The Alien
The alien is a modern image, and people log it far more often than you might expect.
What Jung wrote
Jung took the subject seriously. In 1958 he published Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, a study of sightings, rumors and dreams of objects from other worlds. He left the physical question open. What interested him was why so many people, at the same point in history, were seeing and dreaming the same thing.
He noticed that the saucers were usually round and glowing, and he connected them with the mandala, an ancient symbol of wholeness. In a time of nuclear fear, he suggested, people were projecting a longing for order and rescue into the sky. A visitor from elsewhere could be an image of something in ourselves that still feels foreign.
- C. G. Jung, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, Collected Works, Vol. 10
What the world is logging
Logged with the mood
- Angry44%
- Anxious33%
- Calm22%
Where it is logged most
- Belgium5
- Canada5
- United Arab Emirates3
- Azerbaijan2
- United States1
Most common moon phase
Last Quarter (13 entries)
Often logged together with
Forest (7) · Warship (5) · Cross Symbol (5) · Spaceship (4)
Counted from anonymous Archetype Matrix entries. Updated October 8, 2026.
What we don’t do
We won’t tell you what your alien means. Jung himself distrusted fixed dream dictionaries and held that a symbol can only be read in the life of the person who dreams it. Archetype Matrix only counts: who logged the same image, where, and in what mood.
Other symbols
ForestSnakeOceanBoatOld WomanShadowLionDogWolfWaterEagleMirrorFishHorseGoldOld Man
