I've read the book on UFOs by Ross, et al., and I've occasionally looked into the subject briefly in other contexts, but I haven't studied it much. One of the general parameters I would set down is that, as with other paranormal phenomena, it's important to include some explanatory options that Christians often neglect. I mentioned some of those options briefly in the fourth paragraph of my recent post about miracles on video (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/02/miracles-on-video-some-examples.html). The demonic hypothesis shouldn't be taken off the table, but it should be accompanied by a much larger number and variety of other options than Christians typically consider. When UFOs accommodate current human expectations regarding how aliens would behave, for example, that could be because demons are accommodating those expectations, but it could also be because the phenomena are coming from human psi and are being shaped by the human imagination (consciously or unconsciously). The problem isn't that Christians lack explanatory options for UFO phenomena. It's that we have so many options to choose from and not much to go by in choosing among the options. That could and should change over time as more research is done.
Something I keep coming back to in thinking about UFO phenomena is how events of a similar nature are known to occur on a smaller scale, such as in poltergeist cases (e.g., objects much smaller than a UFO moving around a house in "impossible maneuvers", as you put it). If something like human psi or the spirit of a deceased human could do that in a context like a poltergeist, why not also in a UFO context with a larger object? (I think it was Guy Playfair I heard talking about a poltergeist case in Brazil that involved the throwing of an automobile across a long distance. The objects that are moved aren't always small, though they usually are.) Demons exist, and it would be surprising if they didn't sometimes manifest themselves in the modern world, but the demonic hypothesis is just one option among others. And there could be all sorts of creatures we don't know about or don't know much about, like the unusual creatures referred to in some portions of scripture (e.g., Revelation).
A good first step would be to explain to people why an alien hypothesis for UFOs is highly unlikely, for reasons like the ones you've referred to. Then, we can explain what other options are available and cite examples, like poltergeist phenomena that are similar to UFO phenomena, though on a smaller scale. Once people realize how unlikely the alien hypothesis is, how many other options there are, and how similar UFO phenomena are to other kinds of phenomena, that should significantly change their perspective. It's good to get people less focused on aliens and more focused on more likely explanations….
UFO phenomena are different than poltergeist phenomena and more impressive in some ways, but there are significant similarities as well. In the Enfield case, the large majority of the apports occurred in the house, such as rocks or coins appearing near a ceiling and dropping down. There was a series of outdoor apports on May 30, 1978, however, involving objects like rocks, bottles, and clumps of earth moving around outside, including objects falling from the sky. You could say that the May 30 events were a sort of escalation of the previous events inside the house. If such events could move from within the house to the immediate atmosphere outside the house, why couldn't they occur further away as well, where UFO phenomena usually happen?
As far as I recall, almost every apport object I'm familiar with that's been tested has produced normal results in terms of the composition of the object. It seems like the sort of material we encounter under normal circumstances. The rocks, coins, and such seem normal. But they're abnormal in other ways, such as where and how they first appear, how they move, and their temperature (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_TV6KmSZk).
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Not Aliens Or Demons
Since UFOs are in the news, I'll post some comments I made in an email exchange earlier this year:
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For more about the Enfield events on May 30, 1978 and some incidents involving vehicles, see here and the section titled "Events Outside The House" here. On apports, see the first section of the post here. On the unusual way in which objects would move, see the examples in the "Paranormal Slowness" section here.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points to keep in mind. Thanks, Jason!
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, Jason!
ReplyDeleteIn saying deceased humans are an explanatory option, wouldn’t the difference between small and large objects be a problem? Otherwise you’d be committed to believing that upon death, pre-resurrection deceased humans have powers that massively exceed their embodied powers whilst alive. Why would the soul have the power to move large objects when disembodied when it cannot move its own body with such power while alive (embodied)?
ReplyDeleteI haven't suggested that death empowers them. I'm just running through categories. I haven't suggested that a dead sorcerer is more powerful than a living sorcerer. I'm just considering a range a hypothetical candidates to account for the recorded phenomena.
DeleteIn fairness, I'm commenting on Jason's post, not my own. He may have his own ideas about that.
DeleteAMC,
DeleteWe don't know much about the abilities of deceased humans, nor do we know much about the abilities of demons and other relevant entities. Evangelicals (and others) have been attributing various activities to demons for centuries without thinking they needed the sort of justification you're asking for with regard to humans. We don't assume that disembodied demons must not be capable of anything more than what they do when possessing a human's body.
In some contexts, the idea that a spirit doesn't advance in his abilities when disembodied would lead to unacceptable conclusions. For example, how would disembodied spirits communicate without the means of communication we use when embodied? If they aren't advancing in telepathic capacities, how are they communicating?
And what about bodies in the afterlife? Both believers and unbelievers will have an advance in their bodies by means of resurrection. If you think that unbelievers can't improve in any way in the afterlife, then how do you explain that bodily improvement? If bodies change to adapt to a new life (in heaven or hell), why wouldn't souls?
Furthermore, how much sense would it make to not only expect no change in the soul, but also no relevant change in the environment in which the soul lives? Much of what we do in this life involves the use of instruments (using a hammer to pound in a nail, using a car to travel somewhere, etc.). How would you justify the conclusion that a deceased human not only can't produce the phenomena in question himself, but also can't do it by means of his environment?
How do you make sense of the Biblical data on deceased humans under your view? We don't have the ability while embodied to make our souls appear to other embodied people or to acquire a new body to appear in, yet Samuel, Moses, and Elijah appeared to people on earth after departing this life and prior to the resurrection. If you'd argue that God empowered Samuel, Moses, and Elijah to do what they did on the occasions in question, then why couldn't some other deceased humans be empowered by God, Satan, or whoever to do the phenomena in question in this thread? In passages like Matthew 14:25-26, Jesus' disciples don't assume that the spirit of a deceased person would only be able to do what the spirit could do when embodied. Even though the entity in question was visible and walking on water, exhibiting abilities our souls can't exhibit at will when embodied, the disciples concluded that they were seeing the spirit of a deceased human.
We need to be careful about our assumptions regarding what souls are capable of when embodied. People are often ignorant of their abilities, even the abilities of their bodies. What people do, or typically do, isn't necessarily equivalent to what they're capable of doing. An ability could remain latent. When people exhibit something like telepathy in this life, it may not be something they were given at that point in time or shortly before. They may have had it throughout life without realizing it. Children, and even adults, gradually learn about their abilities over time, both physical abilities and non-physical ones. If people learn more about their abilities in the afterlife, or something restrained by the body is no longer restrained, then there's a sense in which something is being used that was there all along. There's a sense in which it's new, but also a sense in which it isn't.
DeleteWhat's your take on Michael Heiser's approach to this issue?
ReplyDeleteCertainly he's written a lot debunking UFO religions and ancient aliens. I've read some of his material, but that was a while back so I'm fuzzy on the details. Also, a lot of his material on the subject is rather dated, so I don't know if he has anything new to say.
DeleteBut Jason may have his own answer.
I don't know much about Michael Heiser's views on the subject.
Deletehttps://drmsh.com/the-current-state-of-ufology/
DeleteSteve, I have seen you refer to sorcerers a few times before. Do you understand sorcery to be ‘tapping into occult power’ or some inherent power in certain people? Your comment above seems to suggest the latter? I always took Pharaoh’s sorcerers’ abilities to mimic Moses’ displays of God’s powers as being occultic (not their own). The contrast is between God’s power through Moses (not Moses’ own power) and demonic power (not intrinsic to Pharaoh’s scorcerers).
ReplyDeleteJason, I have never taken an interest in Biblical demonology (too dark for my taste) so perhaps I am wrong in this. But my unconsidered impression is that the Biblical portrait of the fallen heavenly host is that they are remarkably powerful in comparison to humans. If that is correct, and if being disembodied is their natural state, then wouldn’t such an agent be a more obvious explanation of phenomena not ordinarily within human power than humans (whether embodied or in the intermediate state)?
AMC,
DeleteIn my original post in this thread I referenced the fourth paragraph of my article here. That paragraph discusses some of the factors involved in judging these issues, and so do my previous responses to you in this thread.
You refer to what's "ordinarily within human power", but that doesn't address latent abilities, people who are out of the ordinary in this life, changes that occur in the next life, etc. When we make judgments about power, we should take more into account than what powers humans ordinarily have in this life.
And power is just one category among others. We also consider the apparent knowledge of the entity involved, his interests, etc. In my article on the voice and personality of the Enfield poltergeist, I discussed such characteristics of the entity involved. I also discussed what the people who interacted with the poltergeist perceived it to be. We take factors like those into account, not just the power exhibited by the entity, when making judgments about its identity.
In my original post, I commented that demons exist and that it would be surprising if they didn't sometimes manifest themselves in the modern world. The same principle applies to deceased humans. It would be surprising if none of the paranormal phenomena that occur come from them. That's not just true in the abstract, but also on the basis of Biblical precedent. Given all of the Biblical material about mediumship, Samuel, Moses, and Elijah appearing on earth after departing this life, Jesus and the disciples' belief in ghosts, etc., we'd expect deceased humans to be involved in life on earth to some extent in the modern world.
We also have to take nonpersonal explanatory options into account, such as what's often referred to as the stone tape view. There are incidents in which an apparition, for example, seems to be repeating activities the individual was involved in prior to death, sometimes activities of a trivial nature. And the apparition sometimes seems unaware of its surroundings. Sort of like a paranormal recording of an event that can be replayed when a replay mechanism is triggered in some manner. Similarly, a haunting might involve a sound that's repeated over and over. Something like the stone tape hypothesis might be a better explanation than concluding that a demon or deceased human (or living human) is engaged in that sort of trivial, noninteractive, repetitious behavior.
We take factors like these into account rather than just assuming that something must be demonic if it involves a level of power humans don't normally exhibit in this life.