Angels and Aliens: Is There a Connection?
This article is a re-edited and re-purposed version of an old blog post I wrote on Aliens and Angels. I’m using what I previously wrote in a different way here–here it will be the first in a series about “Aliens in Science Fiction,” a topic which has as many interesting aspects as “Magic in Fantasy,” aspects of interest to Christian authors looking for means to use common tropes in unique and thought-provoking and yes distinctly Christian ways.
As a self-identified Christian science fiction writer who only dabbles in fantasy and other genres, perhaps it’s no surprise that I’m interested in both angels and aliens as topics for stories. What I find surprising is that some people don’t believe there is any difference between the two.
Such angel = alien correlation has a variety of forms:
American Astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out in 1995 that stories of alien encounters here on Earth resemble stories of demonic capture of earlier times—or of the appearance of angels, or fairy creatures, or gods or demi-gods of even earlier times. Sagan believed that intelligent extraterrestrial life likely exists because he was persuaded evolution certainly could not have produced life only on Earth—yet he denied that made any sense to say aliens actually had already came to Earth, clandestinely visiting and/or abducting people. He was convinced if aliens had come all this way, they surely would have announced themselves. For him, the fact that these kinds of appearances have always existed demonstrated that this is a phenomenon that springs forth from the human psyche rather than what aliens do or do not do. For him, at least one kind of alien, the kind who are supposedly visiting Earth right now—and angels—consist of the exact same thing, that is, pure neurotic human imagination.
Also surprising, the atheist Sagan is quoted by an Evangelical Christian website called “Are Angels Demons?” in order to show evidence for a belief that Sagan would never have agreed to. The creators of the site would concur with the Biblical concept that God has created creatures that serve Him in the spiritual realm—angels—some of whom rebelled against Him and are now called demons. For the creators of the website, Alien visitors to Earth are real but are actually demons. For them, the fact the phenomenon of human beings having reported bizarre encounters with strange beings throughout history demonstrates that the demons are real and have been active for a long time—but now disguise themselves as “aliens” or are mistakenly reported as such. In looking up background information for this post when originally written back in 2012, I stumbled onto an entire sub-culture of Christians concerned about demons posing as aliens. If you’re curious about what they have to say for themselves, I found www.alienresistance.org an interesting, albeit strange, place to look around (also underground science).
Alien-looking angels or angelic-looking aliens?
Image credit: Undergroundscience.net
Note not only Christians view aliens and angels as both being spiritual. I ran into a rather strange YouTube presentation in which a medium explains how aliens and aliens are both spiritual beings–according to the “guides” who explained all this to him. To be honest, this gentleman sounds like a nut to me. But there really are people who connect to the spiritual world through meditation and other means that would qualify as magic forbidden by the Bible–and then claim to interact with both aliens and angels in the spiritual realm. Something I would definitely not recommend anyone dabble in.
By the way, I don’t claim to know for certain what the reality is behind stories of alien encounters and abductions. I’m inclined to agree with Sagan that if an alien species were to travel all this way–which is not at all an easy to do according to the best human understanding of the science of interstellar travel, it would not likely content itself with random captures of lost truck drivers in remote areas and people like that…but I don’t know for sure what real aliens would do. One of the prime characteristics they are supposed to have is to be different from human beings—perhaps that means they would do strange things we would not do ourselves. Like maybe travel all this way and then fail to announce themselves.
I also believe there are fallen angels operating in the spiritual realm—and I further believe there’s such a thing as human imagination and hysterical hallucination, not to mention hoaxes. Which of these is responsible for the alien abduction phenomenon? Real aliens? Unlikely I think, but I can’t be certain. Demons? More likely maybe. Hysteria? Maybe. Hoaxes? At times, sure. I don’t know how to balance these possibilities with certainty, but it at least seems possible that there could be multiple causes of people feeling that they’ve really met aliens or been abducted by them.
As far as the correlation between angels and aliens are concerned, there’s another point of view worth mentioning: the “ancient alien” perspective, the notion that aliens came to Earth in ancient times and were mistaken for spiritual beings. So when the Bible talks about heavenly creatures, these creatures “really” were aliens. Barry Downing in 1968 wrote The Bible and Flying Saucers in which he laid out this idea. He also claimed, by the way, that Jesus was an extraterrestrial, eventually called up to “heaven” by a UFO…It’s interesting to me that Biblical narratives are supposed to accurately capture what aliens look like, as the description given in Ezekiel 1 , but then when these supposed aliens land, everything they talk about concerning, say, the morality and religious practice of ancient Israel either 1) Would not make a lot of sense coming from aliens, 2) Is taken as being an inaccurate representation of what really happened…so Ezekiel would be getting his description of Bible “aliens” completely right, but what they said to him was completely wrong. Which makes no sense–yeah, I’m definitely not in agreement with this particular concept.
But note the variations among the idea that hold aliens and angels to be the same: 1) Both are imaginary 2) Both are spiritual 3) Both are extraterrestrial. I think all three ideas, while interesting, are wrong.
I believe in the reality of the spiritual realm and accept the Biblical descriptions of angels, as far as they go. Though there are actually quite a lot of details about angels the Bible never addresses. Aliens, life existing on other planets in our physical universe, would not be the same thing as angels. One being is spiritual, the other, physical. Aliens may or may not exist but I believe it’s possible they do, though I’ve known Christians who would disagree that aliens can exist—a topic I will bring up again later in this series. My own idea is if alien life exists (if), such life would have to have been created by God, just as God created life on Earth.
Having brought out the interesting confusion concerning the nature of aliens and angels, how can we use this to come up with story ideas?
Adrian Gilbert produced a lecture series on the topic of angels and aliens–supposedly non-fiction. I’m not sure what his conclusions are, but the topic has interested people before. Image copyright, Adrian Gilbert.
I think playing up similarities between the two is inherently interesting as a story device. The anthology I contributed to years ago, Avenir Eclectia, did this. In that story universe, a certain set of intelligent undersea aliens with telepathic abilities are called “angels” by the people of the world Eclectia and their sinister cousins are called “demons.” Grace Bridges wasn’t equating aliens and angels in the world of AE she created, but rather playing with perceived similarities. There were story arcs that mention human beings worshiping the-aliens-partially-confused-with-angels in the anthology set in this world that I helped edit. Which I think would realistically happen—and it would be interesting to see the effects on human beings who met aliens who they thought were angels, even though they aren’t.
Another story idea would be to create alien races that like us have accounts of a creator God and a fall into sin and a redemption…and also of heavenly beings that serve God but resemble the aliens, literally “alien angels.” What would these look like? What would happen if a human character were to actually meet an alien angel?
And if you put “alien angels” into a story from a point of view that takes faith in God seriously, would these angels be the same set of angels that on occasion interact with human beings, just “in different clothing”? Or could it be that the one creator God would retain a whole entirely different set of heavenly beings for this other purpose—who are not mentioned in the Bible because we humans don’t “need to know” about them? If so, what would the relationships be like between angels we know of and the alien angels?
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…
What are your thoughts on stories that combine ideas about angels and aliens? Have you read such stories? If so, mention them. If you haven’t read such stories, would you be interested in reading them or maybe writing them? What other thoughts do you have on this topic?
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?
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…
Dangit, I finally have an appropriate place to post all my collected Ancient Aliens memes, but the commbox doesn’t support images???!?
Try posting the image url. Sometimes the site automatically posts the pic.
They’re saved to my computer and I haven’t had look luck with posting from there. I’ll see if I can find some of them online again:
https://cheezburger.com/7701692416
Wait, I think this is the blog where I stole most of them
https://davescorneroftheuniverse.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/fun-with-memes-i-am-not-saying-it-was-aliens-but/
The one with Sigourney Weaver was my fave.
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.
Yeah, playing with aliens having different attitudes towards religion than humans is one way to portray aliens in a way that clearly points back to God. Have you read A. Walker Scott’s No Road Among the Stars? All the alien species, and there are many of them, ALL are more religious than human beings. Which is an interesting twist on the concept of meeting aliens in the future.
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Among-Stars-InterStellar-Commonwealth-ebook/dp/B07DJ35N4Z/
Not yet, but it’s one I’ve seen mentioned on several occasions and that I might be interested in trying eventually. I should probably put it on my list before I forget, though.
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:
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.
Oh, OK. Thanks for explaining.
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.
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.
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).
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
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!
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.