The recent interstellar space object, called 3I Atlas, which is passing through our solar system and is from other galaxies, has spiked interest in aliens and foreign beings that are intelligent and powerful than humans.
What are unidentified flying objects or UFOs and what are aliens? Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and aliens have fascinated humanity for decades, capturing the imagination of the public and sparking debates among scientists, government officials, and enthusiasts alike. The term “UFO” refers to any aerial phenomenon or object that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Aliens on the other hand, are thought to be beings from outer space and other galaxies with advanced technologies. These aliens are believed to create and drive these UFOs. The movements of the aliens themselves could be described as a UFO as well. While many UFO sightings have been debunked as misidentified natural or man-made objects, a significant number remain unexplained despite rigorous investigation. It is so pervasive that it has influenced several science-fiction (sci-fi) movies such as Star Wars, Avatar, Men in Black, World of the Apes, etc.
Increasingly, reports and movies about these aliens are spreading globally, bringing them to our attention. Indeed, several people have reported not only seeing these aliens but of being in contact with them, speaking with them, or being taken away by these aliens. One lady even reported having married and given birth to these “extra-terrestrial beings.” We will therefore explore the phenomenon of aliens and UFOs from multiple angles, including historical sightings, government involvement, scientific perspectives, and anecdotal evidence. We will delve into declassified government documents, notable incidents, and recent developments to provide a thorough understanding of this enigmatic subject.
Such interests in extra-terrestrial life are not new. Indeed, in the mid-1800s, the three Fox sisters in Rochester, New York, claimed that they could communicate with the dead. According to them, these communications with the dead took the form of rappings on their door. These sisters went on to become successful mediums and channellers before later confessing that it was a hoax. Yet, their confessions could not stop the spread of spiritualism and the belief in the dead being alive as spirits.
Prominent scientists such as William Crookes, John Logie Baird, Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, and Thomas John Watson attempted to use science to prove the existence of these departed spirits by trying to communicate with the dead using technological means. All four were prominent figures in science and technology who explored spiritualism and experimented with devices intended to establish contact with the spirit world.
Reports of strange objects in the sky date back to antiquity. Ancient texts and artworks from civilizations such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans depict unusual aerial phenomena. The 1800s saw numerous reports of “airships” and mysterious lights. For example, the 1896–1897 “Great Airship Mystery” involved hundreds of sightings across the United States. On June 24, 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine high-speed crescent-shaped objects near Mount Rainier, Washington. This incident popularized the term “flying saucer.”
In July 1947, debris recovered near Roswell, New Mexico, led to widespread speculation about a crashed alien spacecraft. The U.S. military initially stated they had recovered a “flying disc,” but later retracted the statement, attributing it to a weather balloon. Some 60 school kids in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa claimed to have seen “aliens” and UFOs with big eyes in 1994.
Thousands of people witnessed a series of lights over Phoenix, Arizona, in 1997 and thought these were UFOs. However, the Air Force claimed they were flares dropped during training exercises, but many witnesses and researchers dispute this. Navy pilots from the USS Nimitz carrier strike group encountered a “Tic Tac”-shaped UAP off the coast of California in 2004. The object, notably, exhibited advanced acceleration, agility, and the ability to cloak itself from radar. In 2006, United Airlines employees reported a metallic, disc-shaped craft hovering over the O’Hare International airport (in Chicago) before shooting upwards and leaving a hole in the cloud cover. Notwithstanding, the Federal Aviation Administration attributed it to a weather phenomenon, but did not investigate further.
Such reports forced several governments around the world to commence investigations into these sightings.
In the United States for instance, Project Blue Book (1952–1969) was instituted and conducted by the U.S. Air Force. It was the most extensive governmental study of UFOs, compiling over 12,000 reports. The project concluded that most sightings could be explained by natural phenomena or man-made objects. However, 701 cases remained “unidentified.” In 2017, The New York Times reported on AATIP (i.e., Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) a secret Pentagon program running from 2007 to 2012 that was allocated $22 million to study UFOs. Videos such as “FLIR1,” “Gimbal,” and “GoFast,” recorded by Navy pilots, were declassified, showing unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) exhibiting extraordinary flight capabilities.
In 2020, the Pentagon confirmed the existence of the UAPTF (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force) to “detect, analyze and catalog” UAPs that could potentially threaten U.S. national security. A preliminary assessment released in June 2021 analyzed 144 reports of UAPs between 2004 and 2021. The report stated that most UAPs remain unexplained, highlighting the need for systematic data collection.
The UK’s MoD (Ministry of Defence) conducted UFO investigations for decades, culminating in the release of the “Condign Report” in 2000, which concluded that UFOs posed no threat. During the Rendlesham Forest Incident (1980) known as “Britain’s Roswell,” U.S. Air Force personnel stationed in Suffolk reported encountering a UFO. This was documented in declassified MoD files. The French space agency, CNES, also established programs to investigate UFO sightings scientifically. Notably, the COMETA Report in 1999 suggested that some UFO cases could be of extraterrestrial origin. Moreover, the Soviet Union also conducted secret studies on UFOs, often attributing sightings to military tests. Some declassified documents indicate serious research into unexplained cases.
What are the scientific perspectives on all these reports and findings? Scientists have three (3) main explanations for these alien or UFO reports: the extraterrestrial hypothesis, the natural phenomena explanations, and the advanced technologies.
The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis believes in the Possibility of Alien Life: Given the vastness of the universe, many scientists acknowledge the possibility of extraterrestrial life. As a result, the SETI Program, i.e., The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), uses radio telescopes to detect potential signals from alien civilizations.
The natural phenomena explanations state that the UFO and alien sightings are nothing but Atmospheric Conditions in that lenticular clouds, ball lightning, and other atmospheric phenomena can be mistaken for UFOs. This hypothesis also teaches that Astronomical Objects such as Planets like Venus, meteors, and satellites are commonly misidentified as UFOs or aliens.
The Advanced Technologies hypothesis teaches that these UFO sightings are Military Aircraft from Classified military projects (e.g., stealth aircraft). This hypothesis also believes that most of these sightings are actually drones as the proliferation of drones has increased reports of UFOs in recent years.
What has given much faith to these UFOs and aliens are the testimonies from individuals, both civilians and military personnel. Military personnel, specifically Colonel Philip J. Corso, claimed to have worked on reverse-engineering alien technology in his book “The Day After Roswell.” Commander David Fravor, the pilot who engaged with the “Tic Tac” UAP during the Nimitz encounters, asserted that the object was unlike any known aircraft.
Civilian witnesses such as one from Betty and Barney Hill, who claimed to have been abducted in 1961 was one of the first widely publicized alien abduction stories involving detailed accounts under hypnosis. Travis Walton (1975) claimed to have been abducted by a UFO in Arizona, a story dramatized in the film “Fire in the Sky.” Bob Lazar alleged that he worked on reverse-engineering alien spacecraft at a site called S-4 near Area 51. Notably, recent Congressional Testimonies (2023) from former intelligence officials who testified about alleged government retrieval and reverse-engineering programs related to UAPs/UFOs and alien ships have increased the notion that the government is hiding something from the population.
As a result of this belief that there is a conspiracy to hide the actual state or knowledge about aliens, people have sought to obtain this information themselves through numerous sources. John Greenewald Jr. has used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain thousands of pages of government documents on UFOs, making them available on his website, The Black Vault. Both the CIA and FBI have declassified and released documents revealing their investigations into UFO sightings during the 1940s and 1950s. Furthermore, the Pentagon’s unclassified report released in 2022 expanded on previous findings, acknowledging additional UAP incidents and stressing the importance of further research.
Indeed, despite these stories and conflicting research findings, which have not been able to provide any substantial advance on the presence of these UFOs, the media and entertainment industries have popularized it by making videos and books out of these events. Films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and series like “The X-Files” have popularized UFOs in culture. Books ranging from Whitley Strieber’s “Communion” to academic works explore UFO phenomena. As a result of these media attention, surveys indicate that a significant portion of the global population believes in the existence of extraterrestrial life and UFOs. In particular, there are Ufology Communities that have sprung out of these beliefs. These communities hold conferences and online forums that are dedicated to the study and discussion of UFOs.
Just as scientific and governmental research organizations are trying to establish the presence of these aliens through technological means, so did other scientists in the 19th century try to use science to prove the existence of spirits.
William Crookes was an English chemist and physicist known for his discovery of thallium and work on cathode rays. He was also a dedicated spiritualist who conducted experiments with mediums and believed in the possibility of communicating with spirits.
Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge was a British physicist and inventor who made significant contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy. He was deeply interested in psychical research and wrote extensively about life after death, believing in communication with the deceased.
John Logie Baird, the Scottish inventor of the first working television system, also delved into spiritualism. Later in his career, he conducted experiments aiming to capture images from the spirit world, a project he referred to as “Phantom Telepathy.”
Thomas John Watson is a bit more complex, as the name is commonly associated with the founder of IBM. Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were contemporaries interested in spiritualism. Notably, Thomas Edison spoke about the possibility of building a device to communicate with the dead.
These scientists delved into spiritualism, specifically their attempts to use technology to communicate with the afterlife. Yet they failed to successfully use technology to communicate with the dead.
What does the Bible teach? It is a fact that God made man in His own image and angels, who are ministering spirits (Hebrews 1:14). A third of these angels were expelled from heaven for joining Lucifer’s rebellion against God (Revelation 12:4). Jehovah also has creation on other planets in other galaxies (Job 1:6; 2:1). Are these UFOs and aliens other creations and beings from other planets made by God or they are the fallen angels coming in other forms to deceive mankind?
As there are other beings such as angels and other created beings in other galaxies, it may be thought that these aliens are from there. However, the actions of these aliens in abducting people, having babies with them, or telling them to do actions that are contrary to the Bible such as not worshipping Jesus, shows their true nature and source.
It is obvious from their actions that these are the same spirits of the fallen angels manifesting as aliens to attract and deceive people, just as they did during the time of the Fox sisters. These fallen angels are coming as aliens to deceive humanity and turn us away from God and the Bible. Testimonies from people who have had encounters with these so-called aliens demonstrate this: for in almost all instances, these aliens tell their subjects to commit acts that are contrary to the Bible. Evidently, such beings cannot be holy beings from God but fallen angels coming to deceive mankind.
We should therefore stick to the Bible and not allow such testimonies of UFOs to sway our allegiance to God.
Further reading
Congressional Interest
- 2021 NDAA Provisions: The National Defense Authorization Act included directives for increased transparency on UAPs.
- 2022 Congressional Hearings: For the first time in over 50 years, Congress held public hearings on UAPs, signaling growing governmental concern.
NASA’s Involvement
- UAP Study Team: In 2022, NASA formed a team to study UAPs from a scientific perspective, aiming to destigmatize the subject.
International Collaborations
- Five Eyes Alliance: Intelligence-sharing among the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand includes data on UAPs.
References
- Government Documents:
- U.S. Department of Defense UAP reports (2021, 2022)
- Declassified CIA and FBI UFO files
- The Black Vault FOIA archives
- Books:
- Kean, Leslie. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.
- Vallée, Jacques. Anatomy of a Phenomenon.
- Academic Papers:
- Sturrock, Peter A. “Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports,” Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1999.
- Media Reports:
- Cooper, Helene, et al. “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” The New York Times, 2017.
- Blumenthal, Ralph, and Kean, Leslie. “No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public,” The New York Times, 2020.
- Websites:
- NASA UAP Study Team updates
- The National Archives (UK) UFO files
Appendix A: Notable UFO Organizations
- MUFON: Mutual UFO Network, one of the oldest and largest civilian UFO-investigative organizations.
- CUFOS: Center for UFO Studies, founded by astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek.
Glossary
- UAP: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, the term increasingly used by government and military organizations.
- SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, scientific efforts to detect communications from alien civilizations.
- FOIA: Freedom of Information Act, allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information controlled by the U.S. government.
