Gevaerd’s controversial spirit letter: hoax, ufology and post-truth

One of the most important Brazilian ufologists passed away as result of a fall in 2022. In the following year, two versions of a spirit letter attributed to him spread out in the UFO milieu, causing disapproval among his colleagues. In this paper, I analyze the effects of this letter on part of the UFO community. I take the debate around the authenticity of the document as a privileged opportunity to describe how collectives that regularly use the language of suspicion towards governments, scientists and public institutions deal with controversial situations within their own community. This paper addresses the question of how parascientists who have been active prior to the emergence of the digital platforms, navigate the pos-truth environment.

Keywords:
spirit letters; ufology; post-truth