I have always been somewhat curious but still skeptical about the claims of aliens and UFOs. Part of me tends to dismiss it all because of possible dangers to faith, but part of me is critical of the idea that if they exist, that would necessarily contradict the Faith, which I don’t think it would.
And so I have a few times in my life delved into the subject. For example, I’ve listened to Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin talk openly about it in his podcast about the paranormal.
This time I think I went too far, very briefly believing with certainty that aliens not only exist but are here on Earth, and I confess when you internalize that and the way it is presented in its details, that it can be disturbing to your faith and view of reality.
Since time immemorial cultures have seen strange things in the sky they can’t explain, inventing ancient myths including creatures from other planets visiting Earth. This modern myth about aliens is nothing new.
In 1947 weather balloons were reported to have crashed at Roswell which a few locals claimed with vague accounts were spaceships. The folklore of aliens and Martians was already a part of popular culture. The government has conflicting accounts that show a coverup not of alien UFOs but of a nuclear program in Roswell, something new to mankind but man made. The same is true for Area-51, as a cover for secret military programs of man made technology.
For decades our military has been developing highly advanced technology, using man-made science, but promoting and taking advantage of UFOology as a way to keep it secret.
The New Ager’s and occultists have seized upon this making UFOology a pop culture genre, and at times a new religion to discount biblical Christianity, which reflects our atheistic, pagan, post-modern era. They may object to the negative value implied in this characterization, but they can’t object to this being the main trend. Their views are colored by the post-religion pop culture of their sci-fi generation.
Every UFO sighting can and should be explained, up front, as earthly natural phenomena, from what we know, because of common sense. You don’t jump to seriously considering a highly, highly unlikely proposition to be true, of other worldly explanations, when there are very likely or almost certain normal explanations.
95% of UFO sightings have been explained by natural, known causes. But, according to many priests and exorcists, at least some of the other 5% are demonic, while much of the rest is manipulated by demons in the minds of observers. There are countless accounts proving demonic possession throughout history, including modern times, and exorcists have noted there is often a demonic quality to UFO/alien accounts.
The devil is the father of lies, and wants us to abandon our faith in the biblical truth of God, Christ, and the Christian afterlife. UFOology commonly tries to do the same, by claiming aliens are gods, or God is the universe, or we are all god, and ultimately that the biblical view of life is false. The end is the same, loss of faith, belief in dark subjects, and departing from the Christian path of salvation. That is by definition the work of the demonic.
Another glaring problem is that every single account is cloaked in obscurity, vagueness, serious problems with credibility of witnesses, and no hard evidence that concludes what is being observed is an alien or an alien spaceship.
An intelligence officer testified to Congress this summer that he has been told our military is in possession of alien craft and aliens. It is very believable. Yet, this man has in recent years been committed twice to mental hospitals, has already been very involved in UFO and Star Trek conventions, before his claimed discovery, provides absolutely no evidence, or suggests he can, except hearsay from people who themselves are relying themselves on hearsay.
Regarding Bob Lazar, who claims to have worked on retro-engineering alien UFOs near Area 51, the closer I looked into him, I learned he forged W2s to fake employment history, among other criminal activities. If he really went to MIT or Cal Tech, he would be able to provide some evidence, but he can’t and is not even trying to. The obvious explanation is a once young guy became fascinated with UFO folk lore, did do a stint working as a technician for the government, and invented a story, even to the point of later believing it. And he has in fact financially profited off his story.
What also discredits him is the guy who made his documentary whose film is highly criticized for being sensationalism minimizing major holes in Lazar’s story. The fact Joe Rogan also interviewed him casts doubt, in the form of bias in favor of the story, as Rogan is an atheist, materialist, with a very colorful lifestyle of drug use and liberal ideas. For example, he supports man evolving into a transhumanist state of revolution, merging with AI. Aliens are going to appeal to his target audience of pagan millennials who think like him.
The Travis Walton “abduction” was a hoax, also promoted by Rogan. He failed lie detector tests, had been heavily into UFOs already, including pranks, and had been planning the hoax with one of the men involved that night, later making money selling the story and making a movie.
The Barney and Betty Hill account of an “abduction” is not credible. They were both already far left liberals, involved in leftist social activism, she a member of a universalist and Unitarian church, all which would show bias to promote a new age belief in aliens.
The so-called tic tack shaped UFO reported by navy pilots during an incident are reasonably explained by a combination of optical illusions, misperception, and it being a man-made, secret technology rather than an alien spacecraft.
I myself once saw at night a triangular object in the sky that appeared to be hovering above me, that for a moment had me wondering if it was an alien UFO, until after a minute or so I saw it was a commercial airplane. At a certain angle, the lighting and positioning made it look like a UFO. Had I not given much thought before to UFOs, I probably would not have suspected it. This is in fact the common pattern. News stories come out about a UFO sighting, then suddenly a wave of people report many daily sightings, which generates more UFO stories in the news, and then more sightings, all of which points to mass hysteria imaging something that isn’t the case.
If you look at what the majority of scientists say, from NASA, the military, universities, the common scientific opinion across the board is that it is highly unlikely alien civilizations exist, and which have contacted us, or visited us, when we update the math with what we know about the universe and calculate probabilities. As big as the universe is, it is much more likely we are alone, statistically speaking, than we are not.
One could go with the progressive opinion among physicists, which favor countless possible civilizations out there, but they are in the minority, and are often embellishing because they are celebrity scientists selling books, who are heavily into science fiction the likes of Carl Sagan. Something popular and appealing does not make it likely or trustworthy.
This phenomenon has easily duped people, me included, when you consider how subjective and unreliable the sources of info are, and deceptive, especially the internet. We tend to think that if official sounding people are claiming something on the internet, and many people believe it, then it must be true.
My first close encounter with an alien believer itself duped me, a botany professor who told me in detail about how he was abducted. I half believed him because he was a professor. But it was at a community college, and nearly every one of his students dismissed him as being clinically insane for promoting daily the wildest of conspiracy theories during the majority of his lectures. But to this day his account made an impression upon me.
Claims about Aliens and UFOs are also easily disproven by the fact we have no direct, verifiable, hard evidence that is out in the open. Without that smoking gun, without something like an actual video of an alien meeting with an official, common sense should maintain, all things considered, that there is no credible evidence to actively believe we are not alone. If you can take a step back and look at this phenomenon objectivity, we have every reason to discount it as a modern myth that fuels post-modern culture.
Coming back to our Faith, we know that Our Lady appeared to three children at Fatima in 1917, reminding us to pray and do penance, warning of a great chastisement, verified by the miracle of the sun, as a part of 2000 years of Christian miracles clearly showing the truth of the Faith. However big this universe is, or whether or not God may have created life on other planets, there is a God who created us, who inspired the Bible, sent His divine Son, who will in the end judge us for keeping our faith in Him, and determine our eternal destiny either in heaven or hell. All praise and honor to Him. Lord have mercy on us.