasonable explanation holds that “John Frum” is a variation of “John from _______.”) Because African American G.I.s frequently labored in military construction battalions, some worshippers depict John Frum as a dark-skinned creature. Whether light or dark, the images of John Frum are central to the islanders’ worship—much as the immediate-postwar bug-eyed saucer man, and the later gray ET, became central to UFO culture. And John Frum, whatever the particulars of his origin, was real.
Extraterrestrial visitors may be no less real.
Although cargo deliveries dribbled away in the Pacific and finally stopped after the summer of 1945, indigenous residents continued their worship across generations, often constructing rough approximations of airplanes, airstrips, rifles, and other things associated with the visitors, things calculated to coax the gods’ return. Local men hefting bamboo “rifles” might march in formation.
Others might regularly clear a long-abandoned airstrip of overgrown vegetation.
In the West, we maintain SETI radio-telescope arrays to monitor the skies for extraterrestrials. Like the Melanesians, we are patient, and we wait.
