What should we make of UFOs?

The subject has been in the news lately. It deserves far more attention than it gets, in the news and elsewhere. That's partly the media's fault. It's more the fault of the average person, though, who's much less interested in such subjects than he should be. In a post shortly before his death, Steve Hays outlined some explanatory options for UFOs from a Christian perspective. I'll briefly summarize the view I currently hold, though UFOs aren't one of my main areas of study. Since the view I hold is unpopular and doesn't get much attention, I think it's worth bringing up and expanding upon as one of the explanatory options that should be considered. Steve mentions it in his post, but doesn't say much about it.

Our conclusions on these issues shouldn't depend much on the ongoing story surrounding David Grusch. Whether you believe everything he's alleged, believe some of it, think he's part of a government disinformation effort, or whatever else, the UFO issue goes far beyond Grusch's claims and other recent UFO stories that have been in the news. There's a larger category of phenomena that have been going on for a long time and need to be explained, regardless of what you make of the most recent developments.

UFO phenomena are diverse and warrant multiple explanations. I wouldn't offer just one explanation to cover everything. What I'm focused on here is the bulk of the cases that seem most difficult to explain by normal means. How do we explain those? I think they probably involve human paranormal activity (which I'll refer to as the human psi hypothesis).

Before I expand upon that, I want to briefly address an objection that I think some people have in mind when this sort of issue comes up. It could be objected that allowing paranormal activity among humans, instead of attributing the events to God or Satan, opens the door to attributing Biblical and other purportedly Christian miracles to human psi. But we can't dismiss a potential explanation just because we don't like its implications. And the objection under consideration here is just a variation on the old objection that Divine miracles could be attributed to demonic activity (or a brain in a vat scenario, etc.). How do we know that the miracles allegedly supporting Christianity aren't a demonic deception? This kind of objection can be raised against any belief system, not just Christianity. We've addressed issues like these in previous posts. For example, see here on attributing Christian miracles to human psi, and see here on attributing them to demons. For some comments I've made about the need for us to allow for some degree of human paranormal abilities and the Biblical support for such abilities, see the comments section of the thread here.

I consider the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe possible, but not probable. When you start adding other considerations, such as the likelihood that aliens would be able to travel so far, would have the motive to do so, and would behave as the UFOs in question have behaved, I think it's highly improbable that aliens are involved.

We have precedent for phenomena similar to what's reported in UFO cases in other contexts, such as in poltergeists and mediumship. And much of the paranormal activity in those other contexts seems best explained by the human psi hypothesis. In those contexts, you frequently encounter objects moving at unusually high speeds, sudden and nonreplicable changes in the direction in which the objects move, the sudden disappearance of the objects, teleportation, objects operating in or falling from the sky, orbs, etc. Some of the cases even involve objects that are described as UFOs or as closely resembling them. There's a history of UFO or UFO-like phenomena being reported in connection with other paranormal categories. And people who are involved in UFO experiences often report other paranormal activity in their lives, sometimes seemingly as a result of the UFO experience, something that also happens a lot in other paranormal contexts (near-death experiences, poltergeists, etc.). Such connections with the paranormal make it more likely that UFOs are themselves paranormal in some manner.

Like many poltergeist, mediumship, and other paranormal phenomena, UFOs often exhibit weaknesses and close connections with human psychology that seem to make more sense coming from a human (a living or dead human) than something like an alien, an interdimensional being, or a demon. Many UFO experiences seem highly nonsensical. They don't seem to serve much of a purpose. There's a fragmentary nature to them. They're reminiscent of the human subconscious, a dream, a hallucination, or something of the like. There's a place in one of Jacques Vallee's books, Dimensions (San Antonio, Texas: Anomalist Books, 2008), in which he uses the term "dreamlike" to describe them (approximate Kindle location 4442). Those who have read my material on other paranormal topics may recall that I've often used that term (dreamlike) to describe other paranormal phenomena as well, such as near-death experiences. I agree with Vallee that UFOs are unlikely to involve aliens. But I disagree with his appeal to interdimensional beings as an explanation. I think human psi is the best explanation we have at this point. The fact that UFOs seem to keep tracking with human psychology (e.g., the changes in the nature of the craft and the beings associated with them over time) makes more sense if they're being produced by the human mind. Similarly, the fact that these UFOs crash or need repaired so often, frequently behave in such seemingly nonsensical ways, and are so varied in their appearance and other characteristics, for example, seem to make the most sense under a human psi hypothesis. We have good evidence for the materialization of hands and other body parts, sometimes even entire bodies, in contexts like mediumship and poltergeists, so that gives us precedent for something like the production of alien bodies, if people like Grusch are right about their existence. In other words, what we're seeing in these UFO contexts are variations of what we've already seen elsewhere. I've sometimes summarized my view of UFOs with the phrase "poltergeists in the sky".

There's no such thing as an easy explanation for UFOs. But the human psi hypothesis has some advantages over the alternatives, advantages that make it a significantly less difficult explanation on balance. The advantage I'm most focused on here is one I've also highlighted in a lot of other paranormal contexts, something that's frequently been neglected. There are weaknesses, not just strengths, that need to be explained in these phenomena. A human psi hypothesis is good at addressing the weaknesses of the UFO phenomena, which tend to be neglected. People are often overly focused on the strengths that impress them so much (the speed of the craft, etc.).

Getting back to something I raised in the opening paragraph of the post, why do people want to avoid the UFO issue so much? Surely for multiple reasons, not just one. There's the issue of tradition, inertia, or whatever you want to call it. UFOs were considered disreputable in the past, and that reputation can continue, and is continuing, even after the state of the evidence or public recognition of the state of the evidence has changed. And people are often lazy, cowardly, dishonest, and irresponsible in other ways. The fact that sorting through the issues related to UFOs takes a significant amount of work is enough to motivate a lot of people to try to avoid thinking or talking much about the subject. A lot of people are frightened, disturbed, or whatever by the thought of the existence of aliens or whatever or whoever else is causing these phenomena. And the people reacting that way probably include a lot of Christians. For many people, it's unsettling in one way or another to think of what implications the existence of aliens might have for the truthfulness of Christianity, the status of mankind in the universe and in life in general, the future of our planet, and so on. But a Christian ought to have a high enough view of God, the gospel, God's promises about earth's future, and other such issues to not have that sort of overly negative reaction to the UFO issue. A couple of verses from Maltbie Babcock's hymn "This Is My Father's World" express what I'm getting at:

This is my Father’s world.
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong
Seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

This is my Father’s world,
Should my heart be ever sad?
The lord is King—let the heavens ring.
God reigns—let the earth be glad.
This is my Father’s world.
Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.

What we've been seeing in these UFO contexts probably doesn't involve aliens. But even if there are aliens, they're part of God's creation and under his sovereignty. They can't and won't change what God has done in earth's history and has promised about our future.