*Please Note: As our ministry’s focus on Science in the Bible continues this June, we are excited to introduce a 4 part blog series based on Dr. Ron Rhodes’ article, “Are UFOs Mentioned in the Bible?“. In the first two weeks (June 6th, 2024, and June 13th, 2024), Dr. Rhodes dives into the claims made by UFOlogists and how they intertwine their beliefs with biblical narratives. Then, he will address and counter these claims in the following two weeks (June 20th, 2024, and June 27th, 2024). If you want to skip ahead and read the counter-claims, you can do so here. Our ministry believes that knowledge of differing perspectives equips you to defend your faith against such claims.
Otherworldly Explanations for Jesus Christ
Christians believe in the biblical doctrine of the virgin birth. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and supernaturally caused her pregnancy (Luke 1:35). The eternal son of God stepped out of eternity and into humanity via Mary’s womb.
Quite different is the explanation of some UFO enthusiasts. Some believe that aliens aboard a spacecraft injected Mary with the sperm of a space creature from another world. Others claim that the angel Gabriel of the gospels was an alien scientist who artificially inseminated Mary to create Jesus.[i] In such a scenario, of course, Mary can still be called a virgin since she had not had sexual relations with anyone. But there was no miracle, as orthodox Christianity has claimed since the first century.[ii] Jesus was allegedly a mixed breed—part human and part alien.
Soon after the birth of Christ, aliens appeared to shepherds in a field to announce this extraordinary event.[iii] Understandably, the shepherds mistook these glorious aliens for angels (compare with Luke 2).
Aliens were allegedly involved in other ways in the life of Christ. For example, we are told it wasn’t a “star of Bethlehem” that led the magi to the home of Jesus (Matthew 2:7). Rather, a spacecraft flying high in the atmosphere led the magi to Jesus’ dwelling place—just as a spacecraft had earlier led the Israelites in the wilderness as a “pillar of fire.”[iv]
During Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit did not descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove, as Matthew 3 indicates. Rather, there was some kind of visible energy discharge from a spacecraft hovering in the sky that came upon Jesus.[v]
Nor did Jesus perform miracles among His people, as the New Testament claims. Aliens aboard UFOs were allegedly involved in all the works Jesus did on earth:
The Gospels relate many stories about how Jesus cured the crippled and the lame… These were not genuine miraculous cures… What actually took place was that extraterrestrials had previously hypnotized certain people so that their infirmities were psychosomatic. These apparently sick people were programmed to respond to the suggestions of Jesus that led to their being instantaneously healed.[vi]
Sometime later, Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration. UFO enthusiasts tell us that the mention of a “bright cloud” (Matthew 17:5) indicates that it was a spacecraft that served to transport Moses and Elijah to this mountain from a higher level of reality.[vii] After their conversation with Jesus was over, they boarded the spacecraft and left the mountain.
When Jesus ascended into heaven, this also allegedly involved a spacecraft. The biblical text says, “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight” (Acts 1:9). The means of being “taken up” was an alien ship of some type[viii]—and, as is the case with other appearances of spacecrafts, clouds were present.
Some go so far as to say that Jesus was a participant in a grand experiment on humanity:
What if it turns out that the aliens are really the gods of the Bible? That is, the all-powerful beings who have been here before, done their thing, left, and now come back to throw their technological hat into the ring? Suppose they had been here two thousand years ago and had subsequently traveled at almost the speed of light so that time slowed down for them while it went on for the people they left behind? They might be the same beings who were here in Jesus’ time, and had left Jesus or other religious leaders behind and are now back to check on how things had gone.[ix]
UFOs and the Transportation of Angels
Dr. Barry H. Downing, a clergyman, argues that UFOs are part of a “heavenly transportation system” carrying angels of God who interact among human beings. This is not something that can be proven, Downing concedes, but is something that must be accepted by faith.[x]
Downing believes that UFOs come from a parallel universe—“in the midst of us”—citing a statement by Jesus (Luke 17:21). The modern UFO mystery, in his view, is merely an extension of events depicted in the Bible and other historical reports showing that angels “are still with us, doing their shepherd work—by night and day.”[xi]
Teaching on Hell from Aliens?
Some UFOlogists have claimed that some of the content of the Bible was brought to this planet by aliens. The doctrine of hell is an example:
Dr. Irwin Ginsburgh, a leading physicist, suggests that the biblical description of hell could well be a description of the Planet Venus, and a description transplanted to Planet Earth by space beings. It has been discovered that Venus has a searing atmosphere, with a surface heat of 850 degrees Fahrenheit. The planet is wreathed in dense sulfur clouds, with sulfuric acid droplets—liquid and solid, dripping from the clouds. Could our planetary neighbor be the origin of our hell? Dr. Ginsburgh thinks it could be.
It could be that knowledge of the surface conditions on Venus were communicated to primitive Earth people by extraterrestrials who showed them pictures of the planet’s surface… and the dark, glowing, searing hot and sulfurous 20 planet has been remembered—as hell.[xii]
UFOs and the Emergence of Religion
As alluded to previously, many UFOlogists tie the emergence of religion on planet earth to UFO activity among human beings in the past. In ancient times, extraterrestrials might have been interpreted to be angels, gods, or God. We are told that all the gods of mythology were in reality extraterrestrial astronauts.[xiii]
“Whatever the visitors are,” abductee Whitley Strieber writes in Transformation, “I suspect they have been responsible for much paranormal phenomena, ranging from the appearance of gods, angels, fairies, ghosts, and miraculous beings to the landing of UFOs in the backyards of America.” If this is the case, then, in Strieber’s words, “we may very well be something different from what we believe ourselves to be, on this earth for reasons that may not yet be known to us, the understanding of which will be an immense challenge.”[xiv]
[i] Gayle White, “Extraterrestrial Encounters,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 5 April 1997, p. F04.
[ii] The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds, ed. James R. Lewis (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 35.
[iii] The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds, pp. 32-33.
[iv] William M. Alnor, UFOs in the New Age (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), pp. 222-23.
[v] Alnor, pp. 222-23.
[vi] The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds, p. 35.
[vii] Richard Hall, Uninvited Guests: A Documented History of UFO Sightings, Alien Encounters, & Cover-ups (Santa Fe: Aurora Press, 1988), pp. 139-40.
[viii] White, p. F04.
[ix] Whitley Strieber, Communion: A True Story (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1987), pp. 234-35.
[x] Hall, pp. 139-40.
[xi] Hall, pp. 139-40.
[xii] I.D.E. Thomas, The Omega Conspiracy: Satan’s Last Assault on God’s Kingdom (Oklahoma City, OK: Hearthstone Publishing, 1986), pp. 198-99.
[xiii] Frank White, The SETI Factor (New York, NY: Walker and Company, 1990), p. 4.
[xiv] Bryan, pp. 421-22.