THE X-TIAN FILES

What happens when you blend two weird perspectives on reality, one old and hidebound, clinging doggedly to ancient mythology and values rooted in long-dead cultures, and the other characterized by pseudoscience, rampant fraud, blatant commercial exploitation and rumor mongering? You get Christian UFOlogists.

You may have heard about Louis Farrakhan's imagined trip aboard a UFO, where he communed with Elijah Muhammad and received predictions of future events without having to pay $3.95 a minute. Click here if you would like to hear this wondrous revelation (350K). But UFOs have also become a concern of some popular and somewhat influential Christian leaders, responding to a religious community that is largely receptive to wild UFO theories. For example, TV evangelist Jack Van Impe has pronounced that UFOs were described in the Bible, citing one contemporary description of a craft as appearing to be made of beryllium, and likening that to a vision by the prophet Ezekiel: "The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl" (Ezekiel 1:16). Pat Robertson has also seriously discussed the theological implications of space aliens, using Biblical quotes to suggest stoning as a suitable punishment for UFO buffs. Read what the Institute for First Amendment Studies' Skipp Porteous had to say about it: http://www.visi.com/~jhenry/nuts.htm.

UFOlogy has become yet another religious battleground. Various factions take the rumors, myths and deceptions which are virtually the entire body of that area of study and mix these with more standard religious rumors, myths and deceptions to make something that is essentially a new religion in which the deities and their spirit minions have been redifined. Religious UFOlogy is dominated, in the USA, at least, by Christian and New Age types, who focus on the "spiritual" implications they see in contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.

UFOlogists who interpret their interest in spiritual terms can be grouped into three major categories: the New Agers, who speak of benevolent, paternalistic aliens in crystal-powered space ships; Christians who envision heterogeneous aliens including both good and bad "races;" and totally paranoid evangelical-types who take ETs to be the Antichrist or some equally nefarious mythological character. All of these readily interpret UFOs in Biblical terms, although, as usual, the interpretations vary widely. Just think how many wars would have been avoided if only the Bible had been written in clear, concise language.

The New Agers are amusing because their accounts typically feature shiny, happy aliens intent upon shepherding humanity into a beautiful new realm of heightened awareness, saving us from ourselves. It's a somewhat pleasant fantasy, at least, in a warm, cuddly, Steven Spielberg kind of way. New Agers frequently draw upon Asian and Native American religions as well as Christianity. You will find some of these people getting together every few years at a remote location for the landing of the mothership. A few people go off the deep end with this stuff, such as the case of the Gulf Breeze 6 a few years ago. These were six Army Intelligence specialists who went AWOL while stationed in Germany so they could travel to Florida to make an interplanetary connection. Needless to say, the Military Police didn't need space suits to catch up with them.

The Christians take a darker view. Christian-oriented UFOlogists largely agree that aliens have some supernatural role, but disagree whether to categorize space aliens as angels, demons or both. Apparently, since the Bible mentions nothing about any other type of "extraterrestrial" creature, aliens must fall into one of these categories. Some Christian UFOlogists fit aliens into a traditional Christian hierarchical cosmology, with good and evil ETs (depending upon their species or planet of origin) who struggle in a contest to decide human fate.

Other Christians such as Pat Robertson insist that it is all the work of the devil. A few years ago I found a small volume in a mainstream Christian bookstore that sought to prove that aliens were in fact devils, citing various biblical passages and accounts of alien encounters. The essential existence of aliens was never questioned. A Biblical passage which is always cited by proponents of this view is Rev. 12:7-10: "And there was a war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon... And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out onto the earth, and his angels were cast out with him..." Other elements of right-wing fundamentalism get thrown in, as well. The Grace Baptist Church of Attleboro, Massachusetts, proclaimed on its radio program: "The shocking reality is that Satan has been manipulating world events to achieve his One-World Government, Economy, and Religion through Secret Societies, Communism, Nazism, the New Age, and UFO's. The final merger into the New World Order is almost complete. UFO Aliens and Space ships are nothing more than demons which the Holy Spirit has allowed in this final age to physically manifest themselves in our realm." Christians who equate extraterrestrial with demons are particularly rigid in their views because they feel that Christ cautioned them that Satan would be disguised: "Be careful that no one misleads you, deceiving you and leading you into error." Matthew 24:4. This would be pretty much a discussion killer, but then how could anyone hold a rational conversation about this stuff anyway?

Television and radio evangelist Bob Larson (http://www.boblarson.org/) has made the space alien/Satan connection a primary feature of his act. He devotes entire programs to it, and has published a religious UFOlogy book entitled UFOs and the Alien Agenda. Larson takes even the weirdest abduction account very seriously, attributing demonic import to the same alleged encounters that others claim are the benevolent efforts of superior beings. Rather than look to science for explanations of UFOs, Larson predicatably stretches Bible verses to fit this 20th century phenomenon, managing to work in the common Evangelical themes of conspiracy, deception and end-times.

Christians, despite their supposed faith, have never been able to completely suppress the need to seek proof, and if some tenuous link can be made between flying saucers and the Bible, well, it's just as good as any other "proof." It provides God with a mechanism for his deeds that is essentially technological and therefore more understandable to people that realize, at least within their hearts, that things just don't go "poof." They believe in UFOs for the same reason that they believe in God: they want to. Extraterrestrials are, for many, the new messiahs who will some day return to Earth to bring about a great age. But maybe they don't really believe all this stuff. It also could be that it's just a great excuse for not getting off their butts and doing something to fix the planet themselves.

If you would like to see more of this nonsense of the Web, check out Ufo's, Flying Saucers, Fallen Angels or UFOs: A Biblical Perspective.