1. Ara Hamilton says:

    Good timing as I’ve been doing a lot of research lately and specifically on angelology for the sake of my WIP! So much is unknown, and we are left to speculation, but it is an intriguing topic. I haven’t researched alien encounters, but I currently think demons are the source behind a lot of them. It makes sense to me that they would take on that disguise in order to entrap someone who is open to that belief. Our faith is based on belief (belief is our superpower), and demons purpose to destroy or pervert belief in order to sever our relationship with God, so they’ll be whatever we want them to be, at least initially. The idea of aliens is also an in-road to cultural and political influence if more people are persuaded to believe. World domination, right?

    • Travis Perry says:

      Yeah, note what Carl Sagan said when he implied people meeting aliens is a psychological phenomenon. Once it was gods, then demons or angels, then fairies, and now aliens. Sagan stated that the manifestation of the same sort of thing changed over time as culture changed. Again, he saw that as wholly psychological.

      But it seems to make sense that demons were in fact behind at least some of the sightings of gods, angelic beings, fairies, and now aliens.

      And yes, the idea of aliens does seem to have some political influence implications…

  2. notleia says:

    Dangit, I finally have an appropriate place to post all my collected Ancient Aliens memes, but the commbox doesn’t support images???!?

  3. Technically, the word alien basically refers to something foreign and strange. So, just from the standpoint that demons and angels are foreign and strange, an entity outside or different than earthly things, they could be called ‘aliens’. They would just be different than our normal perception of aliens, likely more spiritual than anything else.

    When I was younger, I didn’t believe in aliens at all, partly because most people I knew didn’t believe in them either. It was always presented as something odd and kind of crazy. Now I think they MIGHT exist, but don’t have a reason to be sure either way.

    Even if they did exist, that doesn’t mean they’ve been here yet, or even have a means for space travel. But so much of what people discuss regarding aliens gets really weird really fast. Tons of ‘encounters’ are probably hoaxes or hallucinations.

    Ancient Aliens is a documentary about the possibility of ancient myths actually being alien visitations. There’s an indie comic called Trying Human, which centers partly around alien abduction, though I haven’t read much of it. Asmundr and its sequel Home is a webcomic partly based on Norse mythology. All the major chars in that story are dogs, and I guess the ‘gods’ they worship are mostly aliens that genetically engineered them, though that isn’t revealed until much later in the first story.

    In a way I will probably play with the alien idea in some of my future sci fi stories. Quite a bit of it will be indirect, though. Particularly since humans and other earth inhabitants will basically be the ‘aliens’ overtaking the universe.

    My feelings on the angels and aliens topic just depends on a lot. Those stories can be fun, but other than that it just depends on how everything is presented and even on who is watching the story in question. Some people seem especially vulnerable to that kind of narrative, especially since scientists are actually trying to find aliens and give the idea credence. Some alien stories just get really messed up kind of fast. So, it’s something to be careful about.

    This isn’t quite an ‘aliens are spiritual entities’ thing, but on Netflix there’s a fairly new Godzilla animated series. It’s about Godzilla overtaking the earth, and a remnant of humans, along with two alien races they ally with, leave in a spaceship, hoping to return when Godzilla dies. It’s interesting, since one of those alien races is very atheist, and the other very religious. Humans are in between, or at least have more individuality with their beliefs. I’ve only seen the first two parts of that series, though.

  4. Here’s an Asmundr AMV to kind of show some aesthetics and hints of how some of the things you mentioned could manifest in a story:

    • Travis Perry says:

      Dogs with human characteristics (like hunting with spears) seem a bit alien–and dogs meeting very different mammals or dinosaurs even seems to have a connection to aliens, too. But I didn’t really see a connection to anything angelic. Or anything linking aliens and angels.

      Did I miss something?

      • It’s not exactly about angels, per say. More like the dogs see the aliens as deities at several points, so it’s more about seeing aliens as a connection to the divine/spiritual in general. It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but there’s been some things in that comic that could be interpreted as demon and angel like, but not actually described that way because the story isn’t borrowing from Christianity. The big glowing red dog was an example of a more demonic entity, I think, and it possessed a few things.

        Admittedly, a lot of the really obvious connections aren’t going to be shown in this vid because it was made a lot earlier on in the comic’s development. Some of the aspects involving spiritual beings and aliens are not really apparent until the comic is actually read, though. Like, near the AMV’s beginning, there’s a large marble/crystal glowing statue thing. In the comic, it communicated with a char, and at that point in the story it would have been easy to speculate if it was some kind of prophet or angel or spiritual entity. There were similar mysterious pale glowing beings later in the comic, too.

        http://www.smackjeeves.com/images/uploaded/comics/8/1/9/8199b45a6810z.png

        Later on in the second story, there is more discussion of the aliens since the dogs are more directly aware of them. At least one char had a lot of faith and devotion to the aliens, while other chars were angry and questioning them for not keeping certain tragedies and such from happening, much like people do with God now.

  5. Jes Drew says:

    I don’t believe God created intelligent life on any other planet other than earth on the physical plane because humans are His crowning creation made in His image and given dominion over the earth, and our first parents’ decision affected all of physical creation by bringing death and decay to it. That leaves all other intelligent life to exist in the spiritual realm, and reading of the experiences of those who had encounters with alleged aliens, it fits with the MO of demons: deceit, torture, strange beauty, and banishment at the mention of Jesus’ name. The only aliens hurting these people, causing hysteria, and causing this kind of physical and psychological damage are aline to the physical realm: i.e., demons.

    • Travis Perry says:

      Yeah, I agree that the standard reported behavior of aliens certainly sounds demonic. I am not 100 percent convinced that demons are the only cause of this phenomena though.

      As for there being no other intelligent life on any planet, I am agnostic on that issue. I have no evidence either way. The Bible not mentioning alien life could be seen as hugely significant–but there are lots of things we think of as important in modern times that the Bible didn’t mention. Such as the existence of the Americas and Australia–places with intelligent life even, though of course human, that nobody in Bible times had ever heard of.

      It seems possible to me that God created other intelligent life. But I will talk more about that in another post in this series.

      • Jes Drew says:

        It’s not so much what the Bible says or not that the Bible says or not says, it’s that the Bible’s narrative doesn’t seem to leave room for intelligent physical life (of course, there is plenty of intelligent spiritual life).

  6. John Weaver says:

    Travis, I don’t have a strong opinion on the existence of extraterrestrial life, though I don’t believe in UFOs or that aliens have visited Earth. Most evangelicals who get hung up on the UFO issue are either illogically consumed with concern over UFO pseudoscience and conspiracism (much like New Agers) or are more sensibly concerned with the fact that current belief in extraterrestrial and UFO contact is largely a product of Theosophy. The debate about the existence of alien life actually goes far back in church history, and just as now. Past church members had no clear consensus. I encourage everyone to look up the term plurality of worlds, which is what the alien debate used to be known as, in somewhat more primitive form

    • Travis Perry says:

      Thanks for your comment, John. I haven’t myself researched “plurality of worlds” though I have encountered certain ancient ideas that life might have lived on other planets that some historic Christians found possible.

      I’ll take a look at “plurality of worlds” before my next post on this topic–thank you for helping me be more informed!

  7. Richard New says:

    Wouldn’t it be interesting if some sort of alien angel—or alien rather like an angel—resembled something we think of as evil but was not evil? So imagine one that resembled any particular monster…or–entirely innocently–a type that had red bodies, with cloven hoofs and horns…

    Travis,

    Arthur C. Clark once wrote a novel called “Childhood’s End,” where the Earth is “invaded” by an unseen alien race. The only evidence of the invaders were their ships hovering in the air over the capital cities of the major political players. All wars ceased and mankind settled down to an uneasy truce with itself. After fifty Earth years of their ships hovering in the air, the aliens finally revealed themselves as the thin, red skinned, horned head with long, pointed tail–a human idea of Satan. They admitted to having a poor encounter with early humans early on in their exploration of this galaxy.

What do you think?