Special Report

With Jeff Stueber

Aliens and UFOs: Gods of New Age Evolution

Ufos have penetrated a vast amount of our society, from movies, television, and books, to religious cults and only a fool would believe they have no cultural significance. People often claim "spiritual" effects of ufo-occupant encounters and there are few books on ufos that emphasize the spiritual aspect of the ufo phenomenon and its relationship to New Age beliefs. Eventually belief in ufos and serious consideration of them requires a reevaluation of what god you believe in as well as where you put your hope of future salvation.

Ufo-ology is married to the Darwinian evolutionist paradigm and often that of New Age reincarnation. Those in the New Age movement who watch the skies looking for "little green men" do so because they believe that these aliens are beings who have gone though more evolution than us and have achieved more knowledge and greater power and are, perhaps, more benign than us. Since aliens could be so older, much more evolved, and therefore more intelligent, then belief in them and interest in them is of tremendous significance. These beings may perhaps even be our creator and replace the gods of other religions, at least that is what some people believe.

Erich Von Daniken

Erich Von Daniken was clearly looking for a new religion when he took up speculation of ufos. His theory is that ufo occupants visited primitive people and educated them on creating structures like the pyramids. A feature of every religion is that it promises help and salvation and Daniken wonders why these aliens did not deliver a strong primitive religion. Daniken goes on to say that "the world of ideas which has grown up over the millennia is going to collapse." Knowledge that was hidden is being seen and the mysteries of space travel are no longer mysteries. "Priests who seek the truth must again begin to doubt everything that is established," he tells us. ^{^[1]} Clearly Daniken was looking for a revolution he provided but which never totally developed.

Daniken's ideas about extraterrestrials are revealed in his constant reference to them as "gods" (sometimes the word is in quotes and sometimes not). Daniken tells us "The gods of the dim past have left countless traces which we can read and decipher today for the first time," ^{^[2]} and that is the subject of his books. Alien "gods" have left remnants and signs of their visit which are seen in places such as Easter Island, in constructions of temples, and in primitive drawings. Daniken is convinced our longing for the stars is kept alive by a legacy bequeathed by these gods, ^{^[3]} and we should not be surprised if he once expected a space ship to land and give him a vision of his gods in the same way Christians would like to see Christ. Christ was part of a trinity that created man and Daniken sees the relationship between man and his aliens in that same way when he proclaims that "our forefathers received visits from the universe in the remote past. These `strangers= annihilated part of mankind existing at the time and produced, perhaps, the new homo sapiens.@ ^{^[4]} Daniken tells us how these aliens might have "monkeyed" with our genetics to produce humans and this is how he explains the quantum leap in evolution we see, that which appears between apes and man.

Daniken clearly had powerful beliefs in extraterrestrials, but that was not the limit. He clearly believed in much more, an all encompassing godlike nature in which he and the aliens belong.

I suspect that with the step into the interstellar third millennium the end of terrestrial polytheism will inevitably come.

With the assumption that we are all parts of the mighty IT, God no longer has to be simultaneously good and bad in some inconceivable way; He is no longer responsible for sorrow and happiness, for ordeals and acts of providence. We ourselves have the positive and negative powers within us, because we come from the IT that always was. ^{^[5]}

Along the way he distorts the Biblical record to make his theories stick. Suddenly we are told the "Fall" has nothing to do with sin. We were made intelligent by these alien gods and "lapsed" in his words. The situation was made worse by humans inbreeding with animals. Daniken declares that the Old Testament record is not history, but its books "steps in the construction of religion." Since he has no respect for Old Testament history, it should come as no surprise that every revelation that comes from the Biblical God suddenly comes from these alien "gods." ^{^[6]} Given Daniken's theology, how else could they come about?

Daniken's theories were very powerful at the time he formulated them. His theories were heralded by two major network television specials, two major motion pictures, and more than sixty books that refer to Von Daniken's theories. The American NBC-TV special "In Search of Ancient Astronauts" was based on his theories. He attained instant stardom by selling 12 million copies of his books in the United States and 34 million worldwide. ^{^[7]}

Alan and Sally Landsburg followed Daniken's formula with their book The Outer Space Connection. ^{^[8]} The Landsburgs admit some may be skeptical ("Oh you're doing that von Daniken stuff") because they clearly do follow Daniken's line of thought. In fact, they state they owe a debt to Daniken because their curiosity first piqued when they became involved with film that was based on Daniken's Chariots of the Gods?.

One of the first theories the Landsburgs explore is the theory that the pyramids were built by aliens from another planet (or at least they helped). We are told of a London publisher named John Taylor who claimed that Noah built the pyramids with the help of superbeings. People laughed at Taylor until the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth, published figures that supported Taylor's view. These figures found "a number of astronomical and mathematical correlations within the dimensions of the Great Pyramid," as the Landsburgs describe them. In other words, the pyramids were built to such precise standards that they must have been built by ETs.

There seems to be this consistent strain of "we couldn't do it, so aliens must have helped us" logic running through these several books and this is similar to creationist arguments. However, I feel creationist arguments are more secure, especially when I consider the abuse of history and scripture these Daniken disciples use. Might it be possible the Egyptians were good at math and science and were able to construct, with their primitive tools, monuments like the pyramids? Might it also be fair to ask whether the first few humans received a lot of direct knowledge from God and not aliens? Daniken has already dismissed the Old Testament as myth, yet he and the Landsburgs feel free to engage in mythical discussions of their own.

The Landsburgs delve into deep mysticism later. They suggest the idea of immortality had a link to space aliens and even have some pictures in the middle of their book that provide the link they seek to forge. (Text over a picture of the pyramids asks "Does Immortality Depend on the Pyramid Shape?") A scientist subjected a fossil trilobite to a Kirlian test (the test to show which parts of the body radiate more light than others) to see if they had the glow around them that living beings have. They had a faint glow around them which seemed to "spark" rather than glow. This prompted them to conclude:

To me it meant that something of the life force remained; something was still embedded in those ancient fossils millions of years after the creatures supposedly died. Was that life force eternal, immortal? Did it persist as part of the universe, a cosmic entity that ensured the propagation of life throughout the heavens?

The Landsburgs continue by asking whether Kirlian photography is part of the outer-space phenomenon. If life is not unique on Earth and immortality is a fact, at least in the eyes of the Landsburgs, then aliens play a large part in perhaps spreading their knowledge of this to us.

Highly Evolved Godlike Aliens

Since evolution is fact to many and the belief that there must be intelligent life outside our planet follows logically from their beliefs, the assumption naturally comes that this life is so much highly evolved than us because it has existed for a much longer time than us. Often people accept these assumptions without explanation or evidence. For instance, Carl Sagan, who is deceased now, believed there could be a million other stars with planets in our own galaxy alone which have advanced civilizations at this moment. ^{^[9]} This he believed despite calculations which dictate that the odds of life evolving by chance on other planets is extremely small. ^{^[10]} Sagan was, at the time Roy Stemman's The Supernatural: Visitors From Outer Space was written, director of planetary studies at Cornell and one of the foremost spokesmen of exobiology -- a new field of study that deals with the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the means of detecting it. ^{^[11]}

Robert Jastrow, astronomer, contemplates the search for alien intelligence:

As we contemplate this possibility, we must remember that when the eagerly awaited message arrives, it is likely to be from a nonhuman form of intelligent life - creatures as far removed from humans in the evolutionary scale as humans are removed from the crawling creatures of the sea. ^{^[12]}

Jastrow tells us there are risks associated with a contact with aliens. Yet, the rewards in contact are so much greater, he tells us: AA million years is a long time in the evolution of intelligence. Great scientists like Einstein seem to appear every thousand years; great inventors of new technologies, perhaps every few decades. In the next million years, a thousand Einsteins may live on the earth, and hundreds of thousands of great inventors. Suppose an older society, which has long since traveled the path we are just starting on, made all these theories and inventions available to us. We might learn the secret of immortality, of virtually unlimited energy, of cures for the most dreaded diseases. The wisdom of an older and far superior civilization could become ours.@ ^{^[13]}

In the Danbury Press series The Supernatural, we find similar sentiment expressed with regard to ufos. Logic, we are told, tells us that if life has evolved on one planet orbiting an ordinary star, then the chances are that the same evolutionary process has occurred elsewhere. Since this must have occurred in many cases long before the Earth was created, the chances are that there are numerous civilizations with abilities so great that they are beyond our comprehension. Who knows where alien civilizations have gone in the years they have been apart from us and who can guess what they'd have to offer us. ^{^[14]}

Likewise, James Christian, in his essay "The Story of Life: Earth's Four-Billion-Year Beginning," expresses this idea when he says, "[I]n countless cosmic ecosystems there will be some species that have evolved into complex forms and attained advanced stages of perception, consciousness, awareness, and abstract rational capability plus qualities of consciousness quite beyond what man has so far developed or can at present imagine.@ ^{^[15]}

Joseph Royce asks if there are levels of consciousness that go beyond individuated consciousness. "Eastern mystics would probably say yes," he tells us. While Royce is skeptical, he suggests we in the West ought at least to listen because if there is a high level of intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos, it might be short of omniscient. ^{^[16]} Royce is the first in this essay to suggest a link to Eastern mysticism and hence a link to reincarnation, evolutionary pantheism, and superior intellect developed through ages of evolutionary "betterment."

Can you imagine somebody actually giving godlike qualities to alien beings? This is nothing but idol worship, but with a New Age face. Royce also suggests we should give away our loyalty to the universe just because we know other beings exist. I don't think this would be necessary as I believe we could still have our state, country, and world boundaries. Yet, when you look at Royce's theology, it becomes clear. How can we commit ourselves to the earth, when we have godlike beings above us? Royce's idea is just another version of the religious idea of being closer to your god who in this case advocates being closer to a god of alien culture and being.

We go now to a more direct statement of how Buddhist and Hindu theology impacts a belief in extraterrestrials. Ronald Huntington:

In short, the Indian philosophical and cosmological framework as found in these religions explicitly assumes the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences, in the most literal meaning of the term, in habitats and modes of being both superior and inferior to human life as we know it. Moreover, that framework provides no inherent reasons why you or I should not have been an ETI [extraterrestrial intelligence] in a prior existence or could not be one in some future existence. As Huston Smith has said, "If we were to take Hinduism as a whole -- its vast literature, its opulent art, its elaborate rituals, its sprawling folkways -- if we were to take this enormous outlook in its entirety and epitomize it in a single, central affirmation we would find it saying to man: You can have what you want." ^{^[17]}

This paragraph explains possibly why Eastern philosophies are making a comeback. When aliens are considered reincarnated gods, and we are also part of that continual reincarnation, the possibilities for a revived, yet mutated, Eastern religious revival are endless.

When we finally come in contact with these aliens, a lot of changes are going to happen, mostly in people's beliefs and attitudes. And many questions will be answered, probably many of those that Daniken hopes to answer with his space-god theories. James Christian again says this same thing.

We are part of a living universe composed not merely of lower life-forms on the order of algae, rotifers, lichens, and planets. In terms of man's search for relatedness and meaning, it would not be enough to know that only low life-forms exist. The meaning of human existence changes because we belong to a biocosmos of intelligence. High life-forms exist that, judged by specific qualities of perception and consciousness, are our peers, and our superiors. It is with this recognition that the phrase "we are not alone" takes on meaning. [emphasis his] ^{^[18]}

Christian's book even contains a similar idea contained in a quotation from Isaac Asimov in an introductory page to his book. Asimov says, "If we ever establish contact with extraterrestrial life, it will reveal to us our true place in the universe, and with that comes the beginnings of wisdom."

I don't know how contact with aliens could solve all the mysteries that needed to be solved. There would still be questions of how the aliens evolved to be as they are, what their belief systems used to be or are now, and what future role the aliens and us play in the universe. Yet according to these authors, the end of the quest for knowledge stops where these space alien "gods" begin. Contrast this view with the dominant religious view that the path to knowledge is through knowing God. When you make this comparison-contrast, you find that these aliens that are hoped for so badly are indeed substitute gods meant to save us, if anything from our ignorance.

Just gaining knowledge is not the end of the ardent ufo-faith. People who are ufo religionists believe they have a part in the coming New Age, an age that might be marked by the potential for contact with actual space beings. These believers might be the "chosen few" who are to play a big part in the plan aliens have for us. Just as religious people who believe in a god believe that faith leads to heaven, so many ufo followers believe that faith in ufo'nauts will land them rich rewards the day the aliens decide to reveal the big plans for our earth. These are the extremes of the ufo cults that exist in small pockets throughout our world.

This search for ufo beings has even led to the belief that certain parts of the Martian landscape are crafted by ufo occupants and that these occupants have visited Earth to encourage humans to reproduce facets of alien culture in our creations. I'm not at liberty to discuss the majority of them, but I can focus on one aspect of this belief. Some people believe that a portion of the Martian landscape resembles an alien face. They believe that aliens somehow influenced people on Earth to build structures that resemble that face. Is it really a face? No, it is not. The supposed face is a mesa one mile across. ^{^[19]} Yet, despite this, I have seen the video Monuments of Mars being touted on television as giving proof that extraterrestrials visited us, because there are so many similarities between the Martian landscape and human structures. Could this be the next Daniken-like movement? So far it has died out, but others, I believe, will crop up to take its place.

So far, I mentioned Daniken, Christian, and other space-god proponents. Ronald Story has assembled a list of others which include the likes of Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Charles Fort,and about 17 others. ^{^[20]} Blavatsky and Besant are well known for starting the occult religion of Theosophy (a religion built around pantheism and evolution).

The Aliens Speak

Ruth Tucker was a syndicated Washington columnist. She turned her research to spiritual and psychic affairs because she was told that she could be a medium by psychic Arthur Ford, who she later talked to through the "void" of death. She's written books on the after-death experiences, reincarnation, and other psychic experiences. She writes with an apparent sincere need to get her message across.

Midway in this next-to-last decade before the end of the twentieth century, and the long-predicted shift of the earth on its axis, extraterrestrial communication seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. Unlike our government, I do not feel that the subject can no longer be ignored. Pulling the bedcovers over our heads does not rid us of the presence of space aliens, nor should we want to turn them away. They are said to be here to help us earthlings, and in my opinion we need all the help we can get in our strife-ridden, polluted, self-centered society. ^{^[21]}

That people on Earth are having the problems Tucker says is undeniable, but why we should turn our problems over to space aliens is not clear. It may be because they are supposedly more advanced and may have founded society on this planet (as Daniken believes). Or it may be because they have gone through their own crisis on their planet, wherever that may be, and have conquered it.

Should we turn over our society totally to the influence of space beings, whose overall effects on ufo witnesses have been negative? I don't believe so. The situation changes, however, for true believers because when you cast society's problems in the form of a potential catastrophe that may engulf our world, the influence of even outside alien intelligence is welcomed. The aliens may know what is to occur and may offer their help. Then again, they may not, and their influence may even be worse than any planetary catastrophe we might have to go through.

Tucker speaks of alien Guides who are directing the various people she interviews. These guides are "souls" who inhabit humans (they're called "Walk-Ins") and have "had numerous lives on other planets as well as earth, and have returned here to rescue us from our limited thought patterns before it is too late." These Guides bring a message. "We are all one," they say. "Our space brothers share with us a mutual Creator." These Guides are, according to Tucker, "in the spirit plane," just as we all will be when we die. In this way, the aliens take on an angelic or demonic form. A few Christian authors have recognized this including William Alnor and Zola Levitt. The relationship between the supposed angelic nature of the aliens and the form of the angels of religious institutions is clear from the research. For those whose faith is in aliens and are in need of new gods, this similarity is only a mere coincidence, a coincidence to be pleasantly ignored. Then the aliens become almost a spiritual replacement for the angels and gods of pre-New-Age history.

Tucker herself admits that she came in contact with aliens after medium Arthur Ford told her that she had the ability to do "automatic writing." Automatic writing is the writing of material with the direction of spiritual beings. It is not uncommon in spiritualistic circles to do writings via this method. This brings to mind the Biblical passage:

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.(Deuteronomy 18:9-12)

That's the warning. How about a prophecy to back up that warning:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.(1 Timothy 4:1-2)

Human beings are also deified in the information from the Guides. According to Tucker, the Guides told her that we began as sparks from god and souls in other galaxies began that way and are part of god as co-creators of the universe. In that way, we are all one with god in a pantheistic sense.

Now who could doubt the message from aliens who want sincerely to help us, and who tell us that we are all part of a universal godhood? Certainly this view of life has tremendous appeal. Who would want to be subservient to the god or gods of the old religions when you could be "co-creators" with the universe?

Tucker tells us that there were many people urging her on to write her book. Thousands of letters began to pour in from many readers. Even many Protestants begged her to write. The pressure mounted. People sincerely wanted to know about these alien gods.

Many of these people I've cited have just talked to aliens through channeling and nothing else. Others come in contact with people who have been in contact with ufo aliens. Some have even been abducted and have decided the continued contact with space aliens is worth the danger. Brad Steiger, a ufo-advocate and ufo abductee, finds that the aliens may be lying about certain things. Despite this, he decides to trust them because such experiences may be part of some "supercosmic jigsaw puzzle" ^{^[22]} to help mankind, a puzzle he feels is worth unraveling.

If one can find certain shiny grains of truth in this murky swirl of metaphysical sand and silt, then he will charge himself not to dismiss lightly the steadily unraveling scrolls of the Space Brothers' apocalyptic apocrypha. ^{^[23]}

Given the quotations I've mentioned earlier, we can see why Steiger would say that. Even despite the harmful effects of ufo encounters, contact is still worthwhile. Why not? If we have a shot at godhood by knowing these aliens, why would we not want to keep in contact with them and keep learning from them? Certainly godhood is worth the danger, isn't it?

Uri Geller

Uri Geller is a man who believes he has been in contact with ufo aliens, a man renowned for his feats of telepathy, spoon bending, mind reading, and other psychic tricks. Geller apparently received his power through consistent telepathic contact with aliens. An Israeli researcher, Dr. Puharich, did extensive research into the Geller phenomenon and, at one point, Puharich was able to record the aliens' voices on tape (with the aliens cooperation of course). There were many groups of aliens contacting him going by such diverse names as Rhombus 4-D and Spectra and hailing from undiscovered planets such as Hoova. Zola Levitt and John Weldon describe the information on what the aliens, according to the researcher Puharich, revealed.

Dr. Puharich was told that the extraterrestrials from Hoova have been observing the earth for some 20,000 years. They have made contact with men sporadically during that time, they said. Some of their contactees were well known figures in world history. They always exacted a pledge of secrecy, but this apparently has been lifted in our time, as Dr. Puharich was asked to reveal their communication to mankind.

Geller performs his feats thanks to the advanced scientific knowledge of the planet Hoova, where all problems of life have been solved, say the voices. Their science encompasses translocation of material objects, complete control over biological systems, healing, the implantation of feelings and ideas into other minds, and the ability to travel across time as we travel across space.

Dr. Puharich says that the basic attitude of the extraterrestrials is benevolent and that they wish to help mankind. Their superior knowledge can . . . be beneficial to earthlings if we cooperate. ^{^[24]}

This experience evidently made an impression on Puharich. His experience with Geller and the ufo occupants led him to believe that Geller was a type of "ufo-savior."

Puharich goes on to make such a startling claim that one's first response is to doubt his sincerity. Briefly he says that Geller is a kind of savior or messiah, controlled by beings from outer space that are hovering a few million miles away in a spaceship called Spectra. These beings had apparently visited earth on a number of previous occasions, and had also selected the patriarch Abraham and the Pharaoh Imhotep as avatars, or incarnations of a divine being. ^{^[25]}

Certainly many would take the word of a "savior" without asking. However, Colin Wilson sounds a warning cry. He asks us to consider just where these powers of Geller come from and what and who Geller's providers actually are.

The fact that a person possesses certain powers proves nothing about the source of those powers . . . In the long history of messianic religious movements, dozens of messiahs have astounded their followers by apparently genuine miracles . . . But as their promises about the end of the world have proven untrue, we must conclude that most of them were self-deceivers, however authentic their strange powers. Similarly, Puharich's claims regarding Geller's gifts may be true - but this does not prove Geller is a messiah or that the spaceship Spectra exists. ^{^[26]}

That is a very thoughtful statement! These powers Geller demonstrates may be totally true powers just as the powers of other psychics are true. This does not, however, tell us anything about where the powers originate. Geller may say his powers come from ufo'nauts and the ufo aliens may also say this, but how do we know whether Geller and the aliens are telling the truth? Geller may be lying. The aliens may be lying. The aliens may be deluding Geller and causing him to lie. How can we trust them to tell us anything about the truth of where Geller's powers come from? The answer is,"We can't." For those of open mind, the logic of this reasoning is clear. For those who are clamoring for a movement - whether it be cultic or psychic - they will not wait for the product of scientific inquiry. They must believe now, for the movement gives them the meaning they were looking for.

It is said that Geller=s tricks are either fake or their accuracy is in doubt. Milbourne Christopher's book Mediums, Mystics and the Occult is welcome reading simply because it's an in-depth presentation of so many frauds and fakes in the world of psychics (Uri Geller is one featured in the book). ^{^[27]} It's a sad, disgusting citation of the efforts of those who think they are psychic and can foretell the future, only to be shown to be grievously in error. What a waste of good material to attempt to be what you are not.

The aliens that contacted Geller say they have the ability of translocation. Compare this to the messages from the aliens Ruth Tucker told us about. They say that they are helpful to us. Compare this to the overall harmful effects aliens have on ufo observers. The ufo occupants appear to want to deceive us, and they obviously do. This fact is readily apparent to anyone well versed in the ufo movement. Now compare Puharich's ideas with the devotion attributed to beings in genuine religions. Perhaps Puharich's views are the views the ufo aliens want to encourage? We certainly can't dismiss that possibility, or the powers they give out.

Puharich's religious devotion to Geller and the ufo'nauts is not unique. I remember reading a story in a newspaper supplement about a woman who had been kidnapped by a ufo. She later said that now she feels more "spiritual" about herself and the world, and feels that she wants to get to know what the aliens want from her.

ETS Among Us

Another author that discusses the possibility that extraterrestrials are among us now is George Andrews and his view of aliens and what they want is typical of New Age thought. His chapter entitled "Space Tribes Signal" is one of the most revealing chapters in his book Extraterrestrials Among Us ^{^[28]} in the sense that it is revealing of his New Age, pantheistic, evolutionary views. Andrews discusses various cattle mutilations witnessed across the country and why ufo'nauts might be doing this. He wonders if aliens are "farming" our cattle to either get our attention or to simply do alien scientific experiments. He believes that the aliens may have to get our attention because we are misdirecting our "psychic" energy into worshipping gods instead of directing it upward to these aliens with whom we may have much in common. Perhaps humans have forgotten to make the necessary sacrifices of killed animals, which were done so often in ancient times. Andrews wonders if "the human race as a whole has forgotten the significance of putting aside the first fruits of the harvest [and] has forgotten the ancient covenant and cosmic alliance that was nearly universal in the cultures of antiquity." Andrews continues with his analysis of the human/alien condition this way:

Human psychic energy may be the equivalent of rocket fuel or cocaine to inhabitants of other dimensions. Seen from this angle, the otherwise senseless wars of religion between devotees of different jealous gods which have recurred constantly throughout human history take on a rational motivation . . . By worshipping a specific deity, one channels psychic energy in a specific direction.

Andrews=s views are no anomaly based on his pantheistic views of reality. He says that in back of all is Acosmic consciousness, a composite of the consciousness of all forms of life on all the stars, including the macro-consciousness of galaxies, which are also living creatures. We each have this cosmic consciousness.@ Thus, we share a part of this combined consciousness of all beings, terrestrial and extraterrestrial. So therefore Andrews believes in the occult concept of latent human psychic energy which can be channeled or moved in a certain direction. Andrews recognizes the worship of deities in ages before Christ, but this worship is not worship that goes to a real deity, or worship that is even a remnant of a real relationship with a god. It is instead misdirected energy which belongs rightfully toward these space aliens he believes in. Andrews, in short, is nothing more than another believer in the "space-god" hypothesis. Andrews does conclude, "What seems to be of paramount interest to many of them is our belief systems." Given what I've listed here so far, I have to agree with his analysis that our belief system is being questioned by these aliens, although it's not for the same reasons Andrews gives.

His theories get juicier when he wonders if the worldwide appearance of LSD and ufos after the detonation of the first atomic bombs occurred to prepare us for a future ufo invasion. LSD has psychedelic effects on humans who use it. Maybe the taking of LSD has been put on earth to help "numb" us, so we won't be so shocked when we encounter these ufo'nauts. Andrews wonders if the discovery of the peculiar properties of LSD has been "telepathically inspired" and encourages LSD use as a means of research. He believes that "LSD research may be the most effective tool available to us for bringing the DNA code to conscious awareness." He believes that in ancient civilizations, the people in charge -- the "initiates" as he describes them -- were developed from hallucinogenic "plants of the gods" which were prepared just right. He quotes Charles Perry, who, in an article in Rolling Stone, states that it was a commonplace assertion in 1967 that LSD was causing a sort of accelerated evolution of the human race. Only Owsley [a psychedelic chemist described previously by Andrews] came up with a new twist: "What if LSD were revealed to us by beings from another planet who want us to evolve because they can use evolved intelligences as components in some immense, inconceivable machine of theirs?"

Actually the use of LSD to enhance ones mystical abilities is not new. Evolutionist Aldous Huxley believed that consciousness-expanding drugs can be used as a short-cut to mystical experiences. Harvard lecturer Dr. Timothy Leary and a few of his fellow researchers founded a society in New York to further social and psychic evolution and to alter human consciousness. Leary wrote an article lauding the benefits of putting LSD in water reservoirs saying that anyone who gets in touch with it should just sit back and enjoy it. ^{^[29]}

Andrews, in many ways, sounds like Daniken. He believes that aliens may have founded successions of civilizations and that reincarnation may be a way for some people to digress back to days when they were extraterrestrials or when they came in contact with some.

Andrews also weaves together reincarnation into this mess by suggesting "the concept of reincarnation implies a latent ability to regress back to former lives" and many who worked on developing this latent ability find their past lives were as extraterrestrials. Perhaps, also, the universe is overflowing with life and if we would use the 90% of our cerebral cortexes, we could perceive the rest of the universe. All the aliens have to do is slow down their rates of vibration and hence to listen to them we have to change our consciousnesses and wait for them. That's fine if we know they mean well. If they are deceiving spirits, woe to us.

Andrews is a capable ufo researcher. Even so, I believe his vision is clouded by his pantheistic view of cosmic consciousness, space-gods, reincarnation as a method of discovering your space-god heritage, and the future of a highly evolved society in the universe. I believe this is the same hope that blinded Daniken and other space-god believers.

Treking the Unknown

One can=t escape this essay without a mention of the television show Star Trek. I grew up as an addict of this show and have since continued to view its pantheistic non-Christian New Age beliefs.

Star Trek is based on the evolutionist paradigm that believes that life can spontaneously generate on Earth and other planets as well. That is, in fact, the whole basis for the trek through the universe. If there is marvelously evolved life on other planets, then it is worth our time to visit them.

However, the continuing message of Star Trek is that continual evolution is possible. I don=t mean simple evolution as in learning a new skill, like fork lift driving. I=m referring to evolution to a higher state, including the divine. This appears at least twice, one in the original series and also in the Star Trek the Next Generation.

In the original series, Captain Kirk and his first officer, Spock, came upon a planet where the leaders were evolved ascended masters that melted into oblivion as creatures of light. They were totally at peace with themselves as Kirk and Spock and their Klingon opponents quarreled. They even used their godly powers to control the destiny of the Earthling and Klingon battles. This theme continued into the Next Generation where a godly being named Q was concerned over the continual evolution of man and offered Riker (first officer to Captain Picard) a seat at the Q godhood so that these godly beings could understand humans= evolution and control it lest they be overtaken by it. In episode "Transfigurations," Captain Picard and the crew come upon a person who is a refugee from a planet whose inhabitants are hunting him. Picard and his crew don't know why the inhabitants are hunting him, until he starts displaying some rather unusual psychic abilities such as the ability to heal crewmembers. The crew later finds out the man is hunted because his home planet fears his continual evolution with its associated psychic powers.

Star Trek panders to Daniken and his ilk by its supposition that aliens are the hope for curing mankind=s ills. Star Trek the New Generation, ventured into the unknown with a total of three movies, one of which was Star Trek: First Contact. It told of the federation's old enemy, the Borg (robotic cyborgs), and their attempt to assimilate earth. The Borg have journeyed back to twenty-first century earth after the third world war when earth is most vulnerable. All Captain Picard and his crew must do the save earth is to make sure the first space flight by Zephram Cochrane takes place, for when it does, earth is contacted by an alien species which changes the future. Will Riker, Deana Troy, and Geordi Laforge (crew mates of Picard) are attempting to convince Cochrane to take his flight when the following discussion occurs:

Cochrane: Why tomorrow morning?

Riker: Because at 11:00 an alien ship will begin passing through this solar system.

Cochrane: You mean extraterrestrials? More bad guys?

Troy: Good guys. They're on a survey mission. They have no interest in earth. Too primitive.

Cochrane: Oh.

Riker: Doctor, tomorrow morning when they detect the warp signature from your ship and realize humans have discovered how to travel faster than light, they decide to alter their course and make first contact right here.

Cochrane: Here?

Geordi: Actually, over there.

Riker: It is one of the pivotal moments in human history, doctor. You get to make first contact with an alien race, and after you do, everything begins to change.

Geordi: Your theories on warp drive allow fleets of star ships to be built, and mankind to start exploring the galaxy.

Troy: It unites humanity in a way that no one ever thought possible, when they realize they're not alone in the universe. Poverty, disease, war -- they'll all be gone in the next fifty years.

The assumptions here are clearly New Age. Is contact with aliens the answer to all our problems even to the extent poverty, disease, and war disappear? At one point man discovered there was more of earth to explore, yet this did not prevent the consequences of sinful man, so why assume that with the discovery of limitless space ready for exploration, sinful man will somehow transcend his tendency to do harm to himself and others? These aliens are once again cast in the form of savior, although not totally described this way in the movie. The assumption is that these aliens are highly evolved and that they wouldn't teach us any harmful activities. Later Picard tells a woman who was trapped aboard the Enterprise the economics of the future are different than in her day; people no longer pursue monetary gain. This tells you a lot about New Age assumptions of what a proper healthy life should entail. Certainly under Star Trek New Age assumptions, not only are aliens credited with the removal of poverty and war but the removal of our capitalist system as well. This is a strange assumption to be seen in a movie made by a company that undoubtedly makes millions using the very capitalist system supposedly debunked by Picard.

Star Trek is the creation of Gene Roddenberry, a fallout Christian and pantheist. David Alexander his written a worthwhile biography ^{^[xxx]} of Roddenberry and reveals he was brought up on a modest Christian home, but this religion had no hold on him. Roddenberry was interviewed by Terrance Sweeney, Jesuit Priest. Sweeney was conducting interviews with several prominent individuals on their thoughts about god. Roddenberry said, "As nearly as I can concentrate on the question today, I believe I am God; certainly you are, I think we intelligent beings on this planet are all a piece of God, are becoming God. In some sort of cyclical non-time thing we have to become God, so that we can end up creating ourselves, so that we can be in the first place." God, he said, is as basic to the universe as neutrons as if like an equation that created the world.

This is the type of religion you must have if you want to believe in the religion of extraterrestrials. It=s a mix of New Age pantheism, Eastern mysticism, and hopeful humanism. For those who lean this way, it’s an attractive but intoxicating alternative to the cross of Christ.

Afterword

There are few Christian critiques of the ufo movement and as I wrote, books by Alnor, Weldon and Levitt, were the few I had. Not too long ago, I was fortunate to find James Lewis' (ed.) The Gods Have Landed: New Religions From Other Worlds (1995, State University of New York Press). This book also states there is a strong religious overtone to the whole ufo movement and it would be best to encourage searchers of truth of all faiths to add this book to their collection. Summarizing some of the information in this book will do my chapter on ufos justice.

J. Gordon Melton's opening chapter on the contactee phenomenon follows and describes ufo contacts before 1952, before George Adamski had his encounter with a ufo. Several features of them become apparent. First, outer space contact, with the exception to Emanuel Swedenborg's trek through the galaxy, is confined to the known solar system and almost totally to Venus, Mars, and the Moon. Aliens do not originate from outside our solar system and neither are people taken to planets outside our solar system. Second, contact is established by some psychic/occult means, astral travel used very often. This matches what Weldon and Levitt have said in their book I quote from in chapter two. Third, once contact is made, communication is made by telepathy. Fourth, contactee accounts emphasize a metaphysical message and the information about the planets serves to validate the spiritual lesson the aliens are teaching. As I showed in chapter two, a spiritual lesson is clearly being taught.

During the 1950s, the nature of contactees change, slightly. There are more direct encounters with flying saucers although astral travel is still often the preferred method of contact. The planets aliens originate from expand to include Saturn, Jupiter, and Clarion, the mysterious twin of Earth on the other side of the sun. Much more emphasis is placed on the metaphysical message the aliens have to send. Melton reflects upon this as follows:

Given the history of the pre-Adamski contactee accounts, we are no longer surprised, for we now understand that the contactee sees his/her task as delivering a message that has come out of either reflection upon, or an intuitive grasp of, the implications of modern science and culture. Thus, the contactees are naturally concerned with the effects of atomic power, war, pollution, and the need for the human family to come together.

From 1960 to the present, ufo contacts have had to change once again. "They have had to respond to increasing knowledge brought to the public consciousness that very little chance for intelligent life on this solar system exists," Melton says. They have had to abandon talk of contact wit not just Mars and Venus but other planets in our solar system as well. Then from Melton, we hear, "All of the new contactees to emerge in the last decade either fail to reveal the planet from which their extraterrestrials come, or place it on the remote edge of the universe, far from the prying eyes of the space programs." What Melton says is important because, as I document in earlier chapters, aliens are seen as the saviors of humanity, and they often are seen as technologically advanced enough to have mastered whatever technological problems may exist. As Andrews indicates, they also replace the gods of Judeo-Christianity who demand sacrifice. Yet, these aliens, if one may call them that, know an incredulous public will cease belief in them if they know mainstream science has spoken of the impossibility of life on other planets and none has been found. The solution is to move aliens' homeland to a region of the universe unexplored or, as Ruth Tucker says, they can say they are without bodies and therefore need no planets. It's the same as President Clinton saying he smoked but didn't inhale. The public, given a proper excuse to still believe, eats up the deception.

John Saliba continues in the next chapter on the analysis of the religious dimensions of ufo phenomena. Saliba lists different types of individuals interested in ufos: scientists, social scientists, hobbyists, and the like. There's no surprise there and neither is there any surprise that, given the different sizes and shapes of ufos, we discover there is a wide disagreement over what aliens look like. Some are human, some are just humanoid. Others are robot, apparitions, or exotic beings with "bizarre characteristics such as grotesque anatomical development." There is a wide disagreement where aliens originate and the Biblical interpretation of them. Some see aliens like angels and some see them as demons, an opinion toward which I lean.

After these surveys, Saliba discusses the religious themes in ufo phenomena. There is a great deal of mystery involved in following ufos and this brings about a belief in a transcendence of ufos. Here's how Saliba tells it:

Unidentified flying objects are essentially sky phenomena that readily become symbols of transcendence. They are believed to come from planetary systems that are outside the perceivable limits of human endeavor. They soar above us, effortlessly, almost within our grasp. Yet, they are intangible and evasive. They inspire our imagination, arouse within us a sense of wonder, nourish our fear of the unknown, and instill in our hearts a spark of hope. Although UFO occupants are often described as if they had physical bodies, they seem to be spiritual or psychic, rather than material beings. Their nature appears to be radically different from that of human beings, surpassing if not only in degree, but also in kind. It resembles that of the angels or saints in heaven, because it frees them from the limitations of matter and from the restrictions of the time-space dimension in which humans are trapped. When UFO beings are equated with the Ascended Masters, they become, even more clearly, religious entities that are beyond our universe and thus not subject to our scrutiny.

Saliba also says traits ascribed to supernatural beings or gods are also attributed to these aliens, perfection among many of these traits. These aliens, as I said in chapter two, are thought of as near perfect, totally advanced by evolution. As such, they offer us salvation, whether it is from disease, war, or what have you. Flying saucers also provide our society with an alternative world view to traditional religions. The question to ask is if these aliens are deliberately contributing to this changing world view or if we are superimposing upon them our own interpretations. The reader will have to decide.

Another gem of a scholarly study I recently uncovered is Gary North's Unholy Spirits: Occultist and New Age Humanism (1986, Dominion Press). North finds, as I do, evolution at the core of ufo beliefs and he identifies belief in evolution as an occultic theme. "Man is perceived as a being who is presently limited in time and space, but who is capable of achieving a leap of being and evolving into a much more powerful being in the future," North says. The myth of evolution takes hold in various places in ufo lore, especially where the tremendous advancement of aliens is presented. To North, ufos also offer the mystery and salvation Saliba spoke of.

Thus, the appeal of UFO phenomena is similar to the appeal of ancient mysteries. The believer joins the "cutting edge" of the next phase of evolution. He joins the ranks of the "true believers" whose wisdom, perception, and open minds have enabled them to perceive what average people will not admit is possible. The initiate (especially those who are not trained scientists, whose interest is more strictly scientific) is promised to be on the "inside track" in a new evolutionary leap of being. He will not be able to command the high ground morally, for the space invaders will give to him and to other initiates a new morality. The religious aspects of this quest for new information should be obvious.

Then North says something rather profound, or at least quotes a well-respected ufo researcher who waxes profoundly. North quotes Jacques Vallee as saying, "In my spare time, I pursued my UFO studies, trying to find some pattern in the global distribution of sightings." What Vallee says he deduced from the data is the ufo sightings "behaved like a conditioning process." Conditioning uses obscurity and confusion to achieve its goal while hiding its mechanism, Vallee says. After reading my chapter on ufos and the previous comments in this afterword, it becomes clear our society is being spoon fed bits and pieces of alien reality. Aliens are never brought up front-and-center so we may inspect them and it seems to me they are hiding. Perhaps we are not ready for them yet and a conditioning process must take hold before we are ready. Yet great tumultuous upheavals in knowledge and perception have happened over the course of civilization (Darwin's evolutionary writings being an example) and society has adapted. Perhaps these aliens hide their identity because the only way to be perceived as aliens is to hide their true identities. So to be perceived as aliens, they must make up excuses why they are not found on any of the planets in our solar system. Perhaps they can exist without bodies or they come from parts unknown. This serves as an excuse and then they appear to a few privileged disciples (abductees) and they show up in the sky only long enough to be spotted and hardly identified. Yet, the public perceives a mystery and the public loves a mystery. Meanwhile the movement grows in followers. At least Christ was more bold in gaining disciples than these.

Special Report

With Jeff Stueber

Aliens and UFOs: Gods of New Age Evolution

Notes