I tend to agree with my colleague, @Matias on this one. Cargo cults were a phenomenon of World War II, which enveloped aboriginal peoples, relatively unknown to the West at the time. With no understanding of technology, it's easy to see how these islanders came to regard, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, this "sufficiently advanced technology" as "indistinguishable from magic." And here, it's important to emphasize the linkage between superstition, magical thinking and religion.

The cargo cults are a relatively recent development. But were they to remain for many centuries, an entire superstructure of formality (or a creed) might be developed, as has been the case with all religions. No religious faith was fabricated in a relative vacuum overnight from whole cloth. So the common thread, in my opinion, between the cargo cults in the South Pacific and their counterparts belonging to the so-called established religions, is superstition, or what may be termed as a reliance on magical thinking. As one of my favorite thinkers of the 19th century, Robert Ingersoll noted:
"[E]very religion has for its foundation a miracle—that is to say, a violation of nature—that is to say, a falsehood."
The Gods, 1878