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Are UFOs Demonic? Preliminary Reflections
Seriously. It’s an important question which more than 2 billion Christians have reason to take seriously. There are parallel considerations for Judaism, Islam, etc. Even non-theists may have reason to consider alternative theories before concluding that UFOs, if not of earthly origin, are the work of our new alien overlords, enemies, co-founders of the Federation, or however that turns out.
Now, slow down. I didn’t say they have reasons to think the answer is yes. One option is to consider the question just long enough to get to a solid no! I’m not ready to answer myself. These are preliminary reflections. At most, they would prepare the way for someone who’s taken a fair but critical look at the tapes, the stories, and various arguments surrounding UFOs to consider (and possibly reject) this more traditional hypothesis.
Let me first emphasize that this question is hypothetical.
Suppose that debunking efforts like this one and this National Review piece (rather than its rebuttal) should turn out to be a flop. Suppose that these phenomena are not the results of geese, weather balloons, technical glitches, military technology, or something else pretty ordinary. In that case, should we consider angelic beings a likely explanation?
It’s the sort of question FringePop321 looks into here with respect to alien abductions, and I hope FringePop321 does a nice video later focusing on UFOs.
So here’s what I’m gonna do: Lay some cards on the table about my own somewhat confused preferences, give some preliminary reflections from a Christian perspective, and then (very briefly) consider what preliminary reflections might apply even if we don’t assume that perspective.
My working answer is as follows:
When considered from a Christian perspective, this is an explanation that has a slight Ockham’s Razor advantage, at least until we know more. When considered from a non-Christian perspective, this explanation should not be ruled out just as long as the possibility of a supernatural should be ruled out. And there are two tests we might be able to use to try to figure things out!
Do I Even Want Aliens?
Unlike Mulder here, I’m not entirely sure what I want to believe. Sometimes I want aliens; I’m a huge nerd, and I kinda want aliens to be real. I also want cool spaceships!
On the other hand, aliens might mean some hard work rethinking everything.
Or maybe not. Confirmed aliens would make it easier to wonder whether biblical miracles were just high-tech alien stunts (a thought experiment I toy with in my essay in this book). On the other hand, the default C. S. Lewis position–G-d made them too!–would be a pretty comfortable place.
But I’d probably still have to do some work rethinking things. Or at least . . . thinking about whether I have to rethink things.
I think, on the whole, I’d prefer for the aliens to not exist; at least it’s less work. But I go back and forth. It could be super-awesome.
The Question from a Christian Worldview Perspective
Now let’s suppose that a Christian worldview is correct.
That means the Gospel is true, and there is one G-d, etc., etc. It also means G-d created intelligent beings who weren’t human. There are angels. And some of them rebelled. They’re the bad angels, the jerk ones, the fallen angels, the demons.
(And maybe not just them. If you wanna get technical and learn from sources like the Lord of Spirits podcast, the Whole Counsel of G-d blog, and the works of Brian Godawa, unions of angels and human women produced the Nephilim, whose spirits are the “unclean spirits” from the New Testament–jerk spirits to be sure, but not exactly the same ones as the fallen angels.)
Ok, but what do the demons want? What do they do? The most conventional and succinct answer I can give you is–tempt and deceive, the same thing Satan (who is one of them) did in the Garden of Eden. And also–destroy and cause trouble.
The big jerks!
But why would these big jerks want to fake alien spacecraft? Is that the sort of thing Satan and his council of demons would come up with?
I can hear the high-school version of myself answer, “Anything to take our minds off of Jesus!” Not bad, actually. I don’t know that they would need any other motive. But there’s more. Let’s start with @flicker on another thread with a story.
Quite a few years ago a couple of guys in Florida started investigating reports of UFO sightings and abduction stories. And they made this determination: UFOs are real, and no one has ever been abducted by UFOs who hasn’t willingly accepted an invitation to enter, the extraterrestrials were malevolent, and the two guys became Christians as a result of their investigations.
If this is correct, it suggests that demons faking alien spacecraft could just be doing standard demon stuff: Take people’s eyes off of Jesus, sure, but also wreck lives and generally cause trouble.
(That reminds me: Until I saw It: Chapter 1, a solid artistic rendering of Satan, the scariest movie I ever saw was Dark Skies. This alien movie was a stellar rediscovery of the concept of demons, but without any G-d to help out. These baddies are malevolent, they’re stronger than you, they sometimes take control of your body, they come into your home, and they come for your children! Very messed up.)
Anyway, these standard answers aren’t bad, but there’s more still. Here’s a good place to start:
What is it that a man worships? Or–what else does he worship but what he trusts and puts his hope in?
Now Augustine would sooner say “what he loves with the love due to G-d.” Martin Luther probably wouldn’t disagree, but here’s Luther’s direct answer: “As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both G-d and an idol. . . . That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your G-d” (here, page 6).
Are there some who would readily put their trust in some vague idea of higher extraterrestrial powers or a Star Trek-like hope of a better future? Sure. Would demons want to harness this? Of course.
And that brings us back to C. S. Lewis. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis’s character Screwtape is a senior demon advising the junior demon Wormwood. Screwtape describes the dilemma the demons have traditionally faced: Either they trick humans into materialistic denials of the supernatural (including them), or they trick humans into worshipping them.
The best option for the demons would be to trick us humans into worshipping them and denying the reality of a spiritual world at the same time. Screwtape is optimistic that this can happen, and he thinks the time is ripe for sneaking demon-worship into modern atheistic materialism! Screwtape says:
I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in us, (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy. The “Life Force”, the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work—the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits”—then the end of the war will be in sight.
I think Lewis is correctly getting at something demons would want, and I can’t imagine what would be a better vehicle for them to accomplish this today than the idea of aliens.
And what this all leads us to is this: If the Christian worldview is correct, then demons are real, they are supernatural beings who could fake aliens visiting earth, and they would have reasons to do so.
But that only means that demonic UFOs are plausible. Are aliens just as plausible? I’m inclined to take another C. S. Lewis approach: Sure, as far as I know; why not?
So how is a Christian to decide whether any putatively well-documented activities of non-earthly beings are the result of aliens or demons? Well, these are only preliminary reflections. This is just the sort of thing I hope FringePop321 or someone else will answer.
The best I can do at this point is make two suggestions. First, Ockham’s Razor is one point in favor of the demon hypothesis until we know more. Second, there are two possible tests we might be able to apply to the question: a negative test for aliens, and a negative test for demons.
A negative test for whether unearthly beings are aliens:
Assuming we have a fairly good idea of what is physically possible, do the dang things do what’s physically impossible? If they do, then the likelier Christian hypothesis, at least until we know more, is that these phenomena are demonic.
Of course, we might not actually know what’s physically possible.
Roughly, it seems that the strength of this test would be X times Y, where X is the probability that we have correctly identified a certain law of physics and Y is the probability that we have correctly observed a violation of said law.
Nor would demons necessarily make it obvious that they are supernatural beings, especially if they’re posing as aliens. So this is more of a test for aliens than a test for demons. And it’s a better negative test than a positive one. It probably wouldn’t produce a lot of false negatives (aliens we mistake for supernatural beings), but it could easily produce some false positives (supernatural beings we mistake for aliens).
A negative test for whether unearthly beings are demons:
If prolonged contact with the beings leads to the point where we can get some idea what they want, is it the sort of thing demons would probably want, or is it something else?
The aliens in C. S. Lewis’ lovely space trilogy actually worship G-d, and the aliens in the magnificent book Eifelheim only want to get home. One narrow-minded but big-hearted guy in Eifelheim thought the aliens were demons, but Eifelheim‘s wiser protagonist, Deitrich, could tell that they weren’t.
It’s the same with beings Vulcans, Klingons, Wookies, or the Independence Day Harvesters–them critters ain’t demons.
But if I ever meet guys from UFOs and find they want me to worship them, or if they want me to put all my trust and hope in their race of skydwellers, or if I find that they delight in evil and seem to enjoy suffering purely for its own sake–well, that’s different.
Not that that would prove they’re demons. Aliens could be malevolent physical beings who demand our worship–like in the Stargate franchise!
So this test might not do much to prove UFOs are demonic in origin, but it could potentially provide solid evidence that they are not. In other words, this should be a pretty reliable negative test for demons–if the guys in the UFO don’t do anything like this, they probably aren’t demons. But it could provide some false positives–aliens who might look like demons.
So now we get to make a handy chart!
Let’s chart our negative test for aliens using columns and our negative test for demons using rows. If we could apply both of these tests, there are four possible outcomes.
–one (lower-left) where these beings probably are demons,
–one (upper-right) where they’re probably just aliens,
–one (lower-right) where either theory fits,
–and one (upper-left) where neither theory quite fits.
| The beings break the laws of physics, so they probably aren’t aliens. | They don’t break the laws of physics. | |
| They don’t act like demons, so they probably aren’t demons. | It beats me what they actually are. | They’re probably aliens, and maybe they’re friendly! Awesome! |
| The beings act like demons. | They’re probably demons. | Maybe they’re demons. Maybe they’re malevolent aliens. |
The Question not from a Christian Worldview Perspective
And what if you don’t have a Christian worldview? Well, unsurprisingly, my advice would be to accept some of the reasoning from the grand tradition of Christian apologetics, adopt a Christian worldview yourself, and then just scroll up and reread!
But assuming you’re not going to do that, what are your options? Well, you could simply do your best to consider the evidence pertaining to these beings in light of your own worldview. For worldviews that overlap with Christianity on some points–Islam, for example–the analysis might not be so different. Obviously, the analysis from an atheistic materialist worldview perspective would be pretty different.
But I will make this final suggestion: Be like Socrates: Search for the truth, admit you don’t know what you don’t know, and don’t rule out any idea too hastily without examining the evidence. In particular, I recommend not ruling out the possibility of a supernatural too quickly. Above all, don’t rule it out beforehand. Rule it out on Ockham’s Razor after looking at the evidence if it looks like there’s not any good evidence for it.
And if we do indeed have otherworldly visitors–and that is still a very big IF–don’t neglect that first test. If the odds are pretty good that these things really are breaking (or superseding) the laws of physics, then a supernatural explanation may be our best option. And don’t be surprised if someone like Thomas Aquinas–who is, after all, way smarter than you or I–turns out to be right about human beings having supernatural enemies.
Published in Religion & Philosophy, Technology
Well, if they’re not from earth, they’re extraterrestrials. Beyond that it takes evidence of one sort or another to identify them qualitatively. I use the Bible, first and then reports second. I don’t think tic-tac is sufficient, but it is more accurate than aliens or angels. Angels is good because we know some of the characteristics of angels, but it describes something completely different from a tic-tac.
Hey, that’s pretty good!
I know no explicit one either. But there are various references to an angelos/messenger that don’t easily fit an interpretation that writes them all off as pastors or whatever else. What’s that one line–“He makes his messengers flames of fire”? And there are beings in Ezekiel, I believe. Michael in the book of Daniel and the beings he was fighting against, etc., etc.
One can inductively reason to the traditional understanding of these creatures from such passages.
Indeed–all correct, to my knowledge. And, of course, it’s one historically prominent interpretation of the early verses of Genesis 6.
I think the best case that “demons” are spirits of the dead Nephilim would be that that is how the word daimonion is used in the NT. But on this interpretation the Nephilim themselves were the result of the angelic beings in Genesis 6, the “sons of G-d,” and these aren’t the good angels, either. On this interpretation, they would be the same referenced in 1 Peter 3–“he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah.”
What do we call these guys?
Continued:
(Continued.)
As far as I know, the conventional Christian terminology is to use “demons” to refer to these rebellious/fallen angels. That’s how I use the term.
But I have no problem at all expanding our English terminology to refer to spirits of the Nephilim, especially if that fits the NT language better. I’m actually ok with switching the definition entirely, as long we’re clear how we’re using the term!
In the above post, “demons” refers conventionally to fallen angels. But, as noted parenthetically, the spirits of the Nephilim is an available, closely related theory. I’m not aware that it effects the preliminary reflections whether we mean one or the other or both. (The term “demonic” nicely captures both since the “demons” in one sense of the term originate from “demons” in the other sense!)
Oh, wait. I was wrong! This observation on the spirits of the Nephilim would effect the analysis:
There’s some difference in motive, then, isn’t there? Fallen/rebellious angels and spirits of the Nephilim wouldn’t want exactly the same things.
You bring up a very good point.
I’ve used the word supernatural to refer to the natural (or vice versa) only once here on Ricochet. And there are many definitions for common words, and likewise there are also several definitions for the word supernatural. I use the word supernatural (like the word miraculous) as being simply something not readily observable in nature but that does exist and enter into the natural world (or perhaps the “natural” dimensions) and is contrary to the ordinary working of things.
I consider God to be supernatural but only argumentatively or philosophically from a human perspective; it is all a matter of perspective. From below, God is supernatural. To God, He is the only natural and immutable thing.
Christ was (and is) the synthesis of the supernatural and the natural. Raising someone from the dead, is supernatural. Feeding 5,000 with a few loaves and fish is supernatural, but the eating and digestion of it was completely natural to those who experienced it — so natural that it was nearly forgotten by those who cleaned up the leftovers.
Fulfilled prophecy is supernatural because it violates time, and is not clockwork physics, but it is so grounded in the natural, observable and experiential that I have occasionally referred to it as natural because it is naturally provable.
From you??? That’s the highest compliment ever! Thanks!
Well, you’re welcome. But you may be complimenting me too highly. (But if you’re not, and speaking of Screwtape Letters, I’m probably the last one who should know!)
I wouldn’t bet my life on either categorically. But conventionally I draw a the distinction that demons are lesser beings than angels and can’t take on or create a material body of their own. There is only one clear reference to an angel inhabiting the body of a man, and that hasn’t happened yet: when Satan enters the body of the anti-christ, I think after he receives a mortal wound to the head. So it can happen.
And if demons are the disembodied spirits of the nephilim, then demons’ creation would inherently include being evil and corrupt, unlike the fallen angels who were created good and then became evil and corrupted by their own choice.
Which is super-fun for nerdy purposes.
But philosophically (and theologically) I’m not ok with any conscious being being evil without any choice.
But then–it’s entirely plausible that some level of choice was available to these jerks. E.g., to resist their own evil or not. (Not necessarily much different from regular humans in some respects!)
You can take one compliment once, can’t you? :)
Yes, thank you.
I think you are correct. I’ll have to watch “Metamorphosis” again to make sure, but I recall Spock being pleasantly surprised. As much as Spock gets pleasantly surprised.
I suppose it’s an indication that I need a life, but I actually watched a presentation by Graham Hancock about Gobekli Tepe and supposed advanced Earth civilizations. And more significant a supposed cataclysm that wrecked Earth about 12,800 years ago. I suppose it is possible that UFOs are us, the remnants of the supposed advanced civilizations. Staying out of sight, watching over the attempts to rebuild and wondering if it can be done. Weird, almost nonsense, but it makes a much sense as aliens coming across light-years of space to check us out.
Awesome.
If you mean that I wrote a book expositing one possible answer to the Fermi Paradox (lots of alien life not too far away galactically but none of it more intelligent than a tiger), then…allow me:
Amazon.com: Charis Colony: The Landing eBook: Martin , John David: Kindle Store
Buy the book. You’ll love it. Romance. Intrigue. Alien predators.
If you mean that we Theists- and especially Christians and Jews and Muslims- have a better warrant for expecting alien life to exist than philosophical materialists, then there it is. See also:
Astrobiology by John D. Martin – Salvo Magazine
Both good. I was thinking of the second one.
I think this is a throw back to the past. UFO is modern. People used to see dragons etc. Our brains are easily fooled.
The idea that supernatural beings just happen to be seen strikes me as less likely than Aliens.
Could be, could be. I’m not even ready to rule out geese, Boeings, and camera glitches myself!
Why is that?
Because they have different power that transcends nature. There is no reason for anything not on purpose.
Though, the same applies to aliens who can cross light years undetected. Put it this way: no Neolithic people can detect a satellite.
Well, yes. A lot of the opening post was on that topic.
Dark Skies was terrifying. Kept me up that night after watching it.
That is of course an extremely pessimistic take on the potential motivations of unearthly visitors and fortunately not very much in evidence based upon what we currently know.
What we do currently know is that the Pentagon is in possession of much higher quality evidences of these visitors, and none other than Captain Skeptic himself, Sam Harris, has been made privy to its impending release:
At least the Men in Black enforce their immigration policy.
I literally just saw a shooting star a few seconds ago. But was it really?
Back in the 1990s a co-worker was reading papers by DiPietro and Molenaar, a couple of engineers under contract to NASA, regarding the “face on Mars”. OK; I’ve read nonsense in my time as well, but then he swore that there was a guy in hospital raving in a fevered state about his 1954 expedition conducted jointly by the U.S. and the Soviets to explore Cydonia. He apparently believed it had happened. I steered clear after that incident. I wonder if he briefed Sam Harris regarding how to handle the “messaging”?
As for the Face on Mars, I’d like to see it in profile.
I know that angels and demons is pretty far out, except that people for millennia have believed in their existence, and of course they could be misidentifying aliens or what not. But I believe in God and I believe the Bible, and I believe that prophecy has come true in the past, and will come true in the future. What interests me is the prophecy of the End Times, that there would be a deception so great that even Christians, if it were possible, would believe it. And I’ve always wondered what could be so compelling that everyone would not just believe it, but be convinced of it.
And one time, a nominal Christian friend of mine had apparently seen some compelling show on TV about aliens and said that when they come this would upset all Christianity, it would threaten everyone’s faith. Now as a Christian I am pretty sure there is intelligent life out there, that does not originate from earth. They’re angels or fallen angels. Whether it’s aliens or angels, either way, if UFOs are piloted by intelligent life, it’s going to change the world in a very big way. To quote Douglas Adams, Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
Now I fear aliens about as much as Judah feared the Babylonians, which is to say, apparently not much, but they held a deep interest. Now if aliens are menacing hungry monsters I can’t do anything about that. I’m not waiting for Randy Quaid to save me.
But if they start telling earthlings that there is no God, or that He’s not what He says He is, or that they are gods, or that we are spawned from alien life, well then I don’t think this would necessarily be true, it may be the deception. And either way I don’t see any reason to believe them. Either life as we know it will go on, or it won’t.
Now if the message is “To Serve Man”, then I might break a sweat.
The aliens we’re concerning ourselves with fly around in vehicles of unknown origin. They may be evil in the HRC sense but that wouldn’t make them demons. Demons in the scriptural definitions are supernatural beings and travel accordingly.
On a side note, if you’re interested in a first hand account of a guy who’s dealt with demons you’ll enjoy James Delingpole’s recent podcast: https://delingpole.podbean.com/e/jerry-marzinsky/
UFOs may or may not be associated with intelligent non-human beings. But there is no question that the UFO phenomenon – i.e., the large body of persistent, consistent, and apparently sincere reports of unexplained things in the sky and beings that appear to control them – is real. It has been with us now for nearly a century.
In my view, there are three possible explanations. At least one must be true, but possibly any two or even all three may be true:
As for whether aliens are demons, I don’t see why that hypothesis should be considered more far-fetched than any other. My fellow Catholics would probably agree that this is one of the ways in which the prophecy described in paragraph 675 of the Catechism might be fulfilled.
Yes, that’s been my point as well.
Love this post. I’ve been reading/thinking about this a lot for the past few months. Joe Rogan talks about it a lot and I found his and his guests’ takes amusing. After suggesting UFO/UAPs could be alien craft, creatures from a parallel universe, time-traveling scientists, and more outlandish theories, one guest mentioned the demon explanation. Everyone in the room laughed for about 30 seconds straight. As if time-travel and parallel universes are totally rational, while supernatural explanations are absurd.
As you note in your piece, The Lord of Spirits podcast offers some great insights on the ancient perspective of the supernatural, as does Jonathan Pageau, who I had on my podcast a few weeks ago.
As for me, I have no idea. UFOs/UAPs are certainly real, since they are simply flying objects or aerial phenomena that haven’t been identified. What/who/why they are is beyond me.