Flying
Saucers and The BibleFlying
Saucers and The Bibleby Raymond T. Exum
Crystal Lake Church of Christ, Crystal Lake, Illinois
February 17, 1995
Click here for a copy of this lesson on audio cassette.
The men here selected some topics that are rather unusual for these five lessons. Last night we began with the first question, "Astrology: Fact or Fiction?" This evening let us go to another question that is current in the minds of many people. This is the question concerning Unidentified Flying Objects or flying saucers as they are popularly called.
The first actual recorded sighting of a flying saucer was on June 24, 1947, over in the state of Washington. There was a pilot from Idaho who was flying a plane near Mt. Rainier in the state of Washington. He reported suddenly seeing a group of strange looking aircraft, and these aircraft were going through some amazing maneuvers at incredible speeds. He could not believe what he was seeing right before his eyes. That was the first known sighting of flying saucers, Jan. 24, 1947.
Since then there have been approximately 70,000 sightings of flying saucers. Some of these sightings have come from airline pilots; some have come from air force pilots. Some have come from air traffic controllers, from observers at weather bureaus, and radio operators and scientists and astronomers and school teachers and policemen, as well as people in all other walks of life.
There was a rather famous sighting in New Hampshire in 1965. This was reported in the Readers Digest Magazine in May of 1966. According to those who made that particular sighting, it was a UFO with a brilliant pulsating set of red lights around the rim. There were several people who witnessed this. You can go into any bookstore today and find many books on the subject of UFO's. This kind of thinking, that there are such things as UFO's, has really permeated American life today.
Last night I had to really struggle with the lesson on astrology because I have never been an astrologer. I've never gotten caught up in astrology and so it was really a new subject for me to prepare a lesson on. I'll tell you when it comes to UFO's, I can speak from experience because in the 1960's I was caught up in this movement. I read everything that was available on the subject and if anybody disagreed, I would argue with them for hours at a time that flying saucers did exist. I know the kind of thinking that is involved in this movement, which says that flying saucers do exist. I'm out of that movement now. Nevertheless, I know the kind of background people bring to the subject when they say that there are such things as flying saucers.
This subject has become so complicated today that flying experts have divided the sightings into six categories. These are known as close encounters.
Number 1: There are close encounters of the first kind. This is abbreviated CE-1. A close encounter of the first kind is when a UFO is sighted within a range of 500 feet.
There is a close encounter of the second kind which is when a flying saucer leaves some kind of damage behind, maybe breaking off some limbs of trees or some burnt marks on the ground and things like that.
There's a close encounter of the third kind when occupants are supposedly sighted on an Unidentified Flying Object.
There's a close encounter of the fourth kind when people supposedly are kidnapped and taken on board a UFO.
A close encounter of the fifth kind involves a conversation that a person has with an occupant of a UFO.
A close encounter of the sixth kind is the one that you want to avoid at all costs. That supposedly is a sighting in which the occupants, the aliens, kill somebody from the Earth.
So it has become a very specialized type of study today.
We see that our society, since 1947, has been caught up in this. We've had a number of movies and TV series on this, Superman for example. I mean what is Superman but just an alien who arrived here on an Unidentified Flying Object. Other examples are The Twilight Zone, My Favorite Martian, the Star Trek series, Mork and Mindy, Buck Rogers, Alien Nation. We even have cartoons series on this subject: Masters of the Universe, Captain Planet and the Planeteers. We've had a long list of movies, some of them quite good, since 1947: The Day the Earth Stood Still, The War of the Worlds. Remember that movie based upon the play by Orson Wells back in 1939, I believe? Other movies are 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, Star Wars and the Star Trek series, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Perhaps one of the most famous of all of the movies along these lines is E.T.
We see, therefore, that there is a lot of interest in the United States on the subject of flying saucers. It was two years ago that NASA began a serious effort to contact life elsewhere in the universe. NASA right now is spending a great deal of our tax money trying to make contact with either people on flying saucers or people who are located on other planets in other locations in the universe. So our government right now is caught up in this movement to some extent. I believe NASA is spending about 100 million dollars a year on this particular project.
This evening let us look then at this phenomenon of UFO's and how it relates to our Christian faith. I'd like to divide the lesson into four parts. First, what is the basic reason for believing in UFO's? Secondly, let us look at the spiritual dimensions of these sightings. Then we'll look at some possible explanations for many of the sightings. Finally, we'll see what the Bible says on this subject, and there are scriptures which do, in fact, address the question of Unidentified Flying Objects.
Number one: Let us go to the basis for this belief. Why are there so many people caught up in this belief that there are these creatures in spacecrafts from other places in the universe? Well, there are some people out on the fringe who say it's from the Bible. There are some people who say that when Elijah was taken up into heaven, that the chariot of fire and the horses of fire was a flying saucer from another planet. Well, if you know anything about the Bible, you know that that is a foolish theory. That was not an alien spacecraft that picked up Elijah and took him to heaven.
Some people say, "Well, what about that vehicle in Ezekiel chapter 1?" That would be interesting to read if we had time tonight, but again, that was not an Unidentified Flying Object. That was a vehicle that God used in heaven. We find it again in the book of Revelation. It's interesting how Ezekiel and John are very similar in their descriptions of what they saw.
Some people have even gone so far as to say that Jesus Christ was nothing but an alien from another planet. This is how He performed His miracles and so forth. He was so advanced over us. These are all very superficial. We know that Jesus was not an alien from another planet. He was the Son of God. He was divine.
Let me tell you what the real basis is for a belief in Unidentified Flying Objects. The real reason that people believe in UFO's is because of the theory of evolution. Let me give you the background of this. The reason that there's a connection between evolution and the UFO movement is that if evolution took place on the Earth, which it did not, but if it did, then the size of the universe would demand that it is taking place someplace else in the universe.
When we look at all of the millions and millions of stars and galaxies, the billions of stars like our sun, then those who believe in evolution say surely there must be some other sun out there that has planets revolving around it. If evolution occurred here on this planet, then it must have occurred on those other planets. Probably it occurred sooner there than it did here, and so they're more advanced than we are. Therefore there must be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If you believe in evolution, it is almost mandatory that you believe in intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
To back that up, let me read some comments by Carl Sagan. He is one of the biggest evolutionists in our country today. He is an astronomer, I believe at either Harvard or MIT. I have forgotten which place. [He taught at Cornell University and has since died - editor] He has had a series on TV about evolution, and he's one of the most eloquent spokesmen for that position today. Awhile back, the Chicago Tribune interviewed Carl Sagan and they asked him this question. "Do you believe there are extraterrestrial beings out there?"
Please listen carefully. I want to read Carl Sagan's answer to that question. "I can give you an argument for the plausibility of extraterrestrial life: lots of planets, lots of organic matter, lots of time for evolution." He continued, "It seems inconceivable that in a galaxy of 400 billion stars in a universe of 100's of billions of galaxies, ours is the only inhabited planet. To say so seems so arrogant. Yet, if they are there, how come we haven't had any evidence of them yet?"
I like that last question. He is correct in saying that there is no evidence of extraterrestrial life and did you catch those other references to evolution? If it has occurred on the Earth, then surely it has occurred in many other places in the universe. So a belief therefore in life elsewhere in the universe comes not from the Bible but from a belief in the theory of evolution.
When you watch the Star Trek movies, for example, and the old Star Trek TV series with this in mind, it is amazing how many references there are to life on other planets. They evolved differently here so this is how you get all of these strange looking creatures and silicon based life instead of carbon based life. When you go back and you see those old TV programs, and you see the Star Wars movies and the Star Trek movies, notice how many times they refer to evolution as a reason for having all of these strange looking intelligent beings there. The belief in UFO's, therefore, is based on the theory of evolution.
Let us go to another aspect of the question, and that is as we begin to get involved in this subject, we begin to notice some very strange things. Professional UFO observers today continue to point these things out. So many of the sightings seem to have spiritual dimensions. They somehow seem to be connected to the occult world. In other words, many of the sightings involve things which cannot literally take place in the real world.
Let me give you some examples along these lines. In the first place, many of the sightings involve vehicles that travel at such great speeds, there's no way that they can instantaneously stop and make a right hand 90 degree turn. As you begin to read these sightings you read more and more details that these vehicles are doing things which literally cannot take place in reality.
Let me read for example, an account that was published by the Soviet Academy of Sciences about one UFO sighting in Russia. It says that the UFO changed from a star shape, to a cone, to a double cone, to a cloud shape, to the shape of a plum, to the shape of a square and then to a giant needle-nose wingless aircraft. Please explain how a vehicle in reality, in real life, could do something like that. Well the answer is that it could not do something like that.
They went on to write in their article that on this particular sighting, the UFO seemed to be able to pass through solid objects and then it broke into many parts and merged back together into one part. They reported also that it made right angle 90 degree turns from incredible speed of thousands of miles per hour and suddenly made an instantaneous stop and turned and so forth. You begin reading things like this and you begin to doubt that UFO's exist in the real world.
Let me point out some other interesting things along these lines. There has never been, even as Carl Sagan admitted, one shred of evidence of physical evidence of UFO's from outer space. No radar has ever picked up a UFO approaching the Earth from outer space. That has never occurred. In fact the truth is that today those who were leading the movement are now saying in their writing, if you read their material, that UFO's are not from outer space because there is no evidence that they are. Those in the movement are assuming that UFO's are from someplace on the planet Earth.
Let me point out some other interesting things. In spite of hundreds of accounts where people have supposedly been taken aboard a UFO, they have never brought back a piece of evidence. I mean you would think that when nobody was looking they would sort of pick up an ashtray and slip it in their pocket and then walk out of the UFO. Then later they'd be able to say, "This is from where I was." There are no ashtrays. Sometimes people steal towels from motels. I know nobody here would do that, but it has happened in human history. You know people will like a souvenir something and they will take a towel or something from a hotel room. That's never happened with UFO's. Nobody has ever brought back a piece of food, a piece of metal, nothing as a result of supposedly being in a UFO.
When you read the details about the sightings, they never talk about any kind of special breathing apparatus for the occupant. Now we know that that cannot be if they're from another planet. They would have to have something to adapt themselves to our atmosphere, but you don't read about the respiration devices and so forth.
UFO's have been fired upon by American fighter planes many times and also by Russian fighter planes and Canadian fighter planes. As far as anyone knows there has never been a hit. They have never been captured. One has never been shot down.
There is something else interesting. When we look at the details of the sightings, no two sightings have ever described the same aircraft. They're always different. That's very strange, is it not? If these are intelligent creatures from another planet and they're coming here, you'd think that they would standardize the type of craft that they come here with. We have 747's, 737's, DC-10's, and so forth and there is some standardization. There is not any when you read these reports of the craft and the descriptions. They're always different, which is again very strange.
When you begin to look at the actual details of these sightings since 1947, some interesting things come into your mind. In fact, some of the experts are now saying that it must be involved with the occult. For example, allow me to read a statement here by Dr. Hobart Freeman, and this is his conclusion after interviewing many people who supposedly made these sightings. He said this, "In every instance in which I have counseled with anyone who has reported seeing UFO's, always the individual has been involved in some form of occultism and was suffering oppression as a result, which indicates the psychic nature of these experiences."
In fact he says, "I'm convinced that the sighting of a UFO or contact by some creature purporting to be an extraterrestrial is in itself an indication of this individual's psychic subjection due to occult involvement of some kind." When you read their material today, that is basically the conclusion that people are coming to. It has some connection with either witchcraft or the occult or the psychic.
I want to pause right here and review what we have gone over thus far. Number one, it is based on the theory of evolution which is false. Number two, there is no evidence from radar that UFO's have ever come to this planet from any place else in the universe. Number three, there is no physical evidence that has ever been brought back as a result of contact with a UFO. Number four, UFO's seem to violate the laws of physics, and as we see, there seems to be some connection with the occult.
Let me read a statement by a rather famous astronomer, Dr. Michael Hart at the Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. As an astronomer and as he looked at all the evidence, this was his conclusion. "No sign of extraterrestrial life has ever been found, no signal from space, no living organism on Mars or the moon, and no alien visitors to Earth in spite of insistence by enthusiasts that the Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial beings. Scientists find the evidence unconvincing."
With those comments in mind, let us go to a third area. That is, let us look at some possible explanations for many of these 70,000 sightings. In the first place, there are obviously some physical causes that people have mistaken for UFO's. Weather balloons are certainly the cause of many of these sightings. Meteors and airplanes are other causes. In fact, a group of men in New York state, several years ago, decided that they would fool everybody in the countryside in upstate New York. They took off in their planes, several small planes. They had painted the underside black and they did this at night. The police started tracking them down because of all the reports they were getting about UFO's. The police finally were able to find these men at a nearby airport and were very upset about what they had done in disturbing people. That's another case where many of these sightings can be explained by natural causes, airplanes, for example, or atmospheric disturbances.
We know what it's like to drive down a highway in the summer when off in the distance we see water, right? It looks like water. We know when we get there the pavement is going to be wet, but it's not wet. There are optical illusions therefore, and there are some of these that have caused some UFO reports.
There are other things along those lines. I have several articles here on some other causes that scientists have just discovered recently, and one is known as an earthquake light. I have an article here from the paper that's in our area. Apparently scientists have discovered that as the plates of the Earth rub against each other, which usually causes an earthquake, they create tremendous tension and there's a lot of static electricity. They have identified what appears to be ball lightning, if you're familiar with that. Ball lightning comes when these plates move one against the other. Some of the UFO's, some of the sightings, apparently are really these earthquake lights.
There's also another phenomenon that has recently been discovered and that is swamp gas. There are certain swamps, particularly in downstate Michigan, that produce a gas that forms into a ball and it is ignited. It forms red yellow and green lights that move several hundred feet at a time. There are some sightings that could be explained along those grounds.
There's also the possibility of mass hallucination. That is, people think they're going to see something and many times if you prime them that way, they will see what they think they are supposed to see. So that I think will explain a lot of the sightings but not all of them.
There have been some sightings that really cannot be explained by natural phenomenon. Please keep in mind the comments I made about the occult and witchcraft and let us go to the Bible.
I would like to point out some very interesting scriptures along these lines which I think will help resolve the sightings that can't be resolved in other ways. If you would turn with me to Hebrews chapter 7, I'd like to ask you to look at Verse 27. This one verse proves that there's no such thing in reality as an Unidentified Flying Object. Hebrews 7:27. The writer here is talking about Jesus Christ and he says this, "...who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people because this He did, once for all, when He offered up Himself."
Notice it says there that our Lord Jesus made a one time sacrifice for all. Jesus made that sacrifice on this planet. He did not go to another planet and be crucified again. He did not go to another planet elsewhere in the galaxy and be crucified again. He didn't go from planet to planet dying for all of the intelligent beings on those planets. Notice it says there that he offered himself up once for all. There is not intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If there were, Jesus would have died for them on their planet, but He did not. There's one sacrifice that He made. It was on the planet Earth for the human beings that are here. They will never discover intelligent life elsewhere and my theory is they'll never discover life elsewhere in the universe. It was unique to the planet Earth when God made it.
If you would turn over to the ninth chapter of Hebrews, notice Hebrews 9:28, a similar passage here. Hebrews 9:28. "So Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." Notice again it says there was a once for all sacrifice. It was on this planet. He did not sacrifice Himself on any other planet.
If that is correct, and I think that is, it was one time for people on the planet Earth. It means there's nobody on any other planets in the universe. Then what about these sightings that cannot be explained by physical causes?
Would you be so kind as to turn with me to one more passage, and this is in II Thessalonians. If you'd look back a few pages from Hebrews to II Thessalonians and look please at chapter 2. I want to begin reading at verse 8, where the apostle Paul is describing the man of sin, the man of lawlessness. This is a representative of the general person today that rejects God, rejects Jesus Christ. Paul was describing how this kind of rejection will take place. Notice II Thessalonians 2, beginning at verse 8. "And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming." That is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
Please look at verse 11: "And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false in order that they may all be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness." Beloved, that is a very deep passage there. Let's go back and notice that Paul is describing the atmosphere of lawlessness, when people reject God, when they don't love the truth as it says in verse 10. It says in verse 12, when they don't believe the truth, they take pleasure in wickedness. What Paul says here is when people reject God, God allows Satan to send them a deluding influence. It says in verse 9 Satan has all power and signs and false wonders. God allows Satan therefore to delude people.
The passage therefore says that when people believe error, reject God, rebel against God, God allows Satan to give them something that will show to the world that they're lost. Notice again verses 11 and 12: " For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false in order that they might all be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness." I believe this explains these sightings and the connection with the occult and so forth. God is allowing Satan to deceive those people who have rejected God.
How have they rejected God? They have rejected God by believing the theory of evolution. They have rejected God by blaspheming Jesus Christ and saying that He was an alien from a foreign planet. They rejected God by not accepting the Biblical account of the creation. They have rejected God in saying that we are not choice in the eyes of God, that we're just a speck in the universe and there are many other specks out there that have evolved the way we have and so we're nothing special. That is wrong. We are special. God loved us and created us here on the planet Earth. We're not just an advanced form of the animal kingdom. Therefore God allows those who have rejected Him and His son and His word to be deceived by Satan with a deluding influence.
UFO's, therefore, do not exist in reality. I believe that they are a delusion that Satan has been allowed to foist on people. Why would God do this then? If they're going to be lost anyway, then why would God allow Satan to go ahead and do something else to them? To make it clear to everybody that they are lost.
Let me give you some examples from the Bible. Do you remember when Moses and Aaron went in to see Pharaoh? The Bible says that God had given Aaron the power to turn his staff into a snake. Moses and Aaron walked in and Aaron basically said, "Let me show you the power of God," and put the staff down. The staff turned into a snake. Do you remember that Pharaoh had two magicians who also could do that? Where did they get that power? From Satan. Why did God allow Satan to give those magicians the power to do the same thing that Aaron did? Well if you recall, the Bible says that Pharaoh hardened his heart against God. To make it clear to everybody, God encouraged that hardness of heart. He was going to be lost anyway. He would end up with a hardened heart. God gave Pharaoh a reason to believe in his magicians instead of in Moses and Aaron. God allowed Satan to give the magicians the power to do this. Do you remember what Aaron's snake did to the two snakes of the magicians? Aaron's snake swallowed up the two snakes of the magicians. God's power won out, but it was a deluding influence that God allowed to take place because of Pharaoh's hardness of heart.
Let me give you another example from the last century. What about a belief in ghosts? Back in the 1800's lots of people believed in ghosts. In fact there was a president of the United States who had his house just outside of Nashville, that is, Andrew Jackson, who believed he had seen his wife Rachel's ghost, that she had come back. Is there such things as ghosts? There is not. The Bible says it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes the judgment. We do not come back into this life as sort of mists of smoke, sort of floating around scaring people on Halloween. Ghosts do not exist in reality. The Bible says that they don't. We do not come back in the form of Casper the Friendly Ghost.
What about the sightings? I think it gets back right here in II Thessalonians 2 to what Paul was saying. Those that reject God, those who are going to be lost anyway, God allows Satan to send upon them a deluding influence so that it will be clear to the bystander that these people are going to be lost. They believe in ghosts. The same thing can be said today along the lines of flying saucers in our society.
Beloved, the truth is, that UFO's do not exist in reality. The Bible teaches that. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ died once for all here upon the planet Earth and that rules out life in outer space.
There may be some this evening that want to pursue this further and out of all the books that are available on this today, I want to recommend this book if you'd like to read it. This is by John Ankerberg and I don't agree with everything he has written. He's a Baptist preacher down in Chattanooga and is on Channel 38 here in Chicago from time to time. However, on this subject he is right on the nose. John Ankerburg's book is entitled The Facts on UFO's and Other Supernatural Phenomenon. You can buy this in any religious bookstore around here, I'm sure. He goes into much greater detail along these lines. I think on this particular subject, Mr. Ankerberg is correct. UFO's do not exist in the real world.
I hope this has answered the question that I was supposed to speak on this evening. I hope that it has been a scriptural answer. There may be some this evening that have become caught up in this movement. I hope you will take these things to heart and study them and study the facts on the subject. The truth is that we can obey Jesus Christ as our savior. Salvation does not come from some alien from some other planet. It comes from Jesus Christ. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved. That man is Jesus Christ. If you are subject to the invitation and are reading now to be baptized, I ask you to come to the front as we stand and sing the next song together please.
