Page 4157 - 1970S

UFO
(Continuedfrom page 11)
about the chances for life elsewhere
in the universe, fundamentalist
Chris tians have generally felt
threatened by the prospect of life on
other worlds. lf extraterrestrial life
exists, what happens to the unique–
ness of man as a specially created
being in the image of God? And
how would one understand the re–
demptive sacrifice of Jesus Christ?
Did Jesus die on other planets too?
To many fundamentalists, UFOs
are far more likely to be angels or
demons than life forms from other
planetary systems.
"lt would seem tome that if there
are any flying saucers or UFOs pen–
etrating earth's airspace, they must
be satanic in origin and must be
carrying out the program of Satan
for these last days," concludes Dr.
Hart Armstrong, president of the
Defenders ofthe Christian Faith.
Yet, perhaps surprisingly, people
who are classified as " religious" in
the broad sense are actually the
most likely to believe in extra–
terrestrial life and look forward to
contact with such creatures, accord–
ing to a recent study by research
psychologist Dr. Paul J . Lavrakas.
On the other hand, Lavrakas found
that a theists have the least belief in
extra terrestrial life, presumably be–
cause a godless universe seems less
hospitable asan abode for life.
And the astounding success of
Star Wars and Close Encounters of
the Third Kind? Perhaps it ca n be
attributed to the current interest in
UFOs and life in outer space, which
is in turn a product of an unfulfilled
religious Longing, what theologian
Harold J . Brown calls a "contentless
mysticism that is so popular in a
skeptical but still deeply credulous
and spiritualistic age."
UFOlogist Dr. Jacques Vallee ar–
gues that religious motivations are, in
fact, an integral part of the fascina–
tion with UFOs. Says Vallee: "The
main reason for the popularity of the
extraterrestrial hypothesis is that it
responds to our deep longing as a
species to meet more ad vanced
beiogs, our hope that there a re forms
of life in the universe that have tran–
scended the problems we currently
38
have here on Earth- such as war,
poverty and disease. Witness reports
consistently bear sorne kind of psy–
chic connection between UFO sight–
ings and certain strong unconscious
needs and beliefs.... The longer the
scientific community continues to re–
act to the subject with puzzled embar–
rassment, the longer the bureaucracy
continues to suppress reports and to
deny that UFOs exist , the greater the
li.kelihood that the phenomenon will
lead to new kinds of religious mass
movements, because it appeals to a
deep need we have for mystery, for
irrational belief."
Menzel and Taves argue that the
average person will believe in any–
thing, so why not UFOs, especia Uy
when they promise salvation from
the apocalyptic portents of the late
twentieth century. "There is a sense
of closing-in - of walls coming
closer; of people, and more of them,
coming closer; of the potential and
irrecoverable loss of the world as we
have known it ," contend Menzel
and Taves. "The bcliever's belief in
nonsense is bis attempt to survive in
a world threatening to blow up any
minute."
NeHiesome Resldue
But establishing a reason why
people would like to believe in
UFOs does not explain what UFOs
a re, and it is here that the greatest
controversy rages. In the final analy–
sis, the UFO controversy persists
largely because after the crank and
readily explicable cases have been
excluded, a nettlcsome residue re–
mains. Roughly one in 20 UFO re–
ports seemingly defies satisfactory
explanation. For these especially
puzzling cases, two possible solu–
tions exist:
l) UFOs would be explicable in
terms of conventional "earthbound"
science ifthe observational data were
only more extensive and precise. This
possibility is based on the paucity of
reliable information about many
UFO sightingsand includes the likeli–
hood that many unsolved UFO re–
porls are the resull of secret military
aircraft, or simply clever, sophis–
ticated hoaxes. UFOs might also re–
sult from purely natural phenomena
which a re either not yet discovered or
not yet completely understood, such
as certain bizarre atmospheric occur-
rences, plasma (the so-called fourth
state of matter), and other rarely
encountered events.
The one inescapable fact that
emerges from over 30 years of UFO
studies is that, despite the thou–
sands- some say millions- of UFO
sightings and landings that have al–
legedly taken place around the
world, not a single tangible piece of
evidence- nei ther a out or bolt, a
bag of extraterrestrial trash, an arti–
fact, a chunk or piece of a saucer, a
landing pad, a convincing commu–
nication, nor even an unambiguous
photograph or moving picture of a
UFO- has ever been produced for
public scrutiny.
"There is nothing- 1 repeat, noth–
ing- that anyone has ever found in
the way of physical evidence that
couldn' t have been either man–
made or produced by natural
causes," maintains Klass.
2) But a second possible solution
also exists. Maybe UFOs are, in
fact, not of this world, coming from
another place and time, cons tructed
by an alíen technology and in–
te lligence.
Such a theory would at least ex–
plain the seemingly "impossible"
feats that sorne UFOs are allegedly
capable of performing. Ind eed ,
more and more UFOlogists are now
voicing serious reservations about
the "prosaic" extraterrestrial space–
craft hypothesis. Hynek, for ex–
ampl e, does not use th e term
"spacecraft," but !caves the way
open for other more bizarre ex–
planations such as time travelers,
psychic projections of the human
mind, spirit beings, or perhaps man–
ifestations from an alternate uni–
verse parallel to our own. The result
of such speculations is that,
strangely, the spaceship-from-an–
other-world hypothesis may turn
out to be the most conservative the–
ory ofall!
Perhaps both "solutions" a re al
least in part correct, and perhaps
both can contribute to our under–
standing ofthe elusive UFO. In any
case, reports of UFOs and extra–
terrestrial visitations undoubtedly
will persist- if only because there
are so many man-made objects in
our twentieth-century skies and be–
cause so many people have the wi/1
to believe. o
The PLAIN TRUTH September 1978