Unidentified: UFOs, Aliens, and Us

What is happening right now in regard to the UFO activity recently acknowledged by the U.S. government is fascinating. The questions raised by the possibilities take us back to first principles, causing us to ask: What is man? Who is God? And what is man’s relationship to his fellow man and to God?

More than twenty-five years ago, my older brother Todd and I were sleeping in a glacial cirque in extreme southeastern Oregon—the desert part of the state. We had been on a three-week backpacking/hiking trip. Tentless that evening in Oregon, I looked up into the nighttime sky and I became so overwhelmed by the immensity and depth of it that I actually felt a falling sensation. Ridiculous, of course, as I was in my sleeping bag, lying on the ground on my back. Yet in their deepness, the stars, more or less, swallowed me, and I loved every moment of it. On my back, I was falling! Or, so it seemed.

The nighttime sky has always intrigued me, as far back as I can remember. When, as a little kid, being driven in the car by my mom, I would stare intently into the nighttime sky, hoping to see something unusual in the massive skies over Kansas (my childhood home state). The usual—that is, the constellations and other nighttime phenomena—fascinated me just as much as the possibility of the unusual. Out there, somewhere, there was something that I longed for. I could look and look and look. The field of vision seemed endless, as did the structure of the universe.

Then, there were the National Geographic magazines that offered not just photos from our NASA space probes such as Mariner and Voyager, but maps of the Moon and Mars, and illustrations of what might be in the solar system and beyond. I devoted hours as a kid to these articles and, especially, to their illustrations.

Naturally, I grew up loving science fiction in every one of its forms, especially in novels, television shows, and movies. Star Trek, more than any other show, really gripped me. Todd and I would wake early on Saturday mornings to watch the old episodes of the show, then shown commercial-free on the local PBS station. Every episode brought us closer together, and every episode opened so many new worlds to us. The possibilities seemed endless.

But, then, the 1970s were a heyday for good science fiction: Logan’s Run, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien (which I wasn’t allowed to watch!), and Battlestar Galactica, to name just a few.

In fiction, it was anything by Ray Bradbury. As a kid (and to this day), I was quite taken with The Martian Chronicles. If there were aliens out there, why wouldn’t they be something like Native Americans or ancient Greeks, or some mixture of the two? Bradbury’s Martians are so very intriguing and mysterious. They’re also quite wise and attractive.

And, of course, this brings us to aliens. Right? What could be better than National Geographic, Star Trek, and Bradbury?

Over the last several weeks, we’ve been treated to news story after news story about mysterious Unidentified Aerial Phenomena—as the U.S. government has designated them—that move in terms of sudden direction changes and high speeds that only our Hollywood special effects’ masters could effect. Up, down, sideways, speeding off into infinity. The reports indicate that these aircraft have been spotted since at least 2004.

Now that UFOs/UAPs are official, we need to start thinking about the universe. At this point, the only certain thing is that we don’t know who has created these craft.

If they were created by our own government, at least parts of said government seem utterly clueless about them. And, of course, the government has now openly admitted that it knows next to nothing about these craft and is perplexed by them and worried about their origins and their intent. It is possible, of course, that our government is engaged in a distractive or false flag or disinformation campaign.

If they were created by our global adversaries—such as Russia, China, or Iran—why have they been content merely to be seen? Why, for example, are they not spying on us and harassing us? Why are they not being used against us in one of our innumerable military conflicts around the world?

If they were created by aliens, why are the aliens more or less just showing off? If the aliens are peaceful (as in the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., and in Carl Sagan’s progressive theories), why haven’t they made contact? If the aliens are malicious (as in Alien), why haven’t they wreaked havoc upon us? Or, perhaps worse, what if the aliens are demonic, as has been argued in these pages about the aliens of the movie Signs)?

Let’s say for the sake of argument that we are being observed by aliens with the technological ability to move across vast regions of space and then, with the same amazing abilities, through our own atmosphere… and seemingly at odds with our understanding of physics. If true, this would fundamentally reshape our view of ourselves and the universe. A huge part of history has been the slow learning that we are NOT the center of the universe. Of course, when we were the center of the universe—prior to the Scientific Revolution—we were the fallen or, as C.S. Lewis put it, silent planet.

Now, what if we find out that we are not alone in the universe? If so, how do we explain ourselves? Even more powerfully, how do we explain ourselves to our visitors? Would we—as in Dan Simmons’s Hyperion or James Blish’s Case of Conscience—send missionaries (Jesuits, most likely) to meet with the aliens? Would God, in such a scenario, become more important or less important to our understanding of the world? Arguments could be made, strongly, for either possibility. After all, Christ would have died for all sentient life, not just human sentient life. The Last Supper and the Crucifixion and Resurrection would take on a radically new life if we encountered aliens. Truly, Christ would be cosmic.

What is happening right now in regard to the UFO activity recently acknowledged by the U.S. government is fascinating. The questions raised by the possibilities take us back to first principles, causing us to ask: What is man? Who is God? And what is man’s relationship to his fellow man and to God?

And, now, perhaps… where do aliens fit in? With the existence of aliens—should it be proven—we have to ask our fundamental questions again, but, this time, with a powerful twist.

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The featured image is courtesy of Pixabay.