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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
I don’t consider it more far fetched. I consider I consider it equally far fetched.
People have been seeing things in the sky for the history of the species. They used to see chariots. Now we have airplanes and spacecraft so people see that. Night Terrors used to have Night Hags and now we have Greys.
Our minds are built to make connections to keep us safe. When we don’t have enough information we will project things on to it. I no more believe this is aliens than I do demons and angels.
This is an interesting post, and I am not saying that it was not a fun read. It is also tantamount to speculation about the numbers of angels dancing on the end of a pin.
On the subject of he supernatural and faith, As Dr. Jordan Peterson said there is no way to prove the supernatural to someone who refuses to believe.
I thnk Zoroastrianism covers UFOs pretty well. Why does god want so many religions. Because he wants them of course.
I haven’t read anything but the title of the OP and I absolutely believe that these unidentified sightings can be demons.
OK, now to read the OP and comments.
How are those movies scarier than Prince of Darkness or the episode of Battlestar Gallactica with Patrick Macnee as the Devil? Seriously, it all comes down to Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End being the best of possible worlds for the Anything but God crowd.
And yet, in the end, it was only Agrajag.
You can load the shotgun. And spread some viruses. It worked in H. G. Wells.
Yes. Test # 2 above.
Yes, I am pretty sure that if (a big if) demons were doing this, it wouldn’t be for their own personal transportation needs.
Dang. Delingpod still doesn’t turn up in a Stitcher search.
I surrender. I’ll download a new podcast app just for this.
Catholics and Protestants together.
Poor Agrajag. He failed even as the devil. I almost cried.
I forget the movie but I think the yodeling cowboy that made their heads explode would work the best. Short of that, yodeling with accordions.
Or whistling to bagpipes. I’ve heard it once. It nearly made my own head explode.
Thank you.
Yep. Reminds me of the time Scalia had to take down the uppity atheist reporter.
Right on, right on. (And I occasionally remember you’re Eastern Orthodox yourself. Unless I’m misremembering things right now!)
Alright, alright. I’ll come clean:
I did most of them myself. I was also flying the Tic Tac. It’s actually a Tardis and, well, I’m sure you can figure out the rest.
Fair enough.
But then it’s also true that demons exist and are out to cause trouble. And of course the big jerks are going to work with the connections our minds are prepared to make. They’ll freak us out, tempt, deceive, court our worship, etc., etc. using whatever ideas we’re ready to believe in.
If Night Hags and Greys are both myths, they’re myths the demons would readily exploit.
Screwtape was right: Their standard procedure in the modern west has been atheistic materialism, but when they can they’re happy to be more overt. The chance to combine those tactics–a dream come true for them.
Well, yes. It’s all speculation until we can rule out geese and weather balloons. After that, I tend to think we go straight to Test # 1.
Indeed.
Yes. Telling ain’t it. :)
But honestly, I think Catholics and Protestants agree on a whole lot more that we disagree on. We both still call on the same Name.
There’s whole Creeds of the stuff.
I’ve only met one goose that went mach 12, and pulled 30 Gs, and I asked him about it. He got a far away look in his eye for a moment and walked away without saying a word. Obviously a government goose.
Yes, Eastern Orthodox but a total n00b. Whatever this UFO phenomenon is, I feel it’s *something* but still groping for answers.
My default thinking is that we are saved who believe on His name, and anyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God and believes in his heart that He was raised from the dead is saved (or things this simple). With these rather basic assertions or promises I don’t think God is going to give a doctrine and dogma test as a criterion for being accepted into His Heavenly family.
You can stream it on your browser. As for podcast apps I use Castbox. You can find him there, Bannon’s War Room as well.
So insightful. So interesting, this interview.
I know. The stuff about the meth users and the shadow people was facinating. What kind of connections are there in the spiritual that makes that happen? So much we don’t know about our world.
Matter and non-physical reality have never been separate.
I reckon that’s all I know about that.
Matter and non-physical reality have never been separate.
I reckon that’s all I know about that.
Well, this doesn’t count for much, but I do know William James did drugs to experiment with means of encountering a bigger spiritual/psychic/mental world.
Someone more recently wrote a book about that sort of thing. Interviewed on a podcast. I bet it was a podcast somewhere around here. Wish I could remember more.
I hope that they are fairies.
Yes, that’s another category. Also a category of beings originally angelic according to one old tradition, yes?
To Irish and English tradition. Fairies were the Angels who sided with neither heaven nor hell. They were one third of the Angels and they came to the Earth as faeirie Gods and Goddesses. Some were noble and decent to humans, the Lady of the Lake in England and the righteous Dagda in Irish lore.
Sometimes they were sex-crazed or obsessed with stealing and or eating babies. The same fears that we have of Aliens really.
Sometimes they were a bit of both like the gods of Egypt and Greece.
I am hoping for sex-crazy blue women. But that’s just my preference.
At some point, the fact that everyone has a high definition video camera in their pocket is going to have to produce some concrete results. Not having clear videos or pictures was understandable until recently, but what about now? There was the famous case in 2006 of a UFO hovering over OHare Airport, seen by a lot of people. Where are the pictures? iPhones weren’t around then but digital cameras were. (And what’s with the recent videos from Navy fighters? They look like they were made in the 1930s.)
Over the ages skeptics have often been accused of a lack of faith. But with the proliferation of video, at some point, probably sooner than later, the only rational response to all this is going to be that of doubting Thomas: Put up or shut up. Unless I see it, I will not believe.
Are you perhaps an agnostic. I ask because I like agnostics.
And yet, the same people who watched Him perform miracles with their own eyes were shouting, “crucify him,” a few weeks later.
Nowadays people just shrug and say, “Meh, probably CGI.”
People will assuredly doubt miracles in front of them and make up more convenient miracles.
Christians in my experience do a terrible version of explaining why their version of miracles are more believable than say, the Buddhist or Sikh religion. Some make the case for the Book of Daniel and suggest that the prophecies are evidence for this but I think Christians believe things on faith and not the best possible evidence.
So cut to the chase. When the buggers step off the craft do I try to do apostolate or open fire?
I’ve seen cancers healed, and broken ears work again, addictions vanish, marriages restored, and tons of other miracles in the name of Jesus, and only in the name of Jesus.