Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, are popular. The number of sci-fi novels, short stories, films, TV shows, factual documentaries, and the popular non-fiction literature (books and articles) must number in the multi-thousands. Are our interest and belief in, and search for, aliens, just a way of a substitution for a lack of belief in God? Do we have to believe in a higher power (advanced technology?), and if it’s not God, then extraterrestrials?
There are those who suggest that our obsession with ancient astronauts, UFOs, SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), and the like is nothing more than a religious fever under a different disguise. Instead of looking towards the heavens for salvation and ultimate truths in God, we reject God and instead we look towards the heavens and seek out new intelligences and new civilizations to boldly lead us on the path to a universal brotherhood; aliens that in their eternal wisdom will show us the one true path and give us all the benefits of their experiences and knowledge, knowledge that which gives us warp drives, a universal truth and justice, and the golden brick road that leads towards the cosmic way (the way of the cosmos?).
Balderdash! Well, sort of.
God, assuming a God, is about supernatural explanations for creations like the origin of our planet and of us.
God is supposedly about good vs. evil; heaven vs. hell, salvation vs. damnation, and a warm fuzzy eternal afterlife.
God is about morality (never mind the lack of His own).
We don’t look to aliens for creation mythology; the afterlife; and our moral codes.
Certainly SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientists do not sit in worship at their radio telescope cathedrals that great alien in the sky that they seek. Seek they do, but not to worship. However, some do go a bit over-the-top in suggesting the types of societies they are likely to find and communicate with – it’s their version of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. See below for more elaboration.
Assuming ancient astronauts, and assuming ancient astronauts were aliens, then the peoples of those ancient times obviously worshiped said ancient astronaut aliens. However, people interested in ancient astronaut aliens today hardly worship that what takes their interest. It’s just another facet of SETI (even if traditional SETI professionals would be horrified at having the study of ancient astronauts lumped in with what they do).
UFOs are slightly different kettles of fish to SETI (well, sort of) or ancient astronauts; different horses of many other colours. One such colour – at least to most people - is the cultist ‘giggle factor’ or ‘silly season’ colour. To the minority of others, well, they (cultists) believe in the ‘space brothers’ and are usually called contactees and they form various - for lack of a better phrase - New Age themed UFO societies. They do indeed worship, if not quite as gods, at least as ultra advanced supreme beings, who, for all practical purposes are as close to godlike and perfect as makes no odds. All is peace and harmony and enlightenment and utopia and perfect health and beauty and eternal rainbows in and on the worlds (including Venus and Saturn, etc.) of the ‘space brothers’. The ‘space brothers” collectively make even our most saintly of saints look like hardened criminals behind bars if not on death row!
UFO ‘space brother’ contactees or cultists often ‘preached’ their sermons of gloom and doom while offering salvation and enlightenment to the great unwashed via the messages they conveyed from those uppity-up pure-in-heart-and-mind aliens. Somehow the ‘space brothers’ offered us the one true pathway away from our destruction, often literally, as in the end of the world.
If I had some $$$ for every time the end of the world had been predicted, lets just say my bank manager and the tax office would both be pleased. I’m sure not a year goes by, probably not even a month, without someone (not always by any means UFO cultists) calling out loud and clear that ‘The sky is falling; the end is here; prepare to meet thy doom’. For those misguided beings who take one such ever ongoing prophecy seriously, it might, I guess, be more logical to put your salvation eggs in an extraterrestrial basket carried around by UFOs. There’s way more evidence for the UFO ETH (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis) than for God. God hasn’t been seen (for at least 4000 years or so), tracked on radar, left physical trace marks on our environment, nor has He been filmed or photographed.
But some of these New Age Themed UFO societies can be hazardous to your health. The Heaven’s Gate group in 1997 were going to hitch a ride with this UFO concealed in the Hale-Bopp Comet as it swung around the Sun. There was one catch however - to get from terrestrial ground zero, to Hale-Bopp, you had to do yourself a fatal mischief. According to the “M*A*S*H” theme song, suicide maybe painless but it is still suicide. [There have been several other instances of mass suicide among the membership of religious cults – the Branch Davidians (Waco , Texas ) and followers of Jim Jones and his People’s Temple (Guyana
Other New Age themed UFO societies are more harmless to your physical health (not sure about your mental health however), like the Unarius [Educational Foundation] Society; the Etherean Society; the Aetherius Society, and dozens more, both major and minor.
It has got to be said that bona fide UFO investigators dislike these cultists for muddying the UFO waters and turning what should be serious study into a joke within the larger general community. Riding with your racially pure white ‘space brothers’ in their UFOs to visit their home worlds (which either no one has ever heard of or which scientists have proven to be hellish enough, way beyond incapable of supporting complex life) and delivering their New Age words of cosmic truth and wisdom is going to generate a lot more column inches in the tabloids than serious investigations will in the major metropolitan press.
Fortunately, these contactees, and the New Age contactee movement were primarily a 1950’s fad. While there are those still around, they now have little real impact or influence today. However, their damage has been done, and the UFO field can not totally shake off their immense contribution to the UFO ‘silly season’ ‘giggle’ factor.
In general however, serious UFO investigators who take the phenomena, well, seriously, most certainly do not worship whatever aliens, if any, may pilot said UFOs. I’ve never seen any evidence that UFO investigators are any different from the general population in terms of religious affiliation or church attendance.
To be continued...
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