March 18, 2025 • 31 mins
A strange new spirituality is emerging where UFOs aren't just objects in the sky but the center of belief systems that rival traditional religion. What happens when people trade their faith for cosmic encounters?
Tim and Sam dive deep into the unsettling world of UFO religiosity, exploring how extraterrestrial encounters have transformed from curiosities into full-blown spiritual movements. The phenomenon has surprising depth—complete with prophets who claim to "download" advanced information, healing miracles attributed to alien beings, and theological messaging that directly challenges Christian beliefs about Jesus.
The podcast examines why these movements have such powerful appeal. When materialistic worldviews fail to provide meaning, UFO spirituality steps in with a cosmic narrative about humanity's origins and destiny. For those who've had unexplainable experiences, it offers validation when traditional religious communities might dismiss them as crazy or attention-seeking.
Most troubling for Christians is the specific anti-biblical messaging that often accompanies these experiences. Many contactees return with suspiciously similar claims that "Jesus was just an alien representative" or that "all religions are equal paths to enlightenment"—messaging that appears designed to undermine orthodox faith.
The hosts suggest a balanced approach: neither dismiss these experiences outright nor abandon biblical discernment. They recommend resources like Diana Pasulka's "American Cosmic," Jacques Vallée's "Messengers of Deception," and Michael Heiser's documentary work for Christians seeking to understand this phenomenon through a biblical lens.
Have you or someone you know had an unexplainable encounter? Share your thoughts or questions about this fascinating intersection of the paranormal and spirituality.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, welcome back to the Psych and Theology
podcast.
Sam and Tim here, and we justfinished an episode on UFOs in
the Bible and today we're goingto discuss UFO.
Religiosity, like this, hasbecome such an issue that people
have made religions out ofthese different elements having
(00:23):
to do with UFOs and, I'mguessing, aliens and a bunch of
other things.
And again, tim has piqued myinterest into this new world of
I don't know what would you callit, tim?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
UFOlogy, paranormal, the study of UFOs.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, yeah, but it actually does.
The weird stuff.
The weird stuff.
The weird stuff that's howwe'll title these two episodes
the Weird Stuff.
But there is a lot ofapplication to make Christians
laugh, because these are thingsthat are being brought up in
different circles and it canimpact your faith, and one of
the points made in the lastepisode was that this shouldn't
(00:59):
consume your life.
It's interesting, it makes youthink and even moves you to
think critically about thesethings, but it's another avenue
to maybe help people out ofthese different worldviews that
may be damaging their faith somuch so that they can make this
a religion in their own lives.
So that's on the episode fortoday, but before we start, as
(01:20):
always, we want you guys tofollow us on Instagram that is a
psych underscore and underscoreTheo and also on Facebook, and
we're still on Twitter too,right, tim?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, I believe so.
Brian's being faithful postingepisodes.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So we have that Subscribe to the podcast and
again, as always, send us amessage if you have any topic
recommendations and we'll do ourbest to address those.
And so today we will bediscussing UFO religiosity and
Tim.
These UFO things have become areligion in and of themselves
(01:53):
and it sounds like that isgrowing into a lot of different
sects.
It almost sounds very new ageyyou mentioned in the last
episode, like it's thiscollection of different parts of
religion and it just makeswhatever you know, whatever you
want it to be.
Does that sound accurate towhat it is?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
No, there's definitely a lot of overlap
between the New Age movement andthe New Age.
Goes by various titles now, butessentially it's New Age.
There's a lot of overlapbetween that and the UFO genre.
The UFO genre I think it's amix of the modern scientific
(02:30):
worldview with very old thinkingand religious beliefs about the
meaning of life andtranscendence and all these
things.
So, yeah, the UFO phenomenonreally started.
It really kicked off in thelate 40s and then the early 50s
when the Roswell incidenthappened that was 1947 and then
after that there was just anexplosion of reports of seeing
(02:50):
UFOs.
Now some of that like maybe alot of that can be attributed to
just popular hysteria.
People think they see things inthe skies fake videos, hoaxes,
all that stuff but not all of itcan be explained that way.
But essentially a lot of itkicked off after the roswell
incident and since then it hassparked this massive genre of
(03:12):
research into ufos and aliensand are we alone in the universe
?
And questions like that.
And fast forward to the modernage, there is a quasi-religious
movement around the subject ofUFOs and aliens and UAPs, such
that there are people who thinkthat the aliens are here to
(03:35):
usher us into a new age orthey're here to guide us on our
path to development.
So they're ascribing at leastmoral authority and
technological superiority tosome sort of alien race.
People will explain thisdifferently.
They think maybe they'reextraterrestrials from another
planet, but the more popularhypothesis now is that these
(03:56):
beings, these alien beings, areget this, interdimensional
beings, and we have to do that.
We have to do protocols tocontact.
They need to be contacted invery certain particular ways.
Perhaps if you do drugs,psychedelics, you might be able
to contact the aliens.
Yeah, yeah, talk to them.
Now this all sounds hokey Like.
(04:18):
Is this just cuckoo crazy stuff?
And perhaps some of it is, butit's not as crazy as you might
think if you understand thespiritual worldview in which
christianity like, I think thatchristianity can make sense of.
So essentially, around ufos,uaps.
The modern age of naturalismand materialism has failed to
(04:40):
give people a true sense ofmeaning and purpose in life, and
so this idea that there's analien race or races that are out
there that may have even seededplanet earth, and that they
explain the emergence ofintelligent beings such as
ourselves on planet earth, thatthey may be our progenitors,
they may be the ones who wealways thought was God, but it's
(05:02):
really maybe just aliens thatare here guiding us and giving
us help and information, andthey're now going to usher us
into a new age.
There's a documentary series onNetflix that everyone should
watch, I think as a Christian.
It's called Encounters and it'sall about aliens and it's about
modern stories of aliens andhow people have encountered them
(05:24):
.
It's almost like an UnsolvedMysteries series.
Yeah, why I say Christiansshould go watch this is because
real and for failing to listento people who have experienced
(05:48):
UFO abductions and encounters.
So the first couple episodesare about people who were
formerly Christians who have anencounter of some sort and then
they're not listened to by theirChristian pastors and friends
and they just dismiss them andthey feel very alienated by that
and they feel alone and so theyrun to like something has to
(06:11):
explain this experience and sothey end up running to something
else that will give them thatexperience.
Maybe that's psychics, maybethat's the UFO community and
they essentially are no longerChristians.
Then at the end of this series,the very last episode, I
remember watching this I was ona plane flying somewhere and I
(06:31):
got to the end of the series andI was like I was just like
squirming in my seat because Iwas so like frustrated and like
I can't believe they were doingthis.
They essentially were like thealiens are here to usher us into
a new age.
Like the aliens are here tousher us into a new age, they're
here to guide us on our path ofself discovery, and things like
that this particular episodewas covering the fukushima
(06:53):
meltdown, the nuclear powerplant in japan, okay, and how
there was.
There was all kinds of weirdphenomena around that meltdown,
and so the hypothesis was well,the aliens notice that we have
nuclear power and we have thepower to destroy ourselves, and
they really care about ourplanet and us taking care of the
planet, and so they're here tohelp us figure that out.
(07:17):
Yeah, so that?
So the thesis of the show isthat christians got it wrong.
Aliens are real, they're notnefarious, they're not deceptive
in any way, and they're here toguide us, and we've really just
misunderstood them all along.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And that's wild, and how do they corroborate that?
How do they make that an actualargument for people to listen
to them like, is it justeyewitness experience, or I mean
, what is that?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
well, you have to understand.
So people, again, people areleaving the metaphysical
worldview of naturalism andmaterialism.
They're putting that aside andthey are now embracing forms of
spiritualism, new age beliefs.
So when it comes to alienexperiences, it's essentially
(08:10):
that they've experiencedsomething.
They don't feel the need togive you evidence of why that's
real.
They're like I've experiencedit.
I know my experience.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
That's what we'd call lived experience.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, you know, know, not so much like so.
A lived experience is like aninterpretation of what it's like
to be me in the world.
But an experience like this isI was in my room and I saw
something.
Something was done to me.
I have marks on my body toprove it.
I was in one place and thenhours later I was in another
(08:44):
place, inexplicably, or I hadthis terrible experience where I
was abducted.
They did horrible things to meand I have trauma, ptsd from it.
So these are real things thatpeople recount and recall.
So having to corroborate thattry to make some sort of
scientific argument for it,they're like I don't feel the
(09:04):
need to do that because I knowwhat happened to me.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
But doesn't that make it seem more skeptical for the
people, right?
Because then anyone could justsay anything.
So they certainly so.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, yeah, and that is the case.
There are people who areattention seekers, who just want
attention, and that's certainlythe case, but there's so many
accounts of this and there aresome people who are hesitant to
tell, and that's an indicationthat something really did happen
to them they're hesitant totell their story, and that only
through because you're gonna beseen as crazy or something like
that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah orsomething happens, and there's
(09:36):
multiple witnesses.
There's a really famous case insouth africa of school children
, and a harvard researcher wentdown there to document this case
, and there's a whole notherside story with him in
particular.
But there's a really famouscase of these schoolchildren in
South Africa who all seesomething on the playground.
Something happens to them.
Now their stories areconflicting.
(09:57):
They recall different things.
They recall some similar things, some different things, so it's
hard to know what exactlyhappened, but it's around this
phenomenon that something weirdor paranormal occurred that
freaked them out.
I can't remember the school byname, but it's a really famous
case if you look it up.
There's lots of cases like thatof multiple eyewitnesses,
(10:20):
people seeing something.
Now, what has happened, though,is there's been a
quasi-religious movements aroundthis of people ascribing
meaning and transcendence andpurpose to knowing the aliens
and contacting them in some way,like it's their worldview that
gives them meaning and purposeyeah, I mean it becomes an
identity almost, because if it'sattached to meaning and purpose
and the afterlife in a senseyeah, I guess I'm wondering that
(10:40):
.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So you were talking about the religiosity piece of
it and maybe you have this forlater in the episode, guess I'm
wondering that.
So we're talking about thereligiosity piece of it and
maybe you have this for later inthe episode.
But I'm wondering what theirthoughts of the afterlife is.
If this is their religion andthey're attaching it to these
alien encounters or experiences,there has to be a belief
somewhere in there about what dothey think about the afterlife?
(11:01):
Do you think they're gonna bejoined to these aliens, or yeah,
or yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I'm just curious about that, especially if some
of them were former christians Iguess that kind of depends on
the individual, because we'respeaking really generally here,
okay, because new age philosophyis so intertwined with this
topic.
You see a lot of peoplebelieving in reincarnation or
something like that, or or whenI die here, my spirit goes to
(11:26):
another dimension and I livethere and on, and on and on and
on.
You might see things like that.
So there's a couple of books Iwant to point people to that are
really, really good on thistopic.
Both these books are by aresearcher named Diana Pasolka.
She's a professor of religiousstudies I think it's at North
Carolina or UNC, chapel Hill, Ican't remember where.
(11:47):
But her first book is calledAmerican Cosmic and it's a
subtitle of something like UFOsand Religion and it's about this
quasi-religious movement thatsprang up in the late 20th
century America around UFOs andthe fascination with it, not
just with individuals but withgovernments like the US
(12:09):
government.
She goes into great detail howeven the US government isn't
quite sure what's going on Dresearch, on advanced technology
that they don't want todisclose to the world.
So there's some aspects of that.
But there's other parts of thegovernment that are really
(12:31):
intrigued by what's happening.
They don't quite understand.
And there's a character in thisbook that she tags along with.
His pseudonym is Tyler D, buthe's a real individual and he's
got some crazy access levels inthe government, but essentially
she follows him around and hetells her all kinds of things,
discloses all kinds of things toher about what they know and
(12:53):
what they don't know aboutwhat's going on, because even
the US government will sendrockets up into space and they
will observe things flyingaround their rockets that they
can't explain Really.
Yeah, oh yeah.
But there's also people whothis particular individual in
the book named Tyler D.
He seems to have an uncannyability to download information
(13:18):
through some unknown source.
Now they call it downloading,but essentially think of it as
almost like ESP, extrasensoryperception.
Yeah, do you know whatautomatic writing is?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Automatic writing.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, no, okay, that's an occult practice.
We won't get into that too much, but automatic writing was a
way in which occultists wouldchannel information from an
unknown source and they wouldwrite it on a piece of paper so
that they would surrendercontrol of themselves to
whatever force was out there togive them information, and then
they would write it out on apiece of paper.
(13:51):
So it's either Christianscience I think it was Christian
science or Seventh-dayAdventism.
Okay, their founders, lng White, was Seventh-day Adventism and
Mary Baker, eddy, was thefounder of Christian science.
I think it was Eddy whobasically wrote all of her books
on Christian science throughautomatic writing.
So basically, she's likegetting all of this information
(14:11):
from a non-material source andshe's writing it.
She's like not even in controland she's writing this down.
Yeah, sounds strange, soundreally weird and nefarious right
.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, I don't know if you remember this or not, tim,
or if you've seen this movie,but in transformers I think it's
the second one basically that'swhat's happening with child
above, like, I mean, he, he'sbeing infiltrated, I guess, by
this alien or whatever, and he'sjust writing everything
frantically down on a piece ofpaper so it sounds like that's
kind of the same idea here yeah,that would be an instance of
(14:42):
automatic writing okay so this,this guy in this book, american
Cosmic named Tyler D he doesn'tdo automatic writing, but he has
this.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
He's always had this ability is what he said.
Where he does this pro, hecalls it a protocol.
It's not like an occulticpractice, but he does this
protocol in the mornings wherehe drinks a lot of water, he
sits in the sun and he setshimself up basically to receive
information and then he just hasall what he calls a download of
information.
And what's wild is that thisguy is a super genius.
(15:11):
He has all kinds of patents foradvanced things.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So he has like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So there's very strange things going on and what
else explains that is there.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Are there other potential explanations for that?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
like, I mean, he could be just be a super genius,
right, or or have that, I don'tknow if extra well, if he, if
he was, if he was the only onethat that happened to, maybe,
but there are other people likethat too okay who they say they
receive information somewhereoutside of them.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
That explains things to them because the same
capacity or different levels?
I'm guessing different levels,yeah, different levels like yeah
, she has.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
She has a few examples.
Diana has a second book calledencounters.
The subtitle is calledexperiences with non-human
intelligences and she eachchapter is a different person
who has experiences with anon-human intelligence.
She's very disciplined in howshe says that because she's a
(16:11):
researcher.
Yeah, she tries not to drawconclusions, even though she has
her own worldview.
She's a Catholic.
So one chapter is about a guywho claims to experience the
Archangel Michael.
Another chapter is about awoman who claims to download
information from some source andshe can understand really
complex problems like physicsand mathematics and things like
(16:34):
that.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Where does it all go with?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
UFOs.
Is that the connection?
Is that, in the modernworldview, where people are
observing aerial phenomenon andthey are receiving all this
information and there'sgovernment disclosures like even
the government doesn't knowwhat's going on, they admit it
People are trying to make senseof all of this to say the aliens
are finally here.
(16:56):
The aliens are the ones doingthis, the aliens are giving us
information, the aliens arehelping us.
We need to make contact withthe aliens because the aliens
are like our big brothers.
Do you see how this religiosityis forming around the aliens
and ufos?
Yeah, yeah, but as a christian,your spidey senses might
already be going off that right.
This doesn't sound all thatgood yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Well, even like when you mentioned, you know, the
idea of someone meeting thearchangel, did you say michael?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
so even things like that, like okay, is that still a
thing?
And and I think from ourprevious episode you said I
think the capability is stillthere the question is how do you
verify that that's happening?
Yeah, exactly, if I'm doing itcorrectly, it's more so.
It's an experience that theperson is sharing with other
people, and you could choose tobelieve it or not.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah.
So some of these things youjust have to take with a grain
of salt as, like, this person issharing their experience.
We don't really have much to goon beyond that.
I think in some sense you canjudge these things by the fruit
that they produce.
Yeah, we can get into that inlater episodes.
(18:10):
But if someone is like, ifsomeone says I went up and I
hung out with the aliens, I wasabducted and they've come down
and they've given me a specialmessage for humanity and now
everyone needs to listen to me,let's pump the brakes on that
one.
Yeah, but there's others thatthey say that they have
(18:32):
experiences Maybe they're not sopleasant, maybe they're quite
dramatic, and this person thisgoes for a lot of different
things like this where, ifsomething happens that's
unexpected, that lendscredibility to the person's
experience.
Yeah, expecting that's like,okay, there's credibility that
(18:52):
maybe there's something there,maybe something did actually
happen.
There's a couple of instancesof that in the, in the ufo space
as well, where, yeah, somethinglike there's examples of
christians who have these kindof encounters and some of them
they kind of realize what'sgoing on and it's quite
spiritual in nature and theyrebuke it in the name of Jesus
(19:14):
and it goes away.
Others have almost like abattle, you know, with these
beings like a physical struggleor like a spiritual struggle to
get out of that situation.
Yeah, it's a really, it's areally strange space, and so I
think the last episode I endedwith this scenario where if
you're a pastor or just someone,a Christian, and another
(19:35):
brother or sister comes to you,this close to you, they share.
I've had that experience, thishappened to me, and I would say
this one it's likely traumaticfor them.
This is like if it did happen.
It's likely a traumaticexperience that they don't
really want to tell to a lot ofpeople.
So, as a Christian, I would saydon't immediately dismiss that.
(20:01):
Yeah, because it could actuallybe a legitimate experience that
they've had.
Now, could it be anhallucination?
Sure.
Could it be epilepsy?
Sure.
Could it be the pepperoni pizzaand a bad dream?
Sure, but not all cases aregoing to be like that.
Yeah, and as christians, weneed to be informed of what's
going on in this space and notjust dismiss it as, oh, it's all
(20:23):
a bunch of hokey, fake stuffand people are crazy and they're
making it all up, but they wantto believe this stuff.
Now I would venture say, if youpastor a church of a few
thousand people, the chances ofthere being someone in your
congregation that has had one ofthese experiences is really
high.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Really.
So how, yeah, I mean, howcommon is this?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's
quite.
It's more common than what wemight think.
It's more.
For instance, it's more commonnot necessarily abductions, but
seeing something, witnessingsomething in the sky, hearing
something, and then, of course,encountering in some way.
Again, you have to weed throughhow many of these are wishful
(21:11):
thinking, make believe, hoaxes.
You just you have to use yourdiscernment.
Yeah, that's, don't believeeverything you hear, but
sometimes there's going to belegitimate experiences and, uh,
this is where I think we can getinto, like the Christian
worldview.
You know, my view on this isthat this is deeply spiritual.
(21:32):
The whole phenomenon is deeplyspiritual and what's going on is
demonic in nature and thephenomenon that people are
witnessing are manifestations ofspiritual realities that don't
have our best interests in mind.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
What do you mean by that?
Don't have our best interestsin mind.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Well, for instance okay, so Jacques Vallée, I
mentioned him in the lastepisode.
What do you mean by that Don?
That have formed around the UFOsubject People trying to make
(22:17):
contact with these beings,trying to talk to them or
claiming to receive messagesfrom the beings.
But the phenomenon that peopledescribe firsthand accounts of
encounters that they've had isso contradictory, it's so
variegated.
There's not a consistent coreexperience Like.
(22:37):
There's not like.
Put it this way If you can havea hundred people come to you and
they they're all describingwhat it was like to go to the
zoo and see the lions at the zoo, if you got a hundred accounts
of that, you could start topiece together the core
experience of what it's like togo see the lions at the zoo.
Not every experience is goingto be exactly the same, but you
(23:00):
could piece together the coreelements of that.
Like the lions are at this partof the zoo and they look like
this and when they roar itsounds like this.
You get what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.
But with the UFO genre theexperiences are so variegated
that it's it's hard to actuallyput down what is a core
experience of a UFO encounter,even the messages that these
(23:24):
alien beings give to people isso contradictory, like even the
accounts that seem to beverified, like this person
actually experienced something.
One person says the aliens arethe palladians from this planet.
And no, they're this from thisplanet or no, they're from
another dimension, and sometimesthey hurt people, sometimes
they don't, sometimes they'reimmaterial, sometimes they're
(23:44):
not, sometimes they're mean,sometimes they're nice.
It's all over the place.
And so the the title of hisbook, messengers of of Deception
, indicates that, whatever ishappening here, these entities
aren't interested in giving usthe truth.
They're not actually interestedin disclosing to us what their
(24:06):
true nature is.
They're not interested in beingfound out.
To put it another way, yeah, sojust that.
That's what I mean by thesebeings.
If they're demonic in nature,they're not going to have your
best interest, they're not goingto have our best interest at
heart, and they're quite contentwith people forming religions
around the aliens.
Yeah, that's especially.
(24:26):
There is a subset of ufoencounters where people come
back with messaging, where theyreceive a message from the
aliens, like I've alluded to,and that message is typically
something like all religions arethe same and we all just need
to get along.
Or Jesus and Mohammed and Moses, they were all like, connected
to the aliens.
Jesus was really just a higherascented spiritual master, you
(24:49):
know.
So that they're messagingsomething specifically about
Jesus, typically, of who he wasor wasn't, that's a little
demonic.
Yeah, michael Heiser has adocumentary on YouTube about
this.
He's a disciplined researcher.
He debunks some popular mythsabout UFOs.
But then, after doing all thisdebunking, he gets down to the
core experience, like the corekernel of like these experiences
(25:12):
, where there's theologicalmessaging going on, and he says
that's the subset of theseexperiences that Christians
should really focus on.
The other subsets are like,maybe the government's doing
something and they don't want tobe found out, or maybe there's
just hoaxes over here that wedon't need to pay attention to,
but the ones where people areclaiming to have some quasi
(25:33):
spiritual experience with thealiens and the aliens give them
worldview information.
We really need to hone in onthat and be discerning about
what the aliens are saying,because they're probably not
really aliens.
To summarize that, that pointyeah, yeah.
So let me just give somerecommendations.
One American cosmic by DianaPasoka.
(25:55):
I mentioned that her secondbook is called encounters.
Both are really good books.
I've read them both.
Another book on my reading listfor this year messengers of
deception by Jacques Vallee.
And then there's a podcastseries from the cultish podcast
Really good podcast, yeah, butthis it's a 10 part series
called alien revelations.
It's.
(26:16):
It's a phenomenal series youcan just listen to it as you
drive or go on your runs orwhatever, and they do stay deep,
dive into this subject and it'sa really, really good series.
So like I've only talked liketwo episodes, 30 minutes apiece
piece on this, this is a 10-hourseries that you can listen to.
That's wild.
It's really, really good.
And then, lastly, michaelHeiser has a one-hour
(26:40):
documentary on YouTube aboutthis, about going into the UFO
genre and how a Christian shouldapproach this subject.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, yeah, tim, this just came up because you
earlier you mentioned and I'mnot going to veer off too far
where you mentioned that a lotof these experiences that they
have are traumatic.
And that makes a lot of sensewhen you talk about religiosity
or the seek for you know, higherpower, meaning, so on.
But two question one is dothese people get multiple
(27:12):
experiences of this samephenomena or is it just a
one-time experience and that'skind of what sets them on this
journey, you know, spiritualjourney in a sense?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
well, I don't have the numbers in front of me of
like who gets one experience,who gets multiples, but there
are people who get multipleexperiences okay, there's
similar things happening yeah,there's one individual in
particular who claims he cansummon the aliens and talk to
them, and I've watchedinterviews of this guy and I'm
firmly convinced that he'sdemonized.
(27:42):
He doesn't believe this.
In fact, he was a formerChristian.
He's had Christian friends tellhim dude, you're messing around
with demons, they're not aliens, they're demons.
He's like no, no, no, they'rereal.
And here's the thing is thatwhile a lot of these experiences
are traumatic, some of them arenot traumatic.
Some people get healed by thealiens.
Yes, by the quote unquote aliens.
(28:02):
Some people receive healings,they see what appear to be like
good miracles in their lives andthey conclude that these beings
are benevolent.
They just conclude from that,but I would.
I would just caution, likeanyone who hears a story like
that.
Just remember predators arenice to people, like sexual
(28:24):
predators are nice to peopleinitially, until they take
advantage yeah child predatorsare nice to children to lure
them in.
we we know this is the case forpredators.
Why would we not think that'spossible with these quasi
spiritual entities who we knownothing about?
From our vantage point, we donot understand.
(28:45):
Why would we conclude thatthey're benevolent just because
they do something nice to us?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point.
Yeah, I like that.
I guess this gave me the ideathat if we continue on with this
topic, I'm sure it's going toget.
I'm sure everyone's going to beinterested in these two topics.
So thanks for sharing on that.
But there is a trauma componentto this, and even what you
mentioned about the healingpiece too, because one of the
things that's impacted witheither a very significant
(29:10):
healing piece or a verysignificant traumatic piece is
how that affects your memory andwhat that you know where.
That caused you to fill in theblanks as you create this
narrative about your life, ofwhat you've seen, what you've
experienced.
So there could be somethingthere.
So, yeah, man, great topic.
I'm really intrigued, veryinterested, and especially if
there's this new piece that wecan dive into.
(29:32):
But I'm looking forward tohearing from you guys.
I don't know if there wasanything else that you wanted to
add, tim.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
No, I mean, I gave all my book references and again
, we only just really scratchedthe surface on this.
I mean, this is a decades long,hundreds of books written on
this subject and lots ofChristian authors who have
tackled this as well.
So I would just caution people.
It's okay In fact, if you'regoing to be talking about this
subject, you need to be informedas a Christian but just stay
(30:01):
grounded in the scriptures.
Stay grounded in a biblicalworldview.
Don't make this your life'swork.
You're not going to solve thisproblem.
Don't make this your life'sobsession okay, but take it
seriously.
And take it seriously on behalfof the people who do experience
this stuff, who do haveencounters, because they're
(30:22):
going to come asking for answersand, as a Christian, I think we
need to have those answers andtake them seriously.
If someone were to come to metomorrow and say I got abducted
by aliens, I would look at themand say I don't think you're
crazy.
You know there was a time in mylife where I might've said like
, okay, maybe this person'scuckoo That'd be me.
(30:42):
But like nowadays for the studythat I've done and what I've
learned.
I would look at them and sayyou know, I can't say for
certain if that was true becauseI wasn't there, but I don't
think you're crazy, becauseenough of this stuff has
happened.
That's real and you're free totell me more.
Like it's safe here with me.
You can tell me more.
(31:02):
I don't think you're crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, give space for that.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, that's good yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
All right.
Well, thank you, tim.
Guys, if you're interested inhearing more about this, feel
free to message us.
Let us know, because Tim isdefinitely excited.
He's dove into the topic verywell and I have a lot of
questions though, so hopefullywe can cover that.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Let's have our audience submit questions on
this, and then we can.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, yeah, and I think we did that too.
So we'll submit a little votingpoll thing and you guys can
submit your questions there andwe'll try to answer that in the
next recording.
But thank you guys for tuningin.
We will see you next time.
All right, welcome back to the Psych and Theology
podcast.
Sam and Tim here, and we justfinished an episode on UFOs in
the Bible and today we're goingto discuss UFO.
Religiosity, like this, hasbecome such an issue that people
have made religions out ofthese different elements having
(00:23):
to do with UFOs and, I'mguessing, aliens and a bunch of
other things.
And again, tim has piqued myinterest into this new world of
I don't know what would you callit, tim?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
UFOlogy, paranormal, the study of UFOs.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, yeah, but it actually does.
The weird stuff.
The weird stuff.
The weird stuff that's howwe'll title these two episodes
the Weird Stuff.
But there is a lot ofapplication to make Christians
laugh, because these are thingsthat are being brought up in
different circles and it canimpact your faith, and one of
the points made in the lastepisode was that this shouldn't
(00:59):
consume your life.
It's interesting, it makes youthink and even moves you to
think critically about thesethings, but it's another avenue
to maybe help people out ofthese different worldviews that
may be damaging their faith somuch so that they can make this
a religion in their own lives.
So that's on the episode fortoday, but before we start, as
(01:20):
always, we want you guys tofollow us on Instagram that is a
psych underscore and underscoreTheo and also on Facebook, and
we're still on Twitter too,right, tim?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, I believe so.
Brian's being faithful postingepisodes.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So we have that Subscribe to the podcast and
again, as always, send us amessage if you have any topic
recommendations and we'll do ourbest to address those.
And so today we will bediscussing UFO religiosity and
Tim.
These UFO things have become areligion in and of themselves
(01:53):
and it sounds like that isgrowing into a lot of different
sects.
It almost sounds very new ageyyou mentioned in the last
episode, like it's thiscollection of different parts of
religion and it just makeswhatever you know, whatever you
want it to be.
Does that sound accurate towhat it is?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
No, there's definitely a lot of overlap
between the New Age movement andthe New Age.
Goes by various titles now, butessentially it's New Age.
There's a lot of overlapbetween that and the UFO genre.
The UFO genre I think it's amix of the modern scientific
(02:30):
worldview with very old thinkingand religious beliefs about the
meaning of life andtranscendence and all these
things.
So, yeah, the UFO phenomenonreally started.
It really kicked off in thelate 40s and then the early 50s
when the Roswell incidenthappened that was 1947 and then
after that there was just anexplosion of reports of seeing
(02:50):
UFOs.
Now some of that like maybe alot of that can be attributed to
just popular hysteria.
People think they see things inthe skies fake videos, hoaxes,
all that stuff but not all of itcan be explained that way.
But essentially a lot of itkicked off after the roswell
incident and since then it hassparked this massive genre of
(03:12):
research into ufos and aliensand are we alone in the universe
?
And questions like that.
And fast forward to the modernage, there is a quasi-religious
movement around the subject ofUFOs and aliens and UAPs, such
that there are people who thinkthat the aliens are here to
(03:35):
usher us into a new age orthey're here to guide us on our
path to development.
So they're ascribing at leastmoral authority and
technological superiority tosome sort of alien race.
People will explain thisdifferently.
They think maybe they'reextraterrestrials from another
planet, but the more popularhypothesis now is that these
(03:56):
beings, these alien beings, areget this, interdimensional
beings, and we have to do that.
We have to do protocols tocontact.
They need to be contacted invery certain particular ways.
Perhaps if you do drugs,psychedelics, you might be able
to contact the aliens.
Yeah, yeah, talk to them.
Now this all sounds hokey Like.
(04:18):
Is this just cuckoo crazy stuff?
And perhaps some of it is, butit's not as crazy as you might
think if you understand thespiritual worldview in which
christianity like, I think thatchristianity can make sense of.
So essentially, around ufos,uaps.
The modern age of naturalismand materialism has failed to
(04:40):
give people a true sense ofmeaning and purpose in life, and
so this idea that there's analien race or races that are out
there that may have even seededplanet earth, and that they
explain the emergence ofintelligent beings such as
ourselves on planet earth, thatthey may be our progenitors,
they may be the ones who wealways thought was God, but it's
(05:02):
really maybe just aliens thatare here guiding us and giving
us help and information, andthey're now going to usher us
into a new age.
There's a documentary series onNetflix that everyone should
watch, I think as a Christian.
It's called Encounters and it'sall about aliens and it's about
modern stories of aliens andhow people have encountered them
(05:24):
.
It's almost like an UnsolvedMysteries series.
Yeah, why I say Christiansshould go watch this is because
real and for failing to listento people who have experienced
(05:48):
UFO abductions and encounters.
So the first couple episodesare about people who were
formerly Christians who have anencounter of some sort and then
they're not listened to by theirChristian pastors and friends
and they just dismiss them andthey feel very alienated by that
and they feel alone and so theyrun to like something has to
(06:11):
explain this experience and sothey end up running to something
else that will give them thatexperience.
Maybe that's psychics, maybethat's the UFO community and
they essentially are no longerChristians.
Then at the end of this series,the very last episode, I
remember watching this I was ona plane flying somewhere and I
(06:31):
got to the end of the series andI was like I was just like
squirming in my seat because Iwas so like frustrated and like
I can't believe they were doingthis.
They essentially were like thealiens are here to usher us into
a new age.
Like the aliens are here tousher us into a new age, they're
here to guide us on our path ofself discovery, and things like
that this particular episodewas covering the fukushima
(06:53):
meltdown, the nuclear powerplant in japan, okay, and how
there was.
There was all kinds of weirdphenomena around that meltdown,
and so the hypothesis was well,the aliens notice that we have
nuclear power and we have thepower to destroy ourselves, and
they really care about ourplanet and us taking care of the
planet, and so they're here tohelp us figure that out.
(07:17):
Yeah, so that?
So the thesis of the show isthat christians got it wrong.
Aliens are real, they're notnefarious, they're not deceptive
in any way, and they're here toguide us, and we've really just
misunderstood them all along.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
And that's wild, and how do they corroborate that?
How do they make that an actualargument for people to listen
to them like, is it justeyewitness experience, or I mean
, what is that?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
well, you have to understand.
So people, again, people areleaving the metaphysical
worldview of naturalism andmaterialism.
They're putting that aside andthey are now embracing forms of
spiritualism, new age beliefs.
So when it comes to alienexperiences, it's essentially
(08:10):
that they've experiencedsomething.
They don't feel the need togive you evidence of why that's
real.
They're like I've experiencedit.
I know my experience.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
That's what we'd call lived experience.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well, you know, know, not so much like so.
A lived experience is like aninterpretation of what it's like
to be me in the world.
But an experience like this isI was in my room and I saw
something.
Something was done to me.
I have marks on my body toprove it.
I was in one place and thenhours later I was in another
(08:44):
place, inexplicably, or I hadthis terrible experience where I
was abducted.
They did horrible things to meand I have trauma, ptsd from it.
So these are real things thatpeople recount and recall.
So having to corroborate thattry to make some sort of
scientific argument for it,they're like I don't feel the
(09:04):
need to do that because I knowwhat happened to me.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
But doesn't that make it seem more skeptical for the
people, right?
Because then anyone could justsay anything.
So they certainly so.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, yeah, and that is the case.
There are people who areattention seekers, who just want
attention, and that's certainlythe case, but there's so many
accounts of this and there aresome people who are hesitant to
tell, and that's an indicationthat something really did happen
to them they're hesitant totell their story, and that only
through because you're gonna beseen as crazy or something like
that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah orsomething happens, and there's
(09:36):
multiple witnesses.
There's a really famous case insouth africa of school children
, and a harvard researcher wentdown there to document this case
, and there's a whole notherside story with him in
particular.
But there's a really famouscase of these schoolchildren in
South Africa who all seesomething on the playground.
Something happens to them.
Now their stories areconflicting.
(09:57):
They recall different things.
They recall some similar things, some different things, so it's
hard to know what exactlyhappened, but it's around this
phenomenon that something weirdor paranormal occurred that
freaked them out.
I can't remember the school byname, but it's a really famous
case if you look it up.
There's lots of cases like thatof multiple eyewitnesses,
(10:20):
people seeing something.
Now, what has happened, though,is there's been a
quasi-religious movements aroundthis of people ascribing
meaning and transcendence andpurpose to knowing the aliens
and contacting them in some way,like it's their worldview that
gives them meaning and purposeyeah, I mean it becomes an
identity almost, because if it'sattached to meaning and purpose
and the afterlife in a senseyeah, I guess I'm wondering that
(10:40):
.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So you were talking about the religiosity piece of
it and maybe you have this forlater in the episode, guess I'm
wondering that.
So we're talking about thereligiosity piece of it and
maybe you have this for later inthe episode.
But I'm wondering what theirthoughts of the afterlife is.
If this is their religion andthey're attaching it to these
alien encounters or experiences,there has to be a belief
somewhere in there about what dothey think about the afterlife?
(11:01):
Do you think they're gonna bejoined to these aliens, or yeah,
or yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I'm just curious about that, especially if some
of them were former christians Iguess that kind of depends on
the individual, because we'respeaking really generally here,
okay, because new age philosophyis so intertwined with this
topic.
You see a lot of peoplebelieving in reincarnation or
something like that, or or whenI die here, my spirit goes to
(11:26):
another dimension and I livethere and on, and on and on and
on.
You might see things like that.
So there's a couple of books Iwant to point people to that are
really, really good on thistopic.
Both these books are by aresearcher named Diana Pasolka.
She's a professor of religiousstudies I think it's at North
Carolina or UNC, chapel Hill, Ican't remember where.
(11:47):
But her first book is calledAmerican Cosmic and it's a
subtitle of something like UFOsand Religion and it's about this
quasi-religious movement thatsprang up in the late 20th
century America around UFOs andthe fascination with it, not
just with individuals but withgovernments like the US
(12:09):
government.
She goes into great detail howeven the US government isn't
quite sure what's going on Dresearch, on advanced technology
that they don't want todisclose to the world.
So there's some aspects of that.
But there's other parts of thegovernment that are really
(12:31):
intrigued by what's happening.
They don't quite understand.
And there's a character in thisbook that she tags along with.
His pseudonym is Tyler D, buthe's a real individual and he's
got some crazy access levels inthe government, but essentially
she follows him around and hetells her all kinds of things,
discloses all kinds of things toher about what they know and
(12:53):
what they don't know aboutwhat's going on, because even
the US government will sendrockets up into space and they
will observe things flyingaround their rockets that they
can't explain Really.
Yeah, oh yeah.
But there's also people whothis particular individual in
the book named Tyler D.
He seems to have an uncannyability to download information
(13:18):
through some unknown source.
Now they call it downloading,but essentially think of it as
almost like ESP, extrasensoryperception.
Yeah, do you know whatautomatic writing is?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Automatic writing.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, no, okay, that's an occult practice.
We won't get into that too much, but automatic writing was a
way in which occultists wouldchannel information from an
unknown source and they wouldwrite it on a piece of paper so
that they would surrendercontrol of themselves to
whatever force was out there togive them information, and then
they would write it out on apiece of paper.
(13:51):
So it's either Christianscience I think it was Christian
science or Seventh-dayAdventism.
Okay, their founders, lng White, was Seventh-day Adventism and
Mary Baker, eddy, was thefounder of Christian science.
I think it was Eddy whobasically wrote all of her books
on Christian science throughautomatic writing.
So basically, she's likegetting all of this information
(14:11):
from a non-material source andshe's writing it.
She's like not even in controland she's writing this down.
Yeah, sounds strange, soundreally weird and nefarious right
.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, I don't know if you remember this or not, tim,
or if you've seen this movie,but in transformers I think it's
the second one basically that'swhat's happening with child
above, like, I mean, he, he'sbeing infiltrated, I guess, by
this alien or whatever, and he'sjust writing everything
frantically down on a piece ofpaper so it sounds like that's
kind of the same idea here yeah,that would be an instance of
(14:42):
automatic writing okay so this,this guy in this book, american
Cosmic named Tyler D he doesn'tdo automatic writing, but he has
this.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
He's always had this ability is what he said.
Where he does this pro, hecalls it a protocol.
It's not like an occulticpractice, but he does this
protocol in the mornings wherehe drinks a lot of water, he
sits in the sun and he setshimself up basically to receive
information and then he just hasall what he calls a download of
information.
And what's wild is that thisguy is a super genius.
(15:11):
He has all kinds of patents foradvanced things.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So he has like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So there's very strange things going on and what
else explains that is there.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Are there other potential explanations for that?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
like, I mean, he could be just be a super genius,
right, or or have that, I don'tknow if extra well, if he, if
he was, if he was the only onethat that happened to, maybe,
but there are other people likethat too okay who they say they
receive information somewhereoutside of them.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
That explains things to them because the same
capacity or different levels?
I'm guessing different levels,yeah, different levels like yeah
, she has.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
She has a few examples.
Diana has a second book calledencounters.
The subtitle is calledexperiences with non-human
intelligences and she eachchapter is a different person
who has experiences with anon-human intelligence.
She's very disciplined in howshe says that because she's a
(16:11):
researcher.
Yeah, she tries not to drawconclusions, even though she has
her own worldview.
She's a Catholic.
So one chapter is about a guywho claims to experience the
Archangel Michael.
Another chapter is about awoman who claims to download
information from some source andshe can understand really
complex problems like physicsand mathematics and things like
(16:34):
that.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Where does it all go with?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
UFOs.
Is that the connection?
Is that, in the modernworldview, where people are
observing aerial phenomenon andthey are receiving all this
information and there'sgovernment disclosures like even
the government doesn't knowwhat's going on, they admit it
People are trying to make senseof all of this to say the aliens
are finally here.
(16:56):
The aliens are the ones doingthis, the aliens are giving us
information, the aliens arehelping us.
We need to make contact withthe aliens because the aliens
are like our big brothers.
Do you see how this religiosityis forming around the aliens
and ufos?
Yeah, yeah, but as a christian,your spidey senses might
already be going off that right.
This doesn't sound all thatgood yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Well, even like when you mentioned, you know, the
idea of someone meeting thearchangel, did you say michael?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
so even things like that, like okay, is that still a
thing?
And and I think from ourprevious episode you said I
think the capability is stillthere the question is how do you
verify that that's happening?
Yeah, exactly, if I'm doing itcorrectly, it's more so.
It's an experience that theperson is sharing with other
people, and you could choose tobelieve it or not.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah.
So some of these things youjust have to take with a grain
of salt as, like, this person issharing their experience.
We don't really have much to goon beyond that.
I think in some sense you canjudge these things by the fruit
that they produce.
Yeah, we can get into that inlater episodes.
(18:10):
But if someone is like, ifsomeone says I went up and I
hung out with the aliens, I wasabducted and they've come down
and they've given me a specialmessage for humanity and now
everyone needs to listen to me,let's pump the brakes on that
one.
Yeah, but there's others thatthey say that they have
(18:32):
experiences Maybe they're not sopleasant, maybe they're quite
dramatic, and this person thisgoes for a lot of different
things like this where, ifsomething happens that's
unexpected, that lendscredibility to the person's
experience.
Yeah, expecting that's like,okay, there's credibility that
(18:52):
maybe there's something there,maybe something did actually
happen.
There's a couple of instancesof that in the, in the ufo space
as well, where, yeah, somethinglike there's examples of
christians who have these kindof encounters and some of them
they kind of realize what'sgoing on and it's quite
spiritual in nature and theyrebuke it in the name of Jesus
(19:14):
and it goes away.
Others have almost like abattle, you know, with these
beings like a physical struggleor like a spiritual struggle to
get out of that situation.
Yeah, it's a really, it's areally strange space, and so I
think the last episode I endedwith this scenario where if
you're a pastor or just someone,a Christian, and another
(19:35):
brother or sister comes to you,this close to you, they share.
I've had that experience, thishappened to me, and I would say
this one it's likely traumaticfor them.
This is like if it did happen.
It's likely a traumaticexperience that they don't
really want to tell to a lot ofpeople.
So, as a Christian, I would saydon't immediately dismiss that.
(20:01):
Yeah, because it could actuallybe a legitimate experience that
they've had.
Now, could it be anhallucination?
Sure.
Could it be epilepsy?
Sure.
Could it be the pepperoni pizzaand a bad dream?
Sure, but not all cases aregoing to be like that.
Yeah, and as christians, weneed to be informed of what's
going on in this space and notjust dismiss it as, oh, it's all
(20:23):
a bunch of hokey, fake stuffand people are crazy and they're
making it all up, but they wantto believe this stuff.
Now I would venture say, if youpastor a church of a few
thousand people, the chances ofthere being someone in your
congregation that has had one ofthese experiences is really
high.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Really.
So how, yeah, I mean, howcommon is this?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's
quite.
It's more common than what wemight think.
It's more.
For instance, it's more commonnot necessarily abductions, but
seeing something, witnessingsomething in the sky, hearing
something, and then, of course,encountering in some way.
Again, you have to weed throughhow many of these are wishful
(21:11):
thinking, make believe, hoaxes.
You just you have to use yourdiscernment.
Yeah, that's, don't believeeverything you hear, but
sometimes there's going to belegitimate experiences and, uh,
this is where I think we can getinto, like the Christian
worldview.
You know, my view on this isthat this is deeply spiritual.
(21:32):
The whole phenomenon is deeplyspiritual and what's going on is
demonic in nature and thephenomenon that people are
witnessing are manifestations ofspiritual realities that don't
have our best interests in mind.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
What do you mean by that?
Don't have our best interestsin mind.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Well, for instance okay, so Jacques Vallée, I
mentioned him in the lastepisode.
What do you mean by that Don?
That have formed around the UFOsubject People trying to make
(22:17):
contact with these beings,trying to talk to them or
claiming to receive messagesfrom the beings.
But the phenomenon that peopledescribe firsthand accounts of
encounters that they've had isso contradictory, it's so
variegated.
There's not a consistent coreexperience Like.
(22:37):
There's not like.
Put it this way If you can havea hundred people come to you and
they they're all describingwhat it was like to go to the
zoo and see the lions at the zoo, if you got a hundred accounts
of that, you could start topiece together the core
experience of what it's like togo see the lions at the zoo.
Not every experience is goingto be exactly the same, but you
(23:00):
could piece together the coreelements of that.
Like the lions are at this partof the zoo and they look like
this and when they roar itsounds like this.
You get what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.
But with the UFO genre theexperiences are so variegated
that it's it's hard to actuallyput down what is a core
experience of a UFO encounter,even the messages that these
(23:24):
alien beings give to people isso contradictory, like even the
accounts that seem to beverified, like this person
actually experienced something.
One person says the aliens arethe palladians from this planet.
And no, they're this from thisplanet or no, they're from
another dimension, and sometimesthey hurt people, sometimes
they don't, sometimes they'reimmaterial, sometimes they're
(23:44):
not, sometimes they're mean,sometimes they're nice.
It's all over the place.
And so the the title of hisbook, messengers of of Deception
, indicates that, whatever ishappening here, these entities
aren't interested in giving usthe truth.
They're not actually interestedin disclosing to us what their
(24:06):
true nature is.
They're not interested in beingfound out.
To put it another way, yeah, sojust that.
That's what I mean by thesebeings.
If they're demonic in nature,they're not going to have your
best interest, they're not goingto have our best interest at
heart, and they're quite contentwith people forming religions
around the aliens.
Yeah, that's especially.
(24:26):
There is a subset of ufoencounters where people come
back with messaging, where theyreceive a message from the
aliens, like I've alluded to,and that message is typically
something like all religions arethe same and we all just need
to get along.
Or Jesus and Mohammed and Moses, they were all like, connected
to the aliens.
Jesus was really just a higherascented spiritual master, you
(24:49):
know.
So that they're messagingsomething specifically about
Jesus, typically, of who he wasor wasn't, that's a little
demonic.
Yeah, michael Heiser has adocumentary on YouTube about
this.
He's a disciplined researcher.
He debunks some popular mythsabout UFOs.
But then, after doing all thisdebunking, he gets down to the
core experience, like the corekernel of like these experiences
(25:12):
, where there's theologicalmessaging going on, and he says
that's the subset of theseexperiences that Christians
should really focus on.
The other subsets are like,maybe the government's doing
something and they don't want tobe found out, or maybe there's
just hoaxes over here that wedon't need to pay attention to,
but the ones where people areclaiming to have some quasi
(25:33):
spiritual experience with thealiens and the aliens give them
worldview information.
We really need to hone in onthat and be discerning about
what the aliens are saying,because they're probably not
really aliens.
To summarize that, that pointyeah, yeah.
So let me just give somerecommendations.
One American cosmic by DianaPasoka.
(25:55):
I mentioned that her secondbook is called encounters.
Both are really good books.
I've read them both.
Another book on my reading listfor this year messengers of
deception by Jacques Vallee.
And then there's a podcastseries from the cultish podcast
Really good podcast, yeah, butthis it's a 10 part series
called alien revelations.
It's.
(26:16):
It's a phenomenal series youcan just listen to it as you
drive or go on your runs orwhatever, and they do stay deep,
dive into this subject and it'sa really, really good series.
So like I've only talked liketwo episodes, 30 minutes apiece
piece on this, this is a 10-hourseries that you can listen to.
That's wild.
It's really, really good.
And then, lastly, michaelHeiser has a one-hour
(26:40):
documentary on YouTube aboutthis, about going into the UFO
genre and how a Christian shouldapproach this subject.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, yeah, tim, this just came up because you
earlier you mentioned and I'mnot going to veer off too far
where you mentioned that a lotof these experiences that they
have are traumatic.
And that makes a lot of sensewhen you talk about religiosity
or the seek for you know, higherpower, meaning, so on.
But two question one is dothese people get multiple
(27:12):
experiences of this samephenomena or is it just a
one-time experience and that'skind of what sets them on this
journey, you know, spiritualjourney in a sense?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
well, I don't have the numbers in front of me of
like who gets one experience,who gets multiples, but there
are people who get multipleexperiences okay, there's
similar things happening yeah,there's one individual in
particular who claims he cansummon the aliens and talk to
them, and I've watchedinterviews of this guy and I'm
firmly convinced that he'sdemonized.
(27:42):
He doesn't believe this.
In fact, he was a formerChristian.
He's had Christian friends tellhim dude, you're messing around
with demons, they're not aliens, they're demons.
He's like no, no, no, they'rereal.
And here's the thing is thatwhile a lot of these experiences
are traumatic, some of them arenot traumatic.
Some people get healed by thealiens.
Yes, by the quote unquote aliens.
(28:02):
Some people receive healings,they see what appear to be like
good miracles in their lives andthey conclude that these beings
are benevolent.
They just conclude from that,but I would.
I would just caution, likeanyone who hears a story like
that.
Just remember predators arenice to people, like sexual
(28:24):
predators are nice to peopleinitially, until they take
advantage yeah child predatorsare nice to children to lure
them in.
we we know this is the case forpredators.
Why would we not think that'spossible with these quasi
spiritual entities who we knownothing about?
From our vantage point, we donot understand.
(28:45):
Why would we conclude thatthey're benevolent just because
they do something nice to us?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point.
Yeah, I like that.
I guess this gave me the ideathat if we continue on with this
topic, I'm sure it's going toget.
I'm sure everyone's going to beinterested in these two topics.
So thanks for sharing on that.
But there is a trauma componentto this, and even what you
mentioned about the healingpiece too, because one of the
things that's impacted witheither a very significant
(29:10):
healing piece or a verysignificant traumatic piece is
how that affects your memory andwhat that you know where.
That caused you to fill in theblanks as you create this
narrative about your life, ofwhat you've seen, what you've
experienced.
So there could be somethingthere.
So, yeah, man, great topic.
I'm really intrigued, veryinterested, and especially if
there's this new piece that wecan dive into.
(29:32):
But I'm looking forward tohearing from you guys.
I don't know if there wasanything else that you wanted to
add, tim.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
No, I mean, I gave all my book references and again
, we only just really scratchedthe surface on this.
I mean, this is a decades long,hundreds of books written on
this subject and lots ofChristian authors who have
tackled this as well.
So I would just caution people.
It's okay In fact, if you'regoing to be talking about this
subject, you need to be informedas a Christian but just stay
(30:01):
grounded in the scriptures.
Stay grounded in a biblicalworldview.
Don't make this your life'swork.
You're not going to solve thisproblem.
Don't make this your life'sobsession okay, but take it
seriously.
And take it seriously on behalfof the people who do experience
this stuff, who do haveencounters, because they're
(30:22):
going to come asking for answersand, as a Christian, I think we
need to have those answers andtake them seriously.
If someone were to come to metomorrow and say I got abducted
by aliens, I would look at themand say I don't think you're
crazy.
You know there was a time in mylife where I might've said like
, okay, maybe this person'scuckoo That'd be me.
(30:42):
But like nowadays for the studythat I've done and what I've
learned.
I would look at them and sayyou know, I can't say for
certain if that was true becauseI wasn't there, but I don't
think you're crazy, becauseenough of this stuff has
happened.
That's real and you're free totell me more.
Like it's safe here with me.
You can tell me more.
(31:02):
I don't think you're crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, give space for that.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, that's good yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
All right.
Well, thank you, tim.
Guys, if you're interested inhearing more about this, feel
free to message us.
Let us know, because Tim isdefinitely excited.
He's dove into the topic verywell and I have a lot of
questions though, so hopefullywe can cover that.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Let's have our audience submit questions on
this, and then we can.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, yeah, and I think we did that too.
So we'll submit a little votingpoll thing and you guys can
submit your questions there andwe'll try to answer that in the
next recording.
But thank you guys for tuningin.
We will see you next time.
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