French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Esquerre, Theory of Extraterrestrial Events: An Essay on the Fantastic Narrative
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Arnaud Esquerre, Theory of Extraterrestrial Events: An Essay on the Fantastic Narrative.

Paris: Fayard

2016

• EAN13: 9782213686356
• 20 euros

Publisher's Description

Since the mid-20th century, mysterious accounts of UFOs, flying saucers, and unidentified aerial phenomena have flourished. The witnesses do not know each other, do not live in the same area, and sometimes not even in the same era, yet all their stories are remarkably similar: someone reports having suddenly and unexpectedly spotted in the sky, and then just as suddenly lost sight of, something they did not recognize. How can these enigmatic accounts be resolved?
By delving into the hundreds of testimonies collected in France since the 1970s by a small department of the National Center for Space Studies strictly dedicated to them (GEIPAN) and into the gendarmerie investigation reports, Arnaud Esquerre proposes a new path: all these accounts share a common structure that places uncertainty at the very heart of what was experienced.
Understanding that stories as astonishing as those of extraterrestrial events are, in fact, fantastic narratives—even if they are not literary—is also a way of exploring our relationship with reality.

Arnaud Esquerre is a sociologist and research fellow at the CNRS. He is the author of Mental Manipulation: Sociology of Sects in France (2009), Bones, Ashes, and the State (2011), Predicting: Astrology in 21st-Century France (2013), published by Fayard, and, with Luc Boltanski, of Towards the Extreme: Extension of the Domains of the Right (2014).

Rooted in the French sociological tradition associated with the CNRS, this study approaches reports of unidentified flying objects not through the lens of belief or skepticism, but by examining their formal properties. Arnaud Esquerre analyzes archival material collected by GEIPAN and the gendarmerie, treating these modern accounts as a distinct corpus of narratives. By identifying the recurrent structures that govern these testimonies, the work connects contemporary mythologies with broader questions concerning how societies categorize unusual phenomena and process collective uncertainty.

This book will be of particular interest to readers of sociology, cultural studies, and those intrigued by the intersections between ordinary belief and institutional discourse. It contributes to ongoing discussions about the status of empirical evidence and the ways extraordinary claims are documented in contemporary culture. Scholars and students examining the sociology of science, popular imagination, and narrative forms will find it a valuable framework for thinking about how experiences of the unexplained are articulated and preserved.