Dear Ancient Alien Gods, Thank You for Our Intelligent Design
UFOs & Religion in a Time of Technocracy
In the beginning, ancient alien gods created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the alien gods were hovering over the waters. – Exogenesis 1:1, New Revised Alien Bible
During an interview for Vox in 2019, Diana Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina highlighted the overlap between beliefs in extraterrestrials and UFOs with religious thinking. Pasulka voiced her feeling that these cosmic belief systems were on track to becoming a new kind of popular religion. The opening paragraph above is a tongue-in-cheek example of what a future alien-centric bible might look like.
In a 2022 YouGov survey, 57% of respondents held the view that intelligent aliens either probably exist or definitely do so. The same survey also revealed that 34% of US citizens believe UFOs include alien craft and that 24% of citizens had seen what they classified as a UFO. These are some pretty big numbers, far from making the topics niche or obscure. In fact, the figures align well with those for modern levels of belief in God, which isn’t a simple coincidence according to Pasulka. Those expressing belief represent all segments of society, most notably a significant number of scientists.
While a significant part of ancient astronaut theory and ufology is comparable to traditional religious structures, involving magical thinking and faith-based acceptance, it is better aligned to science than existing religions. Unlike God and divine miracles, any aliens interacting with earth showing off their crafts and acts of techno-sorcery can theoretically be objectively validated through scientific analysis. Pasulka notes that the potential for objective scientific confirmation of a non-human intelligence operating UFO-super-craft in our skies “makes this a uniquely powerful narrative for the people who believe in it”.
Indeed, a psychological study of 1,146 undergraduate students found that belief in aliens and UFOs as space craft was linked to the same search for meaning typically answered by religious beliefs. The study, published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Motivation and Emotion suggested that rather than religion declining across the US, people were actually shifting towards other areas of religiosity with overlapping elements that felt spiritually satisfying.
The alien gods already have some powerful inroads into the minds of existing religious thinkers as well as atheists. There are many thinkers, both religious and atheist, who see references to obvious alien beings throughout the bible and other ancient texts. Consider the longstanding claims that the biblical story of Ezekiel's wheel is a description of an extraterrestrial craft, an interpretation popularised not only by independent researchers such as Eric von Daniken but also by a senior NASA engineer, Josef F. Blumrich. The biblical passages of Genesis 6:2-5, referring to the sons of God taking wives from among the daughters of men and producing giant offspring, have regularly been pointed to as evidence of aliens sexually abusing human beings.
Indeed, the entire topic of biblical demons has become analogous to evil aliens in the minds of many people. After all, isn’t a demon just a type of alien from some other world or dimension that exhibits extremely hostile intentions towards humans and uses seemingly magical powers to get its way? The magical powers of the demons fit nicely with their possessing advanced technology, as the famous science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, puts it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Note here that when I use the term aliens, it incorporates various potential origins for non-human intelligent entities, including extraterrestrial (beyond earth), interdimensional (other dimensions), cryptoterrestrial (hidden on earth) and extratempestrial (time travel). Labelling an alien as demonic does not really add any important explanation or clarification other than indicating that it is extremely hostile and has been talked about in religious literature.
Islamic lore includes a collective of entities called Jinn, beings of smokeless fire, among which we find some that match the biblical demons. Some of the Jinn appear benevolent or at least ambivalent, among them are some that sound like nature spirits others perhaps extraterrestrials. Buddhism has entire texts on wheel systems (think of rotating galaxies) with worlds populated by intelligent beings. Indeed, there is one notable account of an alien visitation depicted in the Lotus Sutra involving an entity called Bodhisattva Gadgadasvara who visits the Buddha from some other world before later returning hence.
An analysis of religious history tells us that religions usually flower from claimed contact between humans and something existing beyond our plane of existence. Religious movements also naturally reflect elements of the cultural milieu that acts as their growth medium. Today we live in a world that is permeated by technologies, many of them highly invasive and profoundly influential on the shaping of our societies. Is it so surprising that accounts of personal contact with technological aliens, some enlightened, others selfish and demonic, find fertile ground to produce new religious movements? Especially when we consider that some of the contact accounts have gained serious attention from both academics and silicon valley elites, disseminated globally by a mass media network specialised in triggering engagement.
As an ancient astronaut theorist with a media presence, I am also part of this strange story. I have played at least some small role in the culture of religiosity around UFOs and alien visitation. Especially, having appeared as a guest expert on History Channel’s Ancient Aliens, a show that has been central to the popularizing of the belief in extraterrestrial visitation both historic and current. How history will judge my part in all of this high strangeness is to be seen. To paraphrase Gandalf’s thoughts on Gollum in Lord of the Rings, even the very wise can not see all ends and my heart tells me that I have some part to play yet, for good or ill. My current conviction is that my role is in assessing prehistoric contact between a non-human intelligence and the ancestors of Homo sapiens almost 800,000 years ago. Considering everything already discussed, it may well be that strengthening the objective evidence of past contact could inadvertently also fuel the emergence of alien-centric religion. Indeed, much of the narrative that I am going to share with you, supported by evidence, overlaps existing religious lore. Perhaps, though, there is the potential to beneficially unify the spiritual and the scientific somewhere in this topic, without fuelling a new era of dogmatic zealots. This line of thinking brings us nicely to the topic in the header, intelligent design (ID).
While many people confuse intelligent design with biblical creationism it is not the same thing, the connection is largely driven by the fact the majority of ID researchers are themselves religious (often exhibiting a religious bias). This makes it something of an intellectual quagmire. The New World Encyclopaedia offers a good description of intelligent design as it should function:
“Intelligent design (ID) is the view that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection". Intelligent design cannot be inferred from complexity alone, since complex patterns often happen by chance. ID focuses on just those sorts of complex patterns that in human experience are produced by a mind that conceives and executes a plan. According to adherents, intelligent design can be detected in the natural laws and structure of the cosmos; it also can be detected in at least some features of living things.”
While purported evidence of intelligent design in the natural world is almost always eventually linked back to a universal architect (a metaphysical deity), this need not be the inference. There can be non-human intelligence from outside the known world that is not an architect of the universe, but instead some form of life/awareness that shares existence with us humans. In other words, any fingerprints of intelligent designers may well just be indications of advanced aliens manipulating some aspects of our planet. The primary focuses for ID research have traditionally been the origin of life, the mechanics of DNA and the evolution of human beings. These have also become my own primary research fields and I would accept the designation of myself as a non-religious ID scholar.
Where some see God, I see aliens. Keep in mind that one of the biggest criticisms levelled at religious ID arguments is that a perfect creator God should not be making mistakes. The natural world is full of horrific errors, not least the agonising genetic conditions suffered by many humans. Conversely, we should not be surprised if an imperfect alien intelligence manipulated human life here without concern for attaining perfection. Their precise aims might be forever mysterious or beyond our full comprehension, after all, their minds would be entirely alien to us. The example I give above is not chosen at random, I do see potential evidence of alien genetic engineering related to both human evolution and the emergence of certain genetic diseases. This is one of the topics we’ll discuss in more detail as we progress through my research material.
As a quick clarification, it is neither my intention to create a religion nor undermine any that already exists. I will simply take you wherever the evidence goes and offer my interpretation of whatever data has been identified in the investigative process. All I ask is that no matter how this profoundly sensitive (possibly blasphemous) discussion progresses, please don’t crucify me!
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