Ancient Psychedelia: Alien Gods & Mushroom Goddesses
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| 1977: Star Wars, the biggest film ever created, was released in 1977. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, another hugely popular film, introduced “alien contact” in a whole new scary way. Conan #9 featured a cover of “The Eve of the Serpent God Set.” 
1979: Alien, I found to be the single scariest movie I had ever seen when I was 9 years old. I had seen almost every horror film that existed and none of them bothered me, but alien was something else. In the history of horror film and sci-fi, nothing had ever been produced that was as scary or traumatizing to watch. The “birth giver” scene where the alien popped out of the crew members’ stomach is something nobody can forget. 1982: With E.T., the Extraterrestrial, Americans were treated to the kind alien instead of the terrorizing versions we were all familiar with. By the end of the film, everyone wanted to help ET “phone home.” Dungeons and Dragons released their adventure module N1, “Against the Cult of the Reptile God,” which introduced elements of reptilian gods into kids and teen gaming culture for the first time, as far as I know. |
 1983: The hit television series “V” was a retelling, in many ways, of the storyline of the Day the Earth Stood Still. An alien fleet of fifty huge mother ships arrive on earth and hover over the major cities of the world. When they make themselves known they are wearing special glasses to protect their eyes and they talk through a special voice box. They offer promises of chemical and mineral advancements and hope for the future of man. They claim their home planet orbits the star Sirius and they bring advanced technologies. Agreements are made with earth representative governments and two ambassadors quickly start to gather influence and power among elected earth government officials. People start to act erratically and scientists with interesting information on the “visitors” start to disappear or get silenced. Eventually a TV journalist cameraman is able to film one of the creatures and “discovers that beneath their human-like façade—a thin, synthetic skin and human-eye contact lenses—the aliens are carnivorous reptilian humanoids with horned foreheads and green, scaly skin. He also witnesses on of them eating whole live animals such as rodents and birds. Donovan, who first took footage of one of the alien ships flying overhead while on duty in El Salvador, records some of his findings on videotape and escapes from the mother ship with the evidence. However, just as the exposé is about to air on television, the broadcast is interrupted by the “Visitors,” who have taken control of the media. Their announcement makes Donovan a fugitive pursued by both the police and the Visitors. |
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