A congressional hearing this month calling for greater government transparency on UFOs is one of the latest events spurring public interest in aliens.
But beyond many people’s fascination with the nuts and bolts of unidentified objects flying at physics-defying speeds and trajectories lies a yearning for enlightenment and transcendence, says Northeastern psychology professor David DeSteno.
It’s enough to spawn new spiritual movements that could replace or become incorporated into more traditional religions in some instances, he says.
A UFO religion?
“It’s a common view among religious scholars that religion has always been about powerful beings coming down from the sky and human beings going up,” says DeSteno, who has a podcast called “How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality.”
A belief in superior alien technology and guidance “fills that God-sized hole” in the hearts of people who have abandoned mainstream faith practices, he says.
Individuals are connecting through meetups for meditation sessions intended to contact aliens and for skywatching parties in an attempt to witness superior UFO technology that many believe comes from other worlds, DeSteno says.
“They are looking for new ways to be spiritual because they feel that need in their life,” he says.
“They just don’t feel the mainstream churches and temples and religions are meeting their needs, so this became an avenue that’s open to people, especially because it seems like it might be science based,” DeSteno says.
The Navy’s 2020 release of the “tic tac” and “go fast” videos that appear to show flying vehicles performing unearthly feats helped fuel public belief that there is something in the skies that’s vastly superior to human capability.
“There are hundreds of new religions that form in a year,” DeSteno says. “The ones that take off are the ones that speak to the moment. And I think that, right now, this is one.”
‘Blacker than black’
During the Nov. 13 hearing by the House Oversight Committee, which included the testimony of military officials, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia said, “We have evidence that we are detecting things, and we know that we don’t understand them, and this is worth investigating.”
Six days later, the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities heard that a law enforcement officer investigating the appearance of a large orange globe reported seeing an auto-sized object that was “blacker than black” shoot from the ground into the sky faster than any drone.
The idea of aliens having power greater than humans can conceive has religious overtones, DeSteno says.
Powerfully good – or bad?
While many people attempting to commune with aliens believe they are here to help humanity heal from disease and become more spiritual, others aren’t so sure.
“There are beliefs in certain Christian communities that (aliens) might be demons,” DeSteno says.
Even the eminent physicist Stephen Hawking advised humanity to shun potential alien contact, pointing out that things did not go well for Native Americans when Christopher Columbus arrived on the scene.
It’s oftentimes true that “when more powerful groups conquer other groups, they enslave them,” DeSteno says. “We have no idea if (aliens) are beneficent beings.”
UFO cults?
Belief in godlike aliens resulted in tragedy for individuals belonging to the Heaven’s Gate cult in 1997.
Thirty-nine cult members killed themselves in the belief a spaceship would follow the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet and whisk their consciousness off to the heavens.
They thought the media, government and corporate interests were hiding the truth about aliens from the public.
That nerve is currently being struck by the Pentagon’s annual All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) report, which states that while many cases of UFOs remain unresolved, there is no evidence of extraterrestrial activity among hundreds of cases that were investigated and closed.
“Cult is a tricky word because we often call small religions cults,” DeSteno says, even though they may go on to become mainstream religious movements.
He says whatever the belief system of a new religion is, members need to make sure they are not being exploited by a charismatic leader.
Conspiracy theories are problematic, in that they allege the government is “intricately, intimately involved” in suppressing evidence of UFOs, DeSteno says.
Are UFOs in religious texts?
He says texts from epic Hindu poetry to the Judeo Christian Bible describe phenomena that seem very similar to UFOs and aliens in modern eyes.
The most well-known might be the Old Testament account of the priest Ezekiel encountering sparkling wheels rimmed with eyes in the sky, a vision that is meant to represent the omnipresence of God.
Institutions like the Catholic Church have recognized that aliens may exist, and if they do “they were created by God, too,” DeSteno says.
As for his own beliefs, DeSteno says, “I would say it would be incredibly surprising if there were no other life in the vastness of the universe.”
“Whether they’re here or not, or whether they’d be friend or foe, remains an open question.”
Written by Cynthia McCormick Hibbert/ Northeastern University.
