The U.S. underwent a UFO craze back in the late 1940s and all of the 1950s and 1960s. Years ago, I blogged about this in a series of ten posts entitled “The Most Renowned UFO Incidents.” I had an introductory post entitled “Are UFOs Real? Some of Them,” The first of the series is here.
I became interested in UFOs as a teenager because a favorite Zarley uncle of mine claimed to have had many UFO experiences, and I did not at all believe he was crazy. He even became a public spokesperson about UFOs and sometimes was quoted in tabloids about it.
The U.S. Air Force conducted an investigation of more than 12,000 aerial sightings of UFOs during that craze period, and it was called Project Blue Book. The project was closed at the end of 1969, with the Air Force concluding there was nothing to it. They said all such sightings had a natural explanation even though regarding 701 of them, they admitted they did not know what the explanation should be.
But a large portion of Americans were never satisfied with that conclusion. Therefore, in this century, the U.S. government has undertaken renewed interest in Unidentified Flying Objects. However, the government wants us to change the name of them to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).
Last year, under the direction of the U.S. Congress, the Pentagon created a special organization to investigate UAPs called the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Last month, AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick delivered AARO’s first report to Congress, to its Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. He reported that so far, AARO has reviewed only UAP sightings by the U.S. military, a total of 650 incidents. He said in many cases the sightings were taken by pilots while conducting routine flying missions, using video cameras or radar installed on their aircrafts.
Kirkpatrick related that 52% of these 650 objects sighted were round or spherical in shape and that they appeared white, silver, translucent, or metallic in color. Their speeds in the sky varied from zero (stationary) to Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound). Most were flying 15,000 to 25,000 in elevation.
The most telling observation that Director Kirkpatrick reported to Congress was that none of these UAP sightings appeared to travel through the air with any form of propulsion system. Plus, they did not exhibit any thermal exhaust emissions. Both of these two characteristics are not possible for flying machines to achieve according to our present scientific knowledge of aeronautics. But these two phenomena are not new. They have been widely reported for decades in the U.S. and around the world.
Popular Mechanics magazine reports that Iain Boyd, professor of aerospace engineering and director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado, explains, “Within our understanding of the laws of physics, there are certain phenomena that are not possible, such as traveling at very high speeds through the atmosphere without heating the object, accelerating with a propulsion system, and so on. When an event is witnessed that appears to defy these laws, my immediate interpretation is that there is something either incorrect or not fully understood about the observation.”
In my opinion, the thing that is not fully understood is what, according to the Bible, can be described as “the spirit world.” The Bible has much information about the spirit world. For example, according to the New Testament gospels, exorcism was a regular feature of Jesus’ itinerant ministry. He cast out “spirits” or “demons” from people. Sometimes, he engaged these personal entities in conversation that seemed remote from the humans being possessed by the spirits or demons. Our modern scientific age does not allow for such phenomena. However, historians claim that since the late 20th century, the world been moving into what they call a post-modernism age.
Furthermore, the Bible has many narratives about so-called “angels” who sometimes engage with human beings on earth. These angels seem to be spirit beings who have personalities comparable to those of human beings. In several biblical episodes, they suddenly appeared and then instantly vanished, characteristics unknown to humans.
Related to this are the approximately ten post-resurrection appearances of Jesus of Nazareth following his death that are recorded in the New Testament gospels. The risen Jesus once appeared to his disciples and said, “Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24.39 ESV). He further said, “‘Have you anything to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them” (vv. 41-43). Spirits, or ghosts, are not supposed to be able to do that. And like angels, the risen Jesus also instantly appeared in a room behind lock doors (e.g., John 20.19, 26). And another time he instantly vanished (Luke 24.31).
Furthermore, in that introductory post about UFOs, I relate about “the watchers” recorded in the book of Daniel. Daniel reveals that while he was an exile in Babylonia, during the reign of its King Nebuchadnezzar, the king had a dream that disturbed him (Daniel 4.4). He related this dream to Daniel, saying, “there was a holy watcher coming down from heaven,” and he then pronounced a judgment that was to soon befall the king (Daniel 4.13 NRSV). The king then said in the dream the holy watcher declared, “The sentence is rendered by decree of the watchers” (v. 16). Daniel explained the dream to the king, saying, “the king saw a holy watcher coming down from heaven” (v. 23). Daniel then interpreted the dream.
These holy watchers were surely God’s angels. When Daniel said one of them announced that the judgment upon the king was “by decree of the watchers,” this suggests angels make decisions that sometimes they foist upon humans. An important takeaway from this is that some angels come down from heaven to earth to observe what humans are doing, and that is why they are called “watchers” in the book of Daniel. Since they are spirit beings not restricted by physical limitations to which we humans are, they can move quickly in “coming down from heaven.”
The book of Job relates that Satan, the devil, apparently can move quickly between heaven and earth. The Bible reveals that Satan is like a prosecuting attorney who brings accusations before God about some of God’s people on earth (Revelation 12.10). Two different times in the book of Job, it relates that Satan appeared in heaven before God to accuse God’s servant Job (Job 1–2). Both times God initiated the conversation that went like this, “The LORD said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the LORD, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down in it'” (Job 1.7; 2.2 NRSV). I believe heaven is a place far, far away from earth.
So, I think UFO/UAP analysts are omitting important information revealed in the Bible about angels and that they could responsible for some of the UFO/UAP activity.
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