UFOs, ET, SETI and Neo-paganism

Searching for extraterrestrial life
Arecibo Radio Telescope - Puerto Rico

UFOs are commonplace these days of intensive aviation and space exploration: so many things are flying around in the atmosphere and orbiting earth that there are plenty of unknown flying objects.

A bright light in the east at night, a dark fast flying thing in the west, a strangely hovering thing the captain sees from the cockpit, and those bright fast moving lights that defy explanation.

They are all unknown, they are flying in odd ways and most of them are some sort of objects.


The Big question: are there intelligent extraterrestrials?
In other words are there genuine UFOs that are not made by people living on this planet for military or civilian purpose and that are not just some unusual natural phenomena such as meteorites or optical phenomena in the atmosphere.

A very convincing photo!

Something like from the popular books written by Erik von Däniken with mysterious visitors from outer space examining life on earth and leaving odd signs in the archaeological and historical records of humanity?

Something like Steven Spielberg's wonderful imagination of Close Encounters of the Third Kind or the even more wonderful classic ET?

Close encounter of the lovely kind: ET and Steven Spielberg

Something like those persistent rumors of US army being in the know but wisely hiding from the general public not to create panic?

Or the human body freezing aliens in X-files style? Or hostile creatures like those described in detail in Independence Day? Or the aggressive but not music loving creatures in the comedy Martian attacks? Or the a little strange American family in the comedy Third Rock from the Sun? or the scary teethed Coneheads? or the outright scary Aliens?

There obviously is an interest in the subject that movie makers, SciFi writers and TV series producers can rejoice and also cash on!

Guest landing to Chicago O'Hara Airport?

Plus a lot of urban legends.



Yes

My personal answer as a Christian to the Big question "is there extraterrestrial intelligent life" is a resounding Yes.

I believe that God of Israel does not create emptiness. He is Life and surely the entire universe He has created is bursting with most diverse life forms from corner to corner.

There is plenty of extraterrestrial life out there that goes beyond our wildest imaginations. I am sure that the nearby Andromeda Galaxy is utterly filled with life as we know it and with life as we do not know it.


But it does not really matter

Why?

The Bible is divine revelation and it talks about the God of Israel and the Savior of children of Adam and Eve and the Holy Ghost that is present in this planet in the congregation and about the end of this world of ours and new earth and heavens that God will create. The focus is here not because outer space was unknown to Biblical writers but because extraterrestrial life does not matter.

There are billions of other worlds. But they are so far from us that it does not really matter.


We were alone in this universe even we are not alone!

We are alone despite the possibility that the entire cosmos is bursting life out there. We are alone because of the enormous distances even there surely are many other intelligent beings out there.

Today we do not have realistic possibilities to visit even our nearest neighbor alfa Centaur. Four and half light years is such a distance that it is way beyond our best technologies for space travel. Perhaps ionized wind could speed our spacecraft to such speeds that after two or three human generations time it would reach the vicinity of alfa Centaur - but it will be a one way ticket for the grand children of the astronauts who began the trip.


Still, let us look for intelligent life in space!
Personally I do not want to discourage anyone from imagining other worlds, writing books or making movies about them, from broadcasting logical signals towards deep space, from building space capsules that contain gold disc with the music of J.S. Bach or spending a fortune to extensive listening of space noise in order to locate some interesting area of space where some source of meaningful signals exists.


SETI project
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SETI program combining broadcasting and listening stations and exhaustive analysis of recorded noise from the space for any kind of logical or mathematical pattern created by some alien intelligent mind.

Anyone can donate processor time from his or her computer to the innovative Berkeley SETI project in order to help analyze the immense amount of radio signal fluctuations their Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico is recording. You will not be the only one - some five million people have downloaded the software to support this search for alien intelligence. Read more about this innovative University of California project and how to participate in it from here.



Neopaganism
Reaching for the ultimate unknown of the universe is a very productive and good challenge for the human race forcing us to try something together.

So let us do all we can to colonize the space starting with the moon and mars and let us build mighty international space stations and vehicles that can reach beyond our solar system.

Let us invest on space research and become tourists to high orbits to admire God's wonderful creation.

But let us not worship UFO things!!

Seeking for close encounters of the wrong kind

There is always something in the mysterious, secret and majestic universe that entices us to put our trust on space beings as our helpers and saviors or make us fear them as our enemies. The UFO neo-paganism is an awful return to the ancient paganism where heavenly bodies were considered divide and influential in our lives. Now people worship things flying between those suns and stars with consequences in their lives, distortion of religious behavior and outright blasphemy against the one true God who has created earth and heavens, both visible and invisible.


Let us worship the only God and nobody beyond Him

The One who has made it all - and us too - and who has promised to take care of the humanity He has created. In a just and righteous manner.

As it is written in the holy Scriptures of Old and New Testament.

Beware of UFO paganism, it is a creeping thing coming from the direction of space but in reality being a mixture of human imagination and fantasies and the works of evil spirits that mess things up around here on planet earth.