Paranormal Studies 313: UFOs

Professor Grimes never ceased to be amazed at the sheer number of people who skipped his lectures. He knew that college students led busy lives and he could understand if five, ten, or even fifteen percent of his students were not able to attend class on a particular day. What puzzled him was when sixty-four people signed up for a course and only six people actually attended it. Their absence alone guaranteed them a failing grade. Why would 90% of his students sign up for a guaranteed F when they could simply not take his class at all and preserve their GPA? Each semester the professor took pains to explain in his syllabus that it was impossible to pass his class without attending it, and urged students to drop out if they would not be able to attend regularly. Still, year after year, people signed up, never came, and failed the course. Even though it was entirely predictable the aging professor never got used to it.

So once again Professor Grimes placed checkmarks beside seven names on the student roster, then shook his head and placed the roster back on his desk. To the best of his knowledge only four students had ever uttered a word in that semester’s class. The rest either slept through his lectures or stared out into space. He wondered if they were drunk but decided it would be impertinent to ask. So he just soldiered on.

“Good morning, class,” he announced cheerfully. “I hope you’re enjoying the wet, soggy, cold, and overcast weather outside. It’s positively delightful!”

“Are you for real?” Dan asked.

“Oh, absolutely. The magnificent weather that I see out the classroom window is full of atmosphere and possibilities! It’s also quite inspiring.”

“And totally uncomfortable,” Dan replied.

“It is entirely possible to be too comfortable, you know. That is what’s wrong with the younger generation – all they care about are their creature comforts. America was not discovered by people sitting in recliners watching TV shows! You people need to leave your cell phones and video games and go outside and actually live life for a change. Your desire to be a couch potato is going to give you heart disease.”

Lora spoke up. “But I hate snakes! Snakes are evil. Don’t they have snakes in the jungle?”

“Oh yes, they certainly do! Huge, enormous snakes that could probably swallow you whole. There are all sorts of other horrifying things as well – but there are also lost cities, hidden treasures, forgotten knowledge, and fantastic discoveries. The cost is great, but the potential rewards are great as well. If you want to make great discoveries then you must take great risks.

“Speaking of discoveries, today we are going to talk about a phenomenon that has captured the imagination of millions and has spawned countless movies. We are going to talk about–”

“Zombies!” Ashley shouted.

“What?” the professor asked incredulously. “No, we’re not going to talk about zombies. In fact, we are never going to talk about zombies. Nor are we going to discuss werewolves, or mermaids, or Godzilla. We are going to talk about unidentified flying objects.”

“The answer is demons,” Max said sarcastically. “It’s always demons, isn’t it? Ghosts are demons. Crop circles are demons. Toasters are demons. You have the same answer for everything.”

“My toaster and I get alone quite well, thank you,” the professor replied. “It is one of the few devices inside my home that does not insist on connecting to the internet, or being computerized, or trying to sell me ringtones. I wish more of my appliances had the simplicity and elegance of my toaster. They’re marvelous devices.

“But to answer your point – what you must realize is that we have a responsibility for hunting down the truth and following where it leads. The reason I believe that ghosts are probably demonic is because that is what the evidence shows. The same can be said for crop circles. In neither case did we start out by assuming there was a sinister explanation. We simply examined each phenomenon, looked at the evidence, and then eliminated everything that did not make sense. We are going to do precisely the same thing with UFOs. Moreover, we are going to wait until the end to draw any conclusions. Drawing your conclusions first and then coming up with a case to support it is madness, not science.”

Ashley spoke up. “UFOs are, like, just a hoax. I mean, that’s what they say, anyway. The people that believe in them are crazy.”

“A great many UFOs are indeed nothing special,” the professor agreed. “Virtually all cases can be shown to be weather balloons, or secret military aircraft, or meteors, or other natural phenomena. There are also countless hoaxes. In this day and age it is especially easy to fake a UFO. Technology has come a long way in the past few decades. Things are to such a point now that it is very difficult to tell a genuine photograph from one that has been altered.

“Since that is the case, I am going to take a slightly different approach than I have for other subjects. As you might imagine, there are many stories of seeing a UFO that cannot be corroborated or disproved, and there are even pictures and video evidence. However, since these sightings cannot be corroborated they therefore cannot be tested or falsified, which places them outside the realm of scientific investigation.

“This poses something of a problem. With crop circles there was hard evidence that you could take to a lab and analyze. It was actually possible to design a series of tests that could distinguish real crop circles from hoaxes. With UFOs that is simply not possible. The only pictures and videos that are available are blurry and rather poor, and thus easily faked. Stories can be faked as well or simply mistaken. Also, despite decades of study, there is not one piece of physical evidence that can be examined. This puts us in a difficult position, because all we can really do is examine claims and we have no way to verify the truth of those claims.”

Max spoke up. “Then doesn’t the whole subject become impossible?”

“Not quite,” Professor Grimes replied. “We still have the stories, after all, and they can be analyzed. UFO researchers have divided these accounts into five different groups. Close encounters of the first kind involve people who simply saw a UFO. Close encounters of the second kind involve UFO sightings that left some sort of evidence, such as a broken tree branch.”

“Hold on,” Max interrupted. “I thought you just said there was never any evidence to analyze.”

The professor sighed. “A broken tree branch is hardly conclusive evidence. There are a great many things that can break tree branches, and I must say that ‘Aliens did it!’ is not very high on the list of likely culprits. With crop circles one could identify specific anomalies that differentiated real crop circles from hoaxes. A broken branch, however, is just a broken branch. No one has ever recovered pieces of a warp drive or other alien technology, or even anything that was actually interesting. It would be quite fascinating if such a thing were ever to surface, but it has not.

“As I was saying, close encounters of the third kind include the sighting of actual aliens. Close encounters of the fourth kind are alien abduction stories. Finally, close encounters of the fifth kind are cases where the people involved in the sighting are injured or killed.”

Ashley spoke up. “People get killed in UFO sightings?”

“Apparently, but it is quite rare. By far the most common encounters are mere UFO sightings, which are not all that interesting. In such cases all we really know is that someone saw something in the sky; perhaps it was a real UFO and perhaps it was not. However, stories of alien abductions are quite different. There we are given much more information than ‘I saw a flying saucer over my house!’. Once we start analyzing alien abduction stories we can see some fascinating trends.

“First of all, people from all walks of life, all ages, and all religions have reported being abducted. However, there is one group of people that has never been abducted, and that is sincere born-again Christians. It is true that some people who have been abducted claimed to be Christians, but when interviewed it became obvious that they were Christian-in-name-only. There is not one case of a passionate believer in Jesus ever being abducted by aliens, despite years of searching all over the world.”

“Well, that’s kind of weird,” Lora said.

“Indeed it is. Second, when people are abducted many report being taken against their will, and those who are taken are often subjected to all manner of horrifying medical experiments. After years of study and interviewing, researchers have found just one technique that was able to stop an abduction that was in progress and set people free. This was when people called on the name of Jesus to help them.”

Max spoke up. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Professor Grimes shook his head. “I am not kidding at all. After years of searching that is the only technique that has been found to work. There are actually many documented cases of people getting abducted, panicking, calling on Jesus, and instantly being freed. The name of Jesus seems to panic the abductors. They do not care for it. If you read UFO abduction stories – and your textbook includes numerous examples – you will see many accounts of this. It’s really quite incredible.

“A third fascinating point is that people who see UFOs or who become abducted are quite often involved in some way with the occult. People who have been involved in satanism, or who have split personalities, or children whose parents engage in occultic activity appear to be prime candidates for abduction. Somehow dabbling in witchcraft makes it much more likely that you will see a UFO.”

“Another common thread in abduction stories is that the aliens have a united religious message. Christianity, they say, is a plague upon mankind and is holding us back. They claim there is no such thing as sin. There was also nothing special about Jesus Christ – he was just another alien like them and deserves no special attention. Lucifer, however, is a wonderful person who mankind has simply misunderstood.

“The aliens tell us that the reason they have come is to help us evolve to a higher form of being. If we will just listen to them and accept their teachings then all of our problems will go away. The Bible hiders us; we must eliminate it. We must find divinity within ourselves and accept their leadership. The main thing that is holding us back are all these religious fundamentalists who insist that Jesus is the only way. If that group can be eliminated then the world will become filled with peace and happiness.”

“That’s preposterous!” Max replied. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe that aliens from the stars have traveled light-years to get here just to tell us to give up our Bibles. That’s insane.”

Professor Grimes smiled. “You don’t have to take my word for it. You are welcome to read the accounts of abductions yourself. There are a great many of them, and their religious message is not hard to find. This is not being done in a corner somewhere. The specific anti-Jesus agenda that is present in these abductions is quire remarkable.

“Nor is that all. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that alien abductions are not pleasant things. People commonly report all sorts of horrifying experiments, gruesome torture, and other fiendish things that I will not repeat here. Those who are abducted sometimes end up with horrible, unknown diseases or die at a young age. Abductees are frequently terrified, experimented on against their will, and tormented. For whatever reason, aliens seem to enjoy extracting as much terror as they possibly can from those they abduct.”

“Aliens sound, like, really bad,” Ashley said. “I don’t think I want to meet them.”

“Nor do I. But do you see the common threads in this picture? The aliens will not touch genuine Christians but enjoy torturing everyone else. They are afraid of the name of Jesus, to the point where they run when they hear it, but they defend Lucifer. The message they deliver is that we must abandon what Jesus has told us and embrace a new, unbiblical faith. If I were to paint a picture of demonic activity it would be hard to get any closer than this. The way UFO researchers describe aliens is precisely the way the Bible describes demons.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Max exclaimed. “Are you telling me that demons are flying spaceships around?”

“Not exactly,” Professor Grimes replied. “Here is something to think about. During the Middle Ages people were warned not to go into the Black Forest because gnomes, fairies, and little people would kidnap you and drag you away to dark places, where you would be tortured. Eventually people stopped believing in such things and the abductions stopped. Then in the 19th century, before flight was developed, people began seeing giant airships in the sky that pulled up the unwary and kidnapped them. In the 1950s people began seeing flying saucers instead of airships, and inside these saucers were magnetic tape drives, giant computers, and aliens who tormented them. Today the saucers contain LCD monitors, modern computers, and lasers – along with aliens who torment people. It’s quite interesting that the supposed spacecrafts, along with their interiors, has always reflected whatever people at the time thought was cutting-edge science. It makes you wonder if the spaceships are actually real at all, or are simply some kind of sophisticated illusion.

“It’s also interesting that the home planet of the supposed aliens has changed over time. In the 1950s abductees were told that the aliens were from Venus and Mars. Then after mankind sent probes to Mars the message changed, and the aliens began claiming that they were from Jupiter and Saturn. Once mankind sent probes to the outer planets the message changed again, and now the aliens claim to be from the stars or from distant galaxies. The lie has always been adjusted to be plausible at the time – but each time it was proven to be a lie the story changed.”

Max shook his head. “I just find it all a bit hard to believe. I mean, seriously. Demons are using fake UFOs to kidnap and torture people? Isn’t that a bit loony?”

“Consider the alternative for a moment. The other possibility is that UFOs are genuine spaceships manned by real aliens who are terrified of Jesus, run at the very mention of His name, and will not touch genuine believers. These same aliens hate Jesus with a passion, peddle a false gospel, discredit the Bible, and defend the reputation of Lucifer. They also like to torture people against their will, cause as much terror as possible, and prefer to show themselves to people deeply enmeshed in the occult. Oh – and they also keep redesigning their spaceships to reflect whatever technology you can find at your local electronics store. It’s no wonder that even secular researchers have come to conclude that whatever UFOs are, they are not aliens from another world.”

“But why would they bother?” Max asked. “What’s the point of all this? Just to torment people?”

“That is quite possible, but there may be more to it than that. Consider this. Part of the message of these beings is that Bible-believing Christians are holding mankind back from reaching the pinnacle of their evolution. However, the aliens assure everyone not to worry. One day real soon the Christians will all be beamed up to the sky and go on to a better place. Then, with all those backward Christians gone, the aliens can come and fix society and usher mankind into a new era.”

Laura gasped. “Oh my goodness! Are they really saying that?”

“Yes, young lady, they are. I always wondered how the forces of darkness would explain the Rapture. What lie could possibly hide the truth of the Lord’s return for His Church? Now we may know the answer to that. Recent movies like Skyline have conditioned people to the idea that aliens may come and beam people up into their motherships. There is an entire community of people – millions strong – who not only believe that aliens and UFOs are real, but also that the aliens are beneficial beings who wish to help mankind. This is just pure conjecture, but suppose that after the Rapture a whole fleet of UFOs appeared in the sky and the aliens announced that the source of mankind’s problems had just been removed and the aliens had all the answers. Would the world – which, at that point, would be entirely composed of non-believers – listen and accept the message? I greatly fear that they would.”

“So you think it’s all a plot, then,” Ashley said.

“I think that’s a strong possibility. The increasing UFO activity – and the activity is increasing, as even the news media attests – may simply be demonic preparation for the Rapture. I doubt they know exactly when it will occur, but I suspect that they know, as we do, that the hour of the Lord’s return is drawing closer. My fear is that when it does occur the forces of darkness will be ready. God did promise to send a strong delusion to those who refused to believe the truth; I wonder if this could be part of that.”

The professor glanced up at the clock. “It looks like that is all we have time for today. Class, you are dismissed. There is no class again until next week. Don’t forget to do your reading assignments. I hope that all of you have a good weekend!”