The latest absurdist offering from Yorgos Lanthimos, director of The Favourite and Poor Things, hits cinemas this week, and Bugonia promises to be another strange and rollicking masterpiece of complete, unmissable chaos.
Author
- Dan Baumgardt
Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol
Lanthimos's muse Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons reunite in this darkly comic tale about a pharmaceutical CEO (Stone) kidnapped by conspiracy theorists . Believing she is an extraterrestrial intent on destroying Earth, they imprison her in an effort to save humanity.
The film is a remake of Save the Green Planet! , the 2003 South Korean cult classic. Beneath its surreal surface lies a fascinating question: why do some people genuinely believe in aliens - not as fiction, but as fact?
In psychiatry, a delusion is defined as a fixed, false belief . It is false because it is factually incorrect, and fixed because it is unshakeable and resists all evidence to the contrary. However irrational it appears to others, it feels entirely true to the person experiencing it.
Delusions often coexist with hallucinations , in which people see figures, hear voices or sense a presence that is not really there.
In the modern era, alien delusions take many forms. Some believe their bodies are controlled by extraterrestrials or that aliens are manipulating their thoughts . Others develop persecutory beliefs, convinced that aliens are trying to harm them or have implanted tracking devices in their bodies.
Some even experience identity delusions, believing they are aliens themselves or have been chosen for a special mission. Grandiose delusions involve exaggerated beliefs in one's status, importance or power.
Such symptoms are most often seen in psychotic disorders including schizophrenia , though they can also occur in bipolar disorder or as a result of substance misuse, particularly stimulants or hallucinogens such as cocaine , amphetamines or LSD .
A brief history of alien beliefs
Today, alien delusions draw on decades of popular culture, from The X-Files and Prometheus to District 9 and ET. But what about the times before flying saucers and abduction stories filled our screens?
As far back as the middle ages , people described experiences that might now be considered delusional. Religious belief dominated, so visions of angels and devils provided the language of control and persecution. During the witchcraft panics, people claimed to be tormented or possessed by witches and demons .
As science and technology advanced, so did the content of delusions . In the early 20th century, writers such as HG Wells helped popularise the idea of intelligent life beyond Earth through works like The War of the Worlds , a story about a Martian invasion that captured both public imagination and anxiety about the unknown.
With the rise of radio, psychiatrists began recording delusions involving radio waves , in which patients believed their thoughts were being transmitted or received through the air. As technology evolved, so did the fears: people began reporting delusions of technical or alien control , convinced that X-rays, lasers or even the internet were influencing their minds.
In July 1947, debris recovered from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, was initially claimed to be from a "flying disc" before being reidentified by the US military as a weather balloon. The contradictory reports ignited decades of speculation about government cover-ups and alien visitation, embedding UFO imagery deep in the popular imagination. After this post-war Roswell incident , UFOs became a cultural fixture - and soon, a clinical one.
Psychiatrists soon encountered patients whose delusions mirrored these stories of flying saucers and alien abductions. Over time, such beliefs evolved alongside new technologies and social anxieties, from government surveillance to nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. The motifs, however, remain strikingly consistent: possession, control, abduction. The vocabulary changes, but the psychology endures.
Part of the "normal" brain?
While delusions are fixed and distressing, other alien experiences are not necessarily pathological. Many people report seeing unexplained lights, shapes or figures, often during the hazy transitions between wakefulness and sleep. Others interpret these sensations within cultural, religious or recreational contexts as forms of cosmic contact. Such fleeting experiences are surprisingly common and usually harmless.
So why does the mind reach for alien imagery when constructing delusions? The brain may simply use the symbols at hand - stories, myths, films - to make sense of fear or confusion. In that way, delusion is not so much nonsense as meaning-making gone astray.
This brings us back to Bugonia.
The film's title comes from the Greek word bougonia , meaning "ox birth". It refers to an ancient Mediterranean myth in which dead animals were believed to give rise to swarms of bees - a metaphor for how life, or meaning, can emerge from decay.
Lanthimos takes that idea both literally and symbolically. In Bugonia, delusion and revelation, horror and comedy, all blur into one. Stone and Plemons deliver outstanding performances, with Stone in particular chasing a deserved third Oscar.
Beyond its absurdity, Bugonia leaves a quietly unsettling thought: that the distance between imagination and "madness" is far thinner than we'd like to believe - and that perhaps every delusion begins as the mind's attempt to create order from chaos.
Dan Baumgardt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
