In the summer of 1954, just as the “Flying Saucer Contactee” movement was taking off in America, a middle-aged housewife named Dorothy Martin (here renamed “Mrs. Marian Keech”) began receiving messages from the Space Brothers via automatic writing. They told her a world-destroying flood would occur on December 21st that would cleave the United States in two, and kill millions. A circle of disciples, dubbed “The Truth Seekers,” gathered around her, commissioned by the Space Brothers to warn the world of the approaching cataclysm, and to prepare themselves to be taken to safety on other planets in flying saucers. When their story appeared in the newspaper, social psychologist Leon Festinger, who was sure the prophesied flood would not actually occur, saw a a golden opportunity to study – first-hand, in real time – the effects of failed prophecy on believers. If the world was still standing on December 22nd, and no Space Brothers in flying saucers had appeared to the faithful, would “The Truth Seekers” abandon their beliefs? If not, how would they process and rationalize the failed prediction? Festinger and several colleagues infiltrated the group. “When Prophecy Fails” is their fascinating, hour by hour, inside account of the days leading up to, and following, December 21st, 1954. The New Paradigm Press edition of this classic of both UFOlogy and psychology includes a bonus image gallery, “The Truth Seekers In Context: Famous Flying Saucer/Space Brother Contactee Narratives of the 1950s.”

The study reported in this volume grew out of some theoretical work, one phase of which bore specifically on the behavior of individuals in social movements that made specific (and unfulfilled) prophecies. We had been forced to depend chiefly on historical records to judge the adequacy of our theoretical ideas until we by chance discovered the social movement that we report in this book. At the time we learned of it, the movement was in mid-career but the prophecy about which it was centered had not yet been disconfirmed. We were understandably eager to undertake a study that could test our theoretical ideas under natural conditions. That we were able to do this study was in great measure due to the support obtained through the Laboratory for Research in Social Relations of the University of Minnesota. This study is a project of the Laboratory and was carried out while we were all members of its staff. We should also like to acknowledge the help we received through a grant-in-aid from the Ford Foundation to one of the authors, a grant that made preliminary exploration of the field situation possible.