Rick Doblin traces how a 1980s ketamine-fueled search for UFO contact shaped his views on consciousness, telepathy, and the future of psychedelic science

Rick Doblin links psychedelic consciousness research with a formative 1980s subculture that used ketamine, meditation, and telepathic practice to pursue contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. His account centers on Esalen, the UFO conference circuit, and a small network of seekers who treated altered states as tools for testing whether mind could extend beyond the brain. Ketamine plays a central role in that story. Doblin recalls repeated high-dose sessions aimed at out-of-body perception and contact experiences, alongside ideas from figures such as John Mack and Andrija Puharich. The search for aliens becomes a broader inquiry into telepathy, nonlocal mind, and the limits of materialist science. That history matters because it shows how parts of the psychedelic movement grew through overlap with fringe spirituality, consciousness studies, and speculative research rather than through clinical science alone. Doblin's reflections position those unusual experiments as one thread in the background of today's mainstream psychedelic renaissance.