More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions. Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, D.W. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens is due to a number of factors including their ubiquity in modern media like The X-Files, which can influence memory, and the believability lent to that media by the search for planets that might support life. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences, and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life.

"...American Cosmic is well worth the attention of scholars interested in how the religious is both created and functions in the contemporary world." - Jeremy Rapport, International Journal for the Study of New Religions

"This book deserves to be given attention by those in the religious studies field whose familiarity with UFO Religions is confined to historical cases or more modern personality-driven organizations." - Aaron John Gulyas, Nova Religio

"refreshingly engaging" - Benjamin E. Zeller, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"The book as a whole is a highly sensitive, and erudite." - Paradigm Explorer

"D.W. Pasulka's American Cosmic has all the trappings of a sober ethnographic study of unidentified flying objects. Its organizing thesis holds that belief in the existence of shapeshifting extraterrestrial visitors can be understood as an emergent religion, offering communion with a higher power, reassurance of universal interconnectedness, and a simplifying explanation for a chaotic world." - Nathaniel Rich, The New York Review