Magical Thinking in the UFO Subculture?

Greetings. UFOs. Magical thinking. A connection?

Magical thinking is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the total absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of unlikely, non-mundane, supernatural effects. Some examples include the idea that personal thoughts can influence the physical world without directly acting on it, or that objects must be causally connected if they resemble each other or have come into some form of contact with each other in the past. Magical thinking is a common type of fallacious thinking and is a source of invalid causal inferences. Unlike the confusion of correlation with causation, magical thinking does not require the events to be correlated.

The precise definition of magical thinking varies by degrees when used by different theorists or among different fields of study. In psychology, magical thinking is the belief that one's thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with actually doing it. These beliefs can cause an individual to experience an irrational fear of performing certain acts or having certain thoughts because of an assumed correlation between doing so and threatening calamities. In psychiatry, magical thinking defines false beliefs about the capability of thoughts, actions or words to cause or prevent undesirable events. It is a commonly observed symptom in thought disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Bronisław Malinowski's "Magic, Science and Religion," published in 1954, examined yet another type of magical thinking, one in which words and sounds are thought to have the ability to directly affect the natural world. This type of wish fulfillment thinking can result in the avoidance of talking about certain subjects, the use of euphemisms instead of certain words, or the belief that to know the "true name" of something gives one power over it; or that certain chants, prayers, or mystical phrases will bring about physical changes in the world. 

Sigmund Freud believed that magical thinking was produced by cognitive developmental factors. He described practitioners of magic as projecting their mental states onto the world around them, similar to a common phase in child development. 

Another theory of magical thinking is the symbolic approach. Leading thinkers of this category, including Stanley J. Tambiah, believe that magic is meant to be expressive, rather than instrumental. Tambiah asserted that magic utilizes abstract analogies to express a desired state, along the lines of metonymy or metaphor. An important question raised by this interpretation is how mere symbols could exert material effects. One possible answer lies in John L. Austin's concept of performativity, in which the act of saying something makes it true, such as in an inaugural or marital rite. Other theories propose that magic is effective because symbols are able to affect internal psycho-physical states. They claim that the act of expressing a certain anxiety or desire can be reparative in itself.

Having said, or typed all that, a question poses itself, a question not often considered by the UFO public. Does the UFO subculture embrace, perhaps unwittingly, a form of magical thinking?

I won't express my own thoughts on that particular question, my readers know my position, but I strongly encourage a candid, thoughtful consideration. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.