UFOs and Aliens

A very brief introduction
UFOs and aliens are a staple of movies, documentaries, books, and the press. How do they relate to the Bible and Christianity? Let's start by defining some terms. UFO simply means "Unidentified Flying Object" and, thus, is any object seen in the sky which is not readily identifiable by the observer. Much investigation has been done by individuals, organizations, and even the government. These investigations have revealed that the vast majority (over 90%) of reported UFOs are merely atmospheric phenomena, misidentified known aircraft, occasional hoaxes, or hallucinations. The remaining incidents remain unidentified and thus can still be considered true UFOs. There are also a smaller number of reports of underwater phenomena or UFOs that enter and/or leave bodies of water. Thus a more technical term of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) is used collectively for all such things, although the common term used by most people is UFOs.

In our culture, "UFO" has become synonymous with "Flying Saucers", which represent a small fraction of the truly unidentified UAPs. Hollywood then popularized this shape for UFOs as vehicles for alien creatures from other planets. With the coming of the Space Age, and the help of movies, documentaries, and news stories, UFOs have been tightly associated with alien beings from the far reaches of outer space. Thus, the assumption by many is that UFOs are synonymous with alien spacecraft, even if the observed phenomena is nothing more identifiable than moving bright lights in the night sky.

UAPs are nothing new. Many ancient cultures referred to strange flying objects. For example, people in the Roman Empire referred to "flying shields". In other cultures, such UAPs were associated with the supernatural. In fact, it was common for the sky to be considered the realm of evil spirits by many cultures. However, there are some modern UFO "experts" that want to reinterpret parts of the Bible to have them support their theories. A famous example is that of the "living creatures" seen by Ezekiel. The prophet describes two creatures which were both associated with a "wheel within a wheel" with eyes around the rims. Modern Ufologists interpret this as an ancient yokel seeing spacecraft that he misidentified (the eyes actually being windows). But people of that time were not unfamiliar with windows and it is doubtful that Ezekiel would have somehow misinterpreted windows as eyes. And the Ufologists don't even address the creatures associated with the wheels. People who try to force the Bible to support their agendas are standing on thin ice.

When it comes to aliens, encounters range from viewing them looking out of spacecraft windows, to in-person meetings, to abductions. Alien encounters are relatively new - starting in the twentieth century. Prior to that, any meetings with strange beings was assumed to be spiritual in nature. So we see a recent change in the way people (especially in western culture) view UAP and "aliens". Interpreting such things as spiritual is considered "medieval" and backwards. Today we are so much smarter and advanced! But before we completely dismiss these older views, lets take a deeper dive into the subject.

Problems with popular notions
First, the dismissal of UAP and aliens as being spiritual in nature is entirely due to a dismissal of the spiritual realm in general. If there are, as the Bible states, spiritual beings such as angels and demons which interact with humans to some degree, then we are faced with a choice: dismiss the Bible itself, or consider that there may very well be a spiritual explanation for these phenomena. Now one might concede the possibility of the spiritual in addition to aliens from outer space. How then could we tell the difference?

First, let us address the UAP as vehicles. Angels do not need vehicles to move around. There is no instance of an angel using anything resembling a vehicle in the Bible. They tend to appear and disappear suddenly, or ascend and descend from heaven without vehicular help. Demons, being fallen angels, also have no need for vehicles. That would seem to make alien vehicles something other than spiritual. Some number of UAPs appear to be solid objects and some have been observed with aliens entering and leaving them. Well, that seems to solve it. Except that we have to realize that the main power of our Enemy is that of deception. It is not unreasonable to think that alien vehicles might not be at all what they appear, but may be a deception of the Devil and his demons.

Why do I think that? For several reasons. UAP demonstrate strange behavior that cannot be reconciled with the laws of physics. For example, entering bodies of water at high speed without causing any kind of splash or other disturbance of the water. Or executing high-speed sharp turns that defy the laws of physics. Then there is the fact that despite some minor similarities, most UAP (those that can be seen clearly) are quite different in appearance - almost like people's perceptions were being altered by different beings based on the person's own notions. As far as the claim that these ships come to the Earth from distant star systems, the laws of physics would cause such travel to take hundreds or thousands of years. It hardly seems worth it for the short visits most of the UAP make.

Now, some would say that these problems could be resolved by appealing to some unknown advanced technology. While advanced technology would do amazing things, no technology can violate the laws of nature such as faster-than-light travel. In fact, getting to even a small percentage of the speed of light is difficult to accomplish just from a power requirement, and then one has to consider the disastrous results of a collision with even the smallest dust particle when traveling at any appreciable fraction of the speed of light (space is not a pure vacuum). Most of the science-fiction ideas put forth about aliens and space travel are nothing more than pure imagination or are based on imperfect understanding of the science of things such as wormholes. It is far more fiction than science. It is almost as if someone were trying to convince people that all concerns about travel from distant stars can be ignored so that the illusion of aliens from other worlds can be maintained. Their mental powers (telepathy, levitation, paralyzation of victims, etc) are represented as the powers of a more evolved race of beings rather than the powers of a spiritual being as they would have been recognized in the past. Again, pure fantasy with no scientific support.

Every UAP ever tracked on radar appears and disappears in earth's atmosphere or low orbit. Never has one been observed approaching the planet or leaving. The only exception being that during the Apollo missions to the moon, some objects were observed in proximity to the astronauts. This has led some to consider that such things do not come from outer space, but perhaps from another dimension. Something like, perhaps, a spiritual dimension.

Associated with alien craft are things such as cattle mutilation and crop circles. Many of these (especially crop circles) are hoaxes perpetrated by humans. But a small percentage remain unexplained. One thing is certain, however: both phenomena are very costly to the farmers or ranchers who are affected. Having large amounts of a field flattened results in major losses of crops and income to farmers. Cattle, depending on the kind and age, can cost upwards of $1,800 per head. A rancher who loses 10 head of cattle is out $18,000. Most farmers and ranchers live on the edge, financially, so these phenomena are disastrous for them. In one case, a series of cattle mutilations was happening along a east-to-west line through the Midwest over the space of several days. A group of Christians prayed for it to stop, and the mutilations ended that day. Very kind of the aliens to respond positively to Christians praying...

Now let's consider the aliens themselves. Like alien craft, the descriptions of these beings varies quite a bit from encounter to encounter. Oddly, after Hollywood started to present aliens as mostly large-eyed, large-headed, diminutive hairless beings, most encounters now match this general model. Still, the wide variety of past descriptions led some alien believers to categorize aliens into several "species" to explain these discrepancies. What about the interactions with these beings? There are a startlingly high number of people who develop physical and/or mental issues after encounters. It is unclear how many of these people had mental issues prior to the encounter and so it may be impossible to tell if mental issues lead to encounters, or vice versa. The physical maladies are harder to explain, even pyschosomatically. Some people have stated that their experience was positive, and even uplifting. Yet, nightmares are not uncommon after the event. Some individuals under hypnosis have indicated severe physical pain, terror, and negative views of the event while it was happening, which seems to have been blocked from the victim's conscious recall. These aliens do not exhibit behavior that could be considered "good" in any sense.

Some percentage of the population experiences abductions. They often happen over and over during the person's lifetime. More than once, abductions have affected most, if not all, of the members of a family, including children. Apparently the aliens aren't very good scientists as they appear to repeat the same basic "experiments" over and over on the same people. Perhaps they aren't aware of modern record-keeping methods... Abductees are unwilling but unable to prevent their abduction. The only exceptions are Christians who have experienced the typical beginning of an abduction scenario and rebuked the aliens in Jesus name, at which point the "aliens" left and the abduction did not happen. How strange that mere travelers from another planet would be driven away by the mention of Jesus. Again, these beings do not seem to be very friendly, or good.

What about the message of these aliens? It is seemingly positive, along the lines of us humans all getting along with each other. Strangely, the way to this universal harmony is through some sort of vague philosophy and continued interaction with the aliens. If they bring up Jesus (and many of them do), they claim that Jesus was actually one of them. Their message is similar to the message from spirits contacted through seances in the 19th and 20th centuries. Sometimes these spirits claimed to be from Venus or Mars. But after we learned more about the inhospitable environments of these planets, the spirits would claim to be from Pluto or another solar systems. They were always from some place from which we could not, at the time, verify the veracity of their statements. These spirits would also claim Jesus as a fellow ascended being. The spirits and the aliens seem to be one in the same - the same beings appearing to humans in different guises through history. In fact, they seem to use forms which are "acceptable" to the people of the time. Now that we are in the space age, instead of spirits, we have aliens. Except in primitive cultures, who still interact with spirits and not aliens. Whether familiar spirits or aliens, they lie about where they are from. Worse, they lie about Jesus. By claiming that Jesus was "one of them" they deny both His humanity and His deity in contradiction to scripture.¹ As the "only begotten son of God"² Jesus is not "one of" anything - He is unique.

Finally, people with alien encounters and even some UAP encounters typically report a level of unease - even terror - that seems in-congruent with their described encounter. Nice clean, sterile, shiny alien ships. Aliens that are nearly always humanoid - basically variations on human appearance. No threatening weapons. No mind-twisting monsters from our deepest nightmares. Just space voyagers making contact with us. You'd think that a population that has been prepared with Star Trek and so forth would consist of people who would react with wonder, curiosity, and perhaps a small bit of trepidation. But one would not expect the visceral reaction that most people have when faced with these experiences. Its like they were sensing some sort of danger on a deep level that they could not explain. Its not unlike the initial terror some angels engendered in those to whom they appeared in the Bible.

What does the Bible have to say?
Jesus said of Satan, "He... doesn't stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of lies."³ We know these "aliens" lie.

"But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons"⁴ We know we are in the last days as Peter said at Pentecost. The message of these "aliens" is definitely the doctrine of demons, and people are being seduced into believing these doctrines by the aliens.

"In time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience"⁵ Paul refers to the Devil as the "prince of the power of the air", which is where the UFO phenomena is observed. Yes, sometimes they come from the air and land on the ground or in the water, but the nearly always come from, and return to, the sky. UFOs, as an aerial phenomena, could be associated with Satan. If he is the prince of the power of the air, there must be many associated underlings (demons) that are also powers associated with the air.

"And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."⁶ UFOs are often associated with lights and Satan (and his demons) appear as angels of light.

Therefore I suggest that true UFOs and "aliens" are simply deceiving spirits (ie demons). The main power of the enemy is that of deception, and therefore much of the phenomena we see is what they want us to see. Sometimes it is, perhaps, entirely a "mind hack" where people think they see something where there is nothing to see. Other times, the phenomena is visible to many people over a wide area, including through radar. This probably indicates a physical appearance of a spirit. One might ask how a spirit could show on radar, or how they could appear as balls of light one time and as a ship on another. Besides the issue of deception and disguise, we need to take a brief side trip into a discussion of the nature of the spiritual world.

I would ask, "Where is heaven located?" Can you give me time/space coordinates for it? No. It does not exist in our 3D space/time reality. Yet it does exist. Therefore, it must exist as a spiritual dimension apart from the 3D space we are familiar with. Nor could we discover it through 3D instruments. It is simply outside of our ability to perceive. Yet, it is not a dimension in the sense of a parallel universe. It may be useful to consider it as a 4th spatial dimension and the spirits that live there are hyper-dimensional 4-D (or more) beings. They can perceive our 3D space, but we cannot perceive most of their world. This is how we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses⁷ that we cannot see. They are not merely invisible (meaning something that is present in our reality but unseen), but unless they decide to intersect with our 3D reality, we cannot perceive them. We know that angels reside in heaven, but can also appear to us in our limited perception. Many times angels in the Bible are recorded as simply appearing and disappearing. Thus, they can appear at will by intersecting our reality, and disappear by simply withdrawing from it. They could appear to move great distances very quickly because they need not travel through our lower dimensions to get from one place to another. Though we can grasp the general concept, we cannot grasp the ways in which beings from higher dimensions could interact with our lower dimensions. It is conceivable that spiritual beings could therefore appear however they wish to us humans. It may not be difficult for them to appear as a bright light, or as a flying saucer, or as an alien. Even Jesus disguised His appearance to the men on the road to Emmaus.⁸. Further, we do not know the capabilities of spiritual beings. Perhaps they can instantly construct things by rearranging matter and energy as they wish. I lean more towards a combination of both deception and complex interactions between a spiritual being and our lower dimensions. Note: while the idea of a 4th spatial dimension is useful for illustrating the spiritual domain, I suspect it is actually something far more complex and wonderful.

Back to more solid ground. One aspect of some alien encounters is that some knowledge is passed on to the individual. The knowledge may be something the individual couldn't have known. Sometimes it is something that mankind doesn't discover until later. As demons have been around for thousands of years and are doubtless highly intelligent beings, it is no stretch of the imagination to think that they are capable of imparting knowledge that we humans do not yet have. But what is common to all these alien revelations is that they are of no practical use. We don't see aliens contacting a doctor and telling him how to cure cancer. We don't see them providing engineers with plans for new propulsion systems. What they do provide is information that furthers belief in them (as aliens) or their anti-Christian philosophy.

Some peoples believe that our technology has come from aliens, either directly or indirectly. But this is an argument out of ignorance. As someone who has been interested in leading-edge technology since high school and has made his adult living through technology, I can assure you that today's technology - both hardware and software - has progressed logically on every step. At no point was there an unexpected leap in technology that would have come from some outside source. Mechanical relays led to vacuum tubes, which led to transistors, which led to integrated circuits. Software is based on math and algorithms that were developed centuries ago. One can trace the step-wise logical progression of technology over time and no credit goes to aliens. The incredible speed of progress is often used as a support for aliens, but what people don't realize is that as we develop new tools, those tools speed the development of the next stage of tools, This is what accounts for the increasing speed of technological development. Not alien help.

Taking all of the foregoing into consideration, demons are a better explanation for the UFO and alien phenomena than any other yet put forth. Certainly better than the theory of visitors from outer space. Much has been made about the government having alien artifacts and interacting with aliens. Wouldn't that be proof that aliens are not demons? First, there has been little to no credible evidence of this. The only "proof" offered by the government has been some videos of UFOs. But even if "aliens" are communicating with people in our government, how would that prove that they aren't demons? Would it be a surprise to find out that people in the government are consorting with demons?

A disclaimer: a single article on this subject is necessarily cursory. There are a great many books, documentaries, studies, symposia, and conferences on the topic. Little of it is from a Christian perspective. It is a subject that I've got interested in back in high school. I've probably read every book (in English) written on the subject published before 1980 (and some after). I'm pretty sure there are no Netflix UFO/alien documentaries I've not watched (and some of them were a trial to get through, let me tell you). Even before I became a Christian, my research had already led me to conclude that aliens were not what they appeared, nor were they beneficent. Obviously, I've had to leave out a lot of detail. As educated on the subject as I am, there are others who are even more expert. But I believe that I have provided a fair representation of the situation on the whole.

How should we address this subject as believers?
The first concern is that of the UFO "believers". I don't mean people who think there might be aliens visiting us. I'm talking about the ones who are "religious" about their beliefs. They believe aliens are here to help us. They use any little thing to support their staunch beliefs. The Bible is primarily a proof of their beliefs rather than the written words of God. They are not open to discussion of any opinion that contradicts their beliefs. Their devotion is quite something to behold. I could wish that more Christians had the same level of devotion to Jesus. I've heard some of them claim to be Christians. However, their view of Jesus as some sort of "ascended being" is incongruous with scripture or the definition of "Christian" that I have presented in previous articles. One wonders how people get so bound by this. I suspect that, deep down, they desire a spiritual experience, but they substitute aliens in place of a God Who demands accountability. Belief in aliens lets them avoid something overtly spiritual. Add to that the titillation of supposed government conspiracies and cover-ups, and you have a potent replacement for religion, which turns out to be a religion in itself. There is little anyone can do for these people other than pray for them. Only the Holy Spirit can break the chains they are bound with.

Secondly, there are millions of people who have had abduction experiences. They are broken and tormented by the experience and often in bondage to repeated abductions. Because they are typically shunned or made fun of by others if they relate their experiences, they also tend to feel profoundly alone. They can only be freed from this demonic oppression by the power of the Spirit through belief in the cleansing blood of Jesus. It makes me angry to see how these poor people are mistreated by the enemy, and I despise those misleading preachers of the UFO religion that can be found on History Channel documentaries. Fortunately, there are Christian organizations that minister to abductees, and if you encounter such a person, you should get them into contact with one of those ministries.

Finally how should we, who are believers, handle encounters with UFOs or "aliens"? Realizing that these are demons, the only response is to rebuke them in the name of Jesus and walk away. Do not engage any further than that. Do not show an interest in the phenomena. Example after example demonstrates that those who give attention to the phenomena tend to get more attention from the phenomena. More than once, someone stopping to watch the "odd lights in the sky" has found the lights change direction and head toward them, with subsequent negative encounters. Do not take pictures or videos. Refuse to get entangled in it. I would even recommend that you avoid the documentaries (excepting the Christian ones). I watch them to stay abreast of the strategies of the enemy and pass that information on. But I do not allow myself to get sucked into it. If you feel that kind of pull, you ought to spend your time in Bible study instead.

Sadly, the church at large is unequipped to deal with this whole topic. Some of this is due to ignorance. Some of it is due to fear of being labeled as backwards-thinking ("how medieval to think that aliens are demons!"). Some of it is that many Christians have believed the lie that these aliens are anything other than demons. Some don't even believe that demons exist. One's beliefs in this subject are not essential doctrines. But a proper understanding is important, as abductees who have been rescued from their chains can attest. Hopefully the foregoing will be useful to some of the saints.

1 Philippians 2:5–7, Colossians 1:15–20, 2:9–10,John 1:1–3, etc.
2 John 3:16
3 John 8:44
4 1 Timothy 4:1
5 Ephesians 2:2
6 2 Corinthians 11:14
7 Hebrews 12:1
8 Luke 24:13-35