I'm disappointed in Ross for failing to mention (or perhaps not to have read) "The Spaceships of Ezekiel."
Written by Josef F. Blumrich, a devout Christian (Baptist, if memory serves) the intent was to debunk von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods." Blumrich was also an engineer, employed by, of all folks, NASA. His research and studies of the Bible's descriptions of the prophet Ezekiel's visions combined with his education and training led him the opposite conclusion from the one he expected and fully intended to "prove."
Ezekiel, Blumrich concluded, was not sharing a hallucinatory vision, but describing, in the terminology available to him 4,000 or so years ago, an encounter with a craft highly built with highly advanced technology, and one that could be closely approximated with the technology of the mid-20th century.
We are not alone.
13
Ross writes, "...when the true God enters his creation, he does so honestly, straightforwardly, in a vulnerable and fully human form — and exposes himself publicly, whether in a crowded stable or on an execution hill." How arrogant to assume that the "true God" would necessarily appear "in a vulnerable and fully human form." It is humans who have made much of "creation" quite vulnerable. I also not the pronoun "he." Also arrogant.
15
In the term "unidentified flying object," there is zero reference to alien life forms.
UFOs are potentially otherworldly, but they're also potentially other-nationally, so they should be taken as rationally relevant in terms of national security, as the "foo fighters" were during WWII (Google it).
Especially since -- thanks to our large neighbors to the north and south -- the USA is most accessibly threatened from aircraft and missiles, two potential forms of UFO.
9
There's a greater chance of intelligent life being found outside our galaxy than there is the chance of finding intelligence in trump.
11
Rather the Christian idea is that whatever capricious powers may exist, when the true God enters his creation, he does so honestly, straightforwardly, in a "vulnerable and fully human form — and exposes himself publicly, whether in a crowded stable or on an execution hill. So the glamour of U.F.O.s, like the glamour of faerie, is an understandable object of curiosity but a dangerous object for any kind of faith. The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." So true, Ross. too bad organized religion spoiled it all.
5
Merry Christmas Ross. I do not believe as you do but after seeing Bruce McCandless an astronaut floating in space and not connected to the spaceship who has died today I looked at that picture in his obit and thought this is our potential. This is awesome. This we can do if we don't blow ourselves up first. We are or could be special. I believe there is some sort of Supreme Being who is watching over us wondering will we blow it, nuclear war, or will we one day walk on distant planets. It's up to us. We have free will.
There was once a a man who walked on this planet who gave us excellent advice on how to treat other people and, of course, there have been others. Continue to go to church Ross for guidance and hope. I look at the Cosmos and shiver, but it's a shiver of hope and some how a calling.
Have a Happy New Year too.
1
Carl Sagan, in Cosmos, speculated that other life in the universe probably existed, given the enormous number of stars in the universe, and given the probability that any of these stars had planets circling them that were at a distance similar of the earth to our sun... which offers a temperature zone conducive to life. Carl speculated about a lot, but never seemed arrogant or that he definitively knew things that he didnt know. He was a scientist and a dreamer.
For aliens to visit us, they'd have to have some pretty amazing technology to travel and survive from enormous distances. Obviously, we earthlings are not close to doing that.
Hollywood does quite the job of planting ideas in us about what these aliens look like and what their intentions are. But does anyone really have any HARD evidence of extraterrestrial life here, besides grainy photos, video, folklore, or a Speilberg movie?
4
All fairy tales clearly aren't created equally. Perhaps the omniscient "God worth trusting" has a sense of humor, granting us a lively imagination to generate myths, looking to the sky (right next door!) around extra terrestrials. And creating columnists who, without irony, rely on one fantastic human creation to dispute the existence of the other. Bravo Mr. Douthat! First time I laughed out loud in a long long time. On to 2018!
11
Askew and esoteric considering the entry point. I didn't personally witness Jesus resurrection but I did witness the so-called "tic tac" over the skies of Sedona Arizona in 1991. This preceded the Phoenix Lights that were witnessed by over a million people on March 13th, 1997. Former Arizona Governor Fife Symington at first played down the situation only to pivot years later admitting to what he saw. Since the introduction of hundreds of millions of smartphones, thousands of similar sightings have been recorded and broadcast from around the world on YouTube and the situations are more similar than not. The recordings of the pilots played in the NY Times piece accompanying the revelation of the DOD program were again, consistent with the aforementioned. To discount the overwhelming evidence to make the point that the only way we'll discover extraterrestrial existence is when God decrees is ironic considering your point. Maybe its possible God's been showing us we're not alone since the beginning?
10
To prove the superiority of his beliefs, Douthat tells us “a sign of civilizational health to devote excess dollars to the scientific fringe”, neglecting to mention that the money is being used to discover what the observed unidentified flying objects are. There is no mention of extraterrestrials. None. Yet this did not deter Ross from leading us down a path that enabled him to ridicule Senator Reid, and “fairy tales”, and the beliefs of others who differ from his own chosen beliefs, which are superior. These beliefs are superior to Buddhiism, pantheism, and paganism and apparently quantum mechanics which he dismisses as “a kind of metaphysics of caprice” because the Christian “true God” incarnated and was executed. Virgin birth, miracles, crucifixion, and resurrection were common beliefs among inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin in the worship of Dionysius. Incarnation of deities is fundamental to Hindus. Buddha listed the beatitudes 600 years before Jesus. The point: History denies exclusive ownership of truth. Douthat would do well to read Elaine Pagels or spend some time with Robert Thurman at Columbia.
Then there is the alt-right chic of science denial that underlies Douthat’s theme: Spending money surveilling unknown flying objects is contemptible, and beliefs that differ from his own are too.
U.F.O.s only make it possible for Ross and like minded Christians to attack other beliefs and their actions and opinions actively seek to oppress all others.
15
Douthat is typical Christian in that he believes everything is in competition with his "true" religion. UFOs exist, but what they are is sometimes never discovered or understood. That makes them reasonable to study. However, the fact that we don't know what they all are doesn't mean we should start another crazy religion. Which is apparently what Douthat would do if he didn't already have one. He seems worried that if others start a crazy religion based on visitors in space ships it might be more appealing to the religious types than a sandal wearing hippy.
The problem with even a small secret study of UFOs is that science cannot be done in secret. The money was small relatively speaking but their was no scientific consensus possible because the work is not public.
8
Your concept has a very surreal limitation and that is that it is all material based and fails to consider the very real possibilty of a different dimension in time and/or space wherein "objects" such as these reported are made visible under circumstances in which we are able to "see" them.
Only consider how our discoveries of the inner realm of atoms has expanded our understanding of just how complex and unknown the "physical" universe is for us.
The Christian "idea" you fail to mention is that there is a master entity called the Devil whose personification originates in an invisible power of infinite clever and attractive disguises. So the "trick" God played is ongoing and a failure to recognize his mysterious kingdom in the spiritual world that parallels our material world is absurd reductionism.
God NEVER shows his face and never will. Don't forget the "burning bush".
2
If I were a visitor from another solar system and I surveyed Earth, I would conclude that intelligent life does not exist on this planet.
9
Americans aren't worried about these extraterrestrials because, if aliens wanted to destroy us, they would already have done so. Rather we are worried about Trump and the GOP who are in the process of demolishing our country right now.
11
It appears as if lots of NY Times readers are having a difficult time separating those who believe that the Bible is factual history, and those who believe the stories of various religious tracts are simply allegorical stories and myths.
Both types can be described as "Religious" or "Christian." I doubt that Ross the Republican believes the world was created in 7 days; his "faith" is likely more directed to the myth and human appreciation of Christian philosophy.
But that doesn't get him off the hook: if one believes in a philosophy of human compassion, then they would immediately be critical of those perverting that philosophy.
Ross isn't nearly critical enough of those causing misery in the name of Christ.
---------------------
As far as Fly Saucers, the way to study the phenomena is often the best way to study religion: to see who is advantaged by factual existence or non-existence, and to remind ourselves that to actually have a crashed alien spacecraft represents a huge technological threat against our adversaries.
This is why last weeks UFO story was so big (or so fake)----it claimed to have physical artifacts from these craft and to have to build structures to house them. This smells like Military Intelligence to me.
6
The only thing Christian about the way my wife and I celebrate Christmas consists of the few "angel"-shaped ornaments my wife puts on the tree every year. But now that you mention it, Ross, I think they're probably really fairies.
Happy holidays.
6
Fact based or faith based, some of us have been to places others have never dreamed of. Have a joyous holiday.
4
What does a violent species bent on destroying itself and every other life form on the planet have to offer other than a dead end path to annihilation?
We spend billions to reach for the stars and create lethal weapons while millions starve. We acknowledge the intelligence and sensitivity of other conscious life forms then go ahead and kill and eat them merely because they taste good. We still believe in gods and Santa Clause. I fail to see why an ET would even bother to communicate with such a creature.
Are we " ...such stuff as dreams are made on..." to anybody but ourselves?
Happy holidays!
7
Quite an interesting study in cognitive dissonance . The videos we've seen so far have been from the U.S. military, the pilots are trained expert observers. Yet, many individuals just keep erecting more justifications and caveats to keep these phenomena within their comfort zone. C'mon, people, who are you going to believe, your rigid "can't exist so doesn't exist" ideology, or your lying eyes?
8
I hang with folklorists, and yep, many of us have thought this for years and years without needing a UFO guy or Ross to tell us about it.
I know a number of people who say they have been abducted by aliens. I don't dispute with them, it's their vision.
However, I am conscious enough to know it was Faeries taking me into their Raths, especially since the first time it happened was within a few miles of Tara in Ireland. The music was haunting, the dancing was lovely, I was exhausted when I woke up in bed......but if you are taken, make sure not to eat the food in a Faerie Mound!
Science is usually thought *not* to encompass visionary experiences......normally that is the purview of religion.....or, other people's religion = superstition and magic......yep, I left the familiarity of Christian belief decades ago. Merry Christmas, one and all, aliens, Fae, crockpots, scientists, Witches, and Ross!
5
The christian god in whom Ross believes is even more absurd (in a rational sense) than these aliens. Ross's god created life and the universe. These aliens just visit those places.
And in science, the big bang theory is pretty weird. I usually think that since I believe the big bang theory, I should we willing to entertain any idea.
3
Er, what? Douthat rambles about fairies and fantasies, wavering between the idea that they are real, yet unknowable, or that they are simply an extra-terrestrial iteration of ancient folklore. Then he dismisses it all and proclaims the Christian story as the "God worth trusting" because he "does not play tricks."
So, a virgin birth and a miraculous resurrection are straightforward and rational, while the "glamour of faerie" is nonsense?
I prefer neither, choosing instead to find God in Bach. But if I were forced to pick between the miracle of Christ and the possibility of flying saucers, I find the flying saucers more interesting and more plausible.
Merry Christmas!
5
The most important evidence on the possibility of UFOs is that earthlings have created their own. Sentient beings on Mars and the moon would have seen them for years,and any observers of space would have seen the Voyager spaceships, as well as the countless satellites that have been launched.
It is quite silly to ridicule the idea that others may be doing what humans have been doing for decades!
Ditto for alien abductions, which prima facie seem totally ridiculous. Except that humans capture, abduct, test, and relocate animals for decades!
3
those who smugly criticize religion often miss the point entirely.... but their need to appear snide and superior outweighs their desire to generously appreciate and understand....
So be it.... But as our nation and the world descend into insanity, the moral beacons associated with complex teachings and metaphors are sorely missed... and needed.
4
Both UFO's and Religion have in common the ability to hoodwink and control the greater public. So, the reasonable sceptic must look at who or what is advantaged or disadvantaged by such claims.
In last week's UFO article, the NYT's quoted James E. Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle engineer and the author of 10 books on spaceflight. He said:
“Lots of people are active in the air and don’t want others to know about it. They are happy to lurk unrecognized in the noise, or even to stir it up as camouflage.”
This remarkable statement is the most telling thing in the article. Here we have a highly placed U.S Government technician telling us that experimental air craft is hiding amongst the clutter of UFO sightings....and, further, that they may well even stir up the controversy to further conceal these activities.
As with Religious Dogma, seeking to control people's thought, Mr. Oberg may be doing essentially the same thing. Or not. But to what end?
This is the most critical thing to think about in that unusual article of the Times. And in it's way, Mr. Douthat is continuing the dialog. Interesting.
5
Aliens could land smack dab on the Vegas strip, walk out and gamble with the tourists and by God people would deny they exist. What counts for evidence when everyday we sit transfixed in front of our flatscreens watching manufactured hallucinations by the thousands? What kind of fools demand certainty for one invisible God and certain denial for anything that might actual force them to modestly accept their beliefs are just so much more hard to believe testimony from an unreliable source?
When humans study other species do those species know we are studying them? When you throw a frisbee for your dog do they think they are catching something alive or something their human can make alive if they bring it back for another throw? The things we know to be true and agree on are vanishing phantoms in a world like Douhat’s because his cosmology demands we all see what he can’t give us a bit of evidence for other than centuries of folks fooling themselves for the cause of adding meaning to their lives in a universe of entropy.
People better figure out soon that reality exists. And those who deny it are gaining the upper hand to the detriment of us all.
4
A little odd to state that the topic filling 90% of your essay wasn't your topic after all...unexplained phenomena are absolutely irrelevant to Christianity. Regardless, the statement you're making is that people try to explain the uexplainable by finding a place for it in the context of what they DO know. Not so different from "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (Arthur C. Clarke). The idea that the same phenomena have existed throughout history but are being explained differently is not a new one, as you indicated, and is what I've always believed. But the conclusion that they're ALL imaginary, because fairies don't exist (nor do UFOs), is not the only one available. Rather, that we're still in the same boat we always were--these phenomena have a real (scientifically consistent) explanation (or explanations-there's no compelling reason they all have to have the same cause) that we haven't discovered yet.
3
We'll find out when we've mastered time travel that most of the 'alien visitations' we see are human from 50-100,000 years in the future coming here as time travel tourists. They are visiting earth to see how our planet devolved into a non-life sustaining cinder through hubris, greed and inaction. They are looking for signs, cultural, scientific, and psychological that will help them understand the motives and context of a species which knowingly, wantonly destroyed the only ecosystem they were capable of living on. This tell us that, luckily, Elon Musk or someone will succeed with SpaceX and some of the uber-rich survived to colonize Mars.
Earth is such a backwater that few self-respecting civilizations will visit it. For most, it's like us taking a 1,000 mile detour to visit Little Rock. The saying around Rigel is "humans be crazy".
6
"Sometimes our own elite opinion seems to be shopping for a new religion: I have read books in the last year pitching versions of Buddhism, pantheism and paganism to the post-Christian educated set. For such shoppers, the striking overlap between U.F.O.s and fairy stories might eventually become an advertisement for an updated spiritualist cosmology, not a strike against it — especially if woven together with multiverse and universe-as-simulation hypotheses that imply a kind of metaphysics of caprice."
What an arrogant, ignorant and breathtaking dismissal of realms of science, religion and philosophy that Mr. Douthat apparently knows little, and has even less curiosity, about. His specious lumping together of those books is rather too facile (and wrong). Buddhism, however is most as it is particularly concerned with "clear comprehension"--or dispelling glamour, to use the language of the "Christmas Column," and the compassionate action that can arise from seeing things as they truly are.
And, that capricious powers exist, there can be no doubt--they are exercised most cruelly every day in the White House and environs. So, in the spirit of the Christmas Column (or Holiday Column for those of us who see ourselves as christians but not Christians), may we hope for the arising of clear comprehension everywhere, but most especially may it dissipate the cruel glamour enthralling the White House . . .
3
Some questions for those who believe we are being visited by UFO's piloted by space aliens from superior civilizations in galaxies far far away....
1) If they are so smart, how come they keep building flying objects that crash?
2) Don't you think if there were intelligent civilizations out there they (like us) might have 1st attempted to make contact with us by sending broadcast messages into the vast reaches of space to see if anyone answered before they took off for earth?
3) If they are so smart (have to be to get here) how come they don't make themselves known instead of allowing these occasional sightings? Don't you think if they were smart enough to figure out interstellar flight that they probably have the technology to overwhelm anything we could throw at them?
4) And yes, how did they figure out how to zip around the universe and overcome the laws of physics?
5) What makes you think, even if the odds seem to favor that life might develop on some of the other zillions of planets in the known universe, that life there would evolve (you'd have to assume that Darwin's evolution would apply across the universe unless you want to invoke god like creations) to be even as smart as we are?
6) But if these folks are so smart, why would they choose to visit us? After all, if there is 1 highly developed civilization with all sorts of techno marvels beyond our imagination, there might be at least another -- and they'd seek to communicate with those folks first?
1
Well written, but perhaps a bit too heady. Nevertheless, I wish Mr. Douthat a Merry and Blessed Christmas. I always admire your attempts to keep the crazy at bay.
OK. Remain Christian. But keep an open mind to how the very same picture can be described in more than one way.
2
I'm not sure Mr Douthat meant it that way but I do agree that religions ARE all fairy tales. I belong to the fastest growing religion on earth: Atheism. And unlike fairy tales believers we have never burned anyone at the stake, demonized any other tribe, denigrated any scientific fact. For humanity to finally become adult we will have to leave ALL fairy tales behind, avoid the quick sands of religions (and their wars) to dig all the way to the bedrock of brotherhood ( a scientifically established fact BTW). But keep believing dear brother, it is your right and I respect it. Will you reciprocate?
5
Another book you ought to read is Evans-Wentz's "The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries," which Vallee quotes in "Magonia," if I remember correctly. Evans-Wentz, like Vallee, was a well educated man with a PhD. He concluded that fairies were not imaginary, but a form of life existing in a world parallel to our own.
Had you actually done any research on the UFO problem beyond reading Vallee's book, you'd realize that whatever UFOs and their reported occupants are, they aren't imaginary. The wealth of information on the record, derived just from expert witnesses (pilots and scientifically-trained people) is staggering. What we are dealing with remains uncertain, but that it's all in our imagination is sheer nonsense. The idea that it represents fancies and hallucinations may comfort "sensible secular scientific-minded people" like yourself, but the evidence indicates that such an explanation is absurd. Indeed, to be truly scientifically-minded one must be prepared to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, rather than writing it off because it frightens you or doesn't fit into your particular world view.
3
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks."
Again, Ross picks and chooses his gods, and demeans those who do not agree. Having chosen, he endorses lavish torments for those who think otherwise, right down to the calumny he discharges toward Pope Francis (the last good Catholic) on a regular basis.
So I disagree with his quote trepidatiously: I could deal with a God of tricks and mysteries. It's a God who suffers jokers like today's Evangelicals, and yesterdays inquisition-oriented Catholics speaking in his or or her or its name that I just can't wrap my brain around.
I'm frequently left to wonder why such mean and egotistical, certain and superior people need any God at all. They frequently seem to agree.
2
A God who plays tricks? I call it a sense of humor. Thank God fo that!
1
We are free to believe what we want to believe. I do not know if we have "visitors" from outer space or not. Nor do I know if there is really a God, although I choose to believe in one. But that is more about my need to explain the pain and suffering of this world. That brings me to the central theme in my mind and most likely as well as those of others. That is that since the beginning of time there is a quest to find the answers to the unknown. With evolution of the human species, many mysteries are no longer mysteries. Perhaps, some day we will discover and find an answer to our most profound question....e.g., the how and when of creation. The Big Bang or an omnipotent creator that guided the evolution of the species?
But at this juncture, if I may, I will venture into the political arena. Our personal beliefs and philosophies are just that, personal. The government should follow a basic tenet of our democracy, Separation of Church and State. That would include mythology and UFO's. What I am saying is that our money would be better spent on the everyday earthly needs and necessities of every individual irregardless of age, sex, religion, color of skin, ethnicity, or life style. If science and research is really a means of improving our lives, let money go towards improving our health and welfare, not the "other worldly."
3
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks."
Indeed? Mr. Douthat should really reflect for a bit on the truism: "Man plans, God laughs."
1
UFOs and fairies stimulate the imagination and foster a belief that anything is possible. There's nothing wrong with that. You need a healthy imagination if you want to make new ideas into reality.
1
"Rather the Christian idea is that... when the true God enters his creation, he does so honestly"
Umm, so those creationists who think God made the fossil record to test our faith aren't Christians?
Not being sarcastic; I really don't get it.
2
I intend nothing ad hominem, but Mr. Douthat's erudition is reaching heights where I spend more time trying to figure out what he is saying than actually reading. I recommend less complex compound sentences, no paragraph-length ones, and fewer obscure words and citations. Meanwhile, not a word is wasted on the plain stunning facl of that video and the amazed comments by trained pilots which accompany it. Whether our reactions to it carry associations from the past, the unconscious, paganism or Christianity is irrelevant to the actual fact of it.
4
Why would an advanced civilization capable a visiting us from a universe far away bother to visit little old us. Of course, maybe little old us is the only us.
2
UFO means unidentified flying object not little human snatching grey aliens. Reliable witnesses have seen things they cannot explain. The point is to find an explanation without making an assumption before looking at all the evidence. These objects could be geese, Russian weather balloons or space folk. The truth is out there as long as you examin the facts rationally.
6
Ross, to us non-believers much Christian dogma (virgin birth, etc.) is just myth, but you seem to believe it. For me, I will try to follow Jesus' teaching, because that is fine way to live a life, but I don't have to make him the "Son of God" in the process. Merry Christmas, X-mas, whatever.
6
Very strange indeed is the guy who champions a faith that says you can drink God's blood and eat him every Sunday, yet criticizes the real, and visually documented evidence provided by our professional soldiers.
4
One theory has it that the "Fairies" or fair folk were actually Gypsies residing in England in ancient times. They had their own customs and kings.
Whoever the Fairies were we do wish they were here now. Humanity obviously in desperate need of enchantment and despite the trick ending to this editorial, religion is none of it.
2
The UFO stuff is fun. As much money is spent by religions around the world, including the faithful of the religion-debunker religious fraternity, (funny how they're all guys) it's worth it if only for the entertainment value.
But the most unreal idea to logical humanity isn't just that there is a Creator who has devoted centuries to getting us to change our behaviour in recognition of Him, but that such a Creator would SACRIFICE his own child just so the created ones would have a way to spend eternity with the Creator.
I have gotten seriously involved with little construction and assembly projects of my own over the years, but to ask me if I'd sacrifice someone close to me to give what I created a chance to share eternity with me is asking a lot too much.
But that is what the Creator offers, unreal as it sounds to our oh-so-educated ears. What sold ME was all the stuff written centuries before the birth in Bethlehem that was all about this babe, displayed to the lowest class of society first.
Not the high-rollers and the proud, but the people invited to the big event were the least valuable part-timers available. Only a God would see the logic in that.
1
There is real irony here. In the 1950’s C.G. Jung wrote a book identifying UFO’s as a modern myth — a new version of the Christ archetype. The creation of atomic weapons had filled mankind with dread and we were once again looking to the heavens to save us from ourselves. As to disparaging Western adherents to Buddhism, Chogyam Trungkpa developed the concept of “Spiritual Materialism,” to describe those who sought religion as a kind of fashion accessory to prop up their own personal identity. Could conservative Catholics, clinging to old forms of practice over actual Christian charity and compassion ever be guilty of the same?
3
“Rather the Christian idea is that whatever capricious powers may exist, when the true God enters his creation, he does so honestly, straightforwardly, in a vulnerable and fully human form —“
So there’s Ross’ “Christian idea”. Evidently a product of the same strange aspect of the human mind that leads to Leprechauns and UFOs.
However, these other manifestations have rarely led to inquisitions, crusades, or burnings at the stake.
4
1. I've never seen God but I have seen a UFO when I was a kid - a silent matt-black saucer with a bump on the top and hemispherical bumps all around the outer edge of the underside. I had perfect vision and it was a clear blue sky - no it wasn't a balloon or aircraft.
2. Read the translations of the ancient Sumerian tablets and you will read an account of how the Annunaki from Nabiru created people as gold mine workers using genetic engineering and using a lot of their own DNA. They did it in a place on Earth they founded and called Edin. The first successful man they made was called Adamus.
2
Christianity's god is actually quite the trickster, but believers cannot bring themselves to admit it. God's activities in the world careen back and forth between gracious compassion and utter disregard bordering on cruelty. In response, the mind of the faithful sees either loving power or mystery. Our need to impose order on what we perceive allows us to credit god for all that is good, while letting him off the hook for all that is wrong in the world. Healthy child is born, love; child with terminal cancer, mystery. Heroic rescue, love; mudslide kills hundreds, mystery. When I find $20 in my wallet I did not know was there, god's love, not my own absentmindedness, is on display. God is honest and straightforward because we need to believe that such a god watches over us. But make no mistake, this deity is a tricky one.
5
The true Christian doesn’t believe he is a true Christian. He believes he is the poorest possible excuse for a Christian, deficient in both faith and deed. His prayer always begins, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” He is scared to death of judging anyone else, lest he be judged.
True Christians are hard to spot. Which tells us a lot about the ones who are easy to spot.
14
Funny that I should read this column the next morning after watching "The Song of Bernadette" on TCM. Mr. Douthat, you do realize that there are many Christian visionaries as well, do you not?
2
wouldn't it be a bit of a trick, to create gay beings with gay relationships that look and feel and even bring about good, while at the same time telling these beings that no, just trust Me/God, your physical love and your unions are *actually,* in contradiction to your lived experiences, immoral and displeasing to Me?
that does not seem like the behavior of a vulnerable or honest or straightforward God.
7
UFO sighting:
"He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
3
So, the current regime supports research into UFOs but NOT into climate change?
5
It seems of utmost important to Christians that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth. Thus arises the notion that sex in impure, that a women having sex somehow makes her unclean. Contraception, therefore is tainted as it enables women to have sex without an unwanted pregnancy.
This belief has caused untold misery throughout the ages.
11
I was a skeptic 'til I saw Puma Punka in Peru. Thousands of years ago someone machined giant granite blocks to build something BIG, and then seem to have destroyed the site later. It seems they came looking for gold, and they modified early humanoids into a race of slaves infected with gold fever. After they got all the easy gold they left us to harvest the rest of it.
They knew we would hoard it and fight over it. The¥'re hanging around, waiting for us to destroy ourselves so they can come and clean out our stashes. Easy peasy.
Humans are doing what ancient aliens did. Space travel, genetic modification, we even want to mine other celestial bodies.
3
But the Christian idea, capricious powers or not, is also best seen as yet another kind of folklore, complete with water walking, instantaneous wine creation, and in the Catholic version, various miracles produced by magic fairy dust saint bones.
Ross, it's right in front of you.
6
Unlike Ross and his militant agnosticism regarding ETs, I’m happy to allow science—supported by a few government grants—to take its time finding out the truth. And time WILL tell.
2
All the U.F.O. hysteria, as well as the fairies we tell each other, are likely a product of our feverish imagination. If there is a God we shall never know, we just aren't smart enough to grasp it's mystery. Especially when we start giving human attributes to a deity we created according to our needs and wishes and to our stipulations. Meanwhile, let's see if we can try to shake our ego and find true joy in becoming one with nature. I guess dreaming is cheap...and harmless.
3
UFOs are symbolic messages and when properly understood shows that they are about the "Second Coming of Christ" consciousness. They are for the renewal of the Christian archetype by including the bright shadow cast by the Logos Christ eon. See C.G. Jung's psychology for what the term "shadow" means. See also his book "Flying Saucers" written 60 years ago.
1
The reason humans will never travel beyond our solar system is the same reason aliens from other worlds have never shown up here. It is the electrically charged air produced by our planets in rotation around the Sun that sustains our life and light. As far as religions are go, they are all based on astrological observations of our immediate surroundings. No one ever crucified the Sun of God, the light of our life, whose rebirth is celebrated every year at the winter solstice.
2
Sorry Mr. Douthat but as the Bard's Hamlet once said:
"....There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies."
Doesn't it go, in the bible - look it up, "God is a spirit ..... I think it's pretty clearly laid out for all to understand. It goes on to state "God is love". Not the happy spirit, not the sad spirit, not the bummer one, or a let's get wasted one, but one of love. And what is love, well, I think there is a whole section on that too ---- "patient, kind, not boastful....... It's not that hard.
I write to you from Pluto. Centuries ago a space explorer from my planet visited Earth, saw the way Earthlings conducted themselves and decided you were not worthy of our friendship.
2
The confusion; it burns. Confusion about the nature of God; the nature of man; the nature of the universe. What to do.
As a lifelong student of the night sky, I've seen a pair of UFOs on two occasions. I've also photographed them accidentally in broad daylight on three occasions. Of course I have no idea what they are, and, like everyone else, will have to wait for one to land on the National Mall and explain themselves.
And it would be equally convenient if Jesus of Nazareth— the Son of God— would just come back and set everything straight... What? No virgin birth? God never gets angry? Eternal life is a gift? Love Everybody?!? It's only natural to believe he would come back, not once, but many times, to the world whereon he lived such a unique life, and finally won for himself the Father’s unlimited bestowal of universe power and authority. And yes he could! But we can't rely on that either.
It should eventually become obvious to clear thinking minds that we're all expected to find the truth of things— God, Life, the Universe— within ourselves. With the aid of a living faith, that ever knows less than it can believe. And with the spiritual insight that dwells within our own mind.
So do keep looking up; just don't neglect to also look within.
3
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks."
And do, pray tell, what god that would be.
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
Albert Einstein
5
Jewish Scripture (aka “Old Testament”) and various strains of Jewish mysticism are full of beings descending from/ascending to the heavens, some of ‘em really weird. Who’s to say Seraphim, Cherubim & The Four Living Creatures aren’t extraterrestrial? See also The Book Of Isaiah…
2
There have probably been more Virgin Mary sightings than reports of cylindrical objects seen in the skies
5
What is more likely? A virgin birthing a god child or the likelihood of space fairing civilizations seeing our atomic tests and coming by for a look?
Happy solstice
4
OK, right. Who did Abel and Cain and Seth procreate with? Aliens!
2
If it is a binary choice, I’ll hang my hat with the fairy folk over those that believe they can move God’s plan along by moving the Jewish capital to Jerusalem with the hope of jump starting the “End of days.” Yep, clear choice there.
7
Mr Douthat,
Is it honest and strait forward for your god to impregnate someone else's wife?
4
I’m a huge fan of Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg. I also enjoy reading Greek mythology.
If there actually is a god who conforms to Christian beliefs, though, how about if she shows up at a refugee camp to turns loaves into fishes (are there even loaves there?) instead of dropping by a sheep barn?
2
I think I get it: first century mysticism - distilled and refined by the Dark Ages - is a guidepost preferable to the potentials discerned through rigorous, fact-based inquiry and discovery.
I don't dispute the possibility of a higher order of existence ... but I do dispute the relevance of venal, corrupt tenets of organized religion and am continually astonished gifted, intelligent people are so ardent in their vision of a higher order that defines itself through those same dissolute, distinctly human standards.
6
I am not a believer that ETs have ever visited the Earth but I find it dichotomous that you dismiss that possibility while believing in the existence of a nebulous Christian sgod. There is a scientific basis for the existence of the former but not the latter.
2
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks."
Does God play tricks, play dice with the universe, have a sense of humor? We can continue to debate these questions forever, as they have been debated in the past.
It might be nice to point out though that mythology and folklore are (also) serious matters which are studied by serious scholars using recognized and accepted academic tools and methodologies. They should not be a matter of quasi-magic nutty theories of UFO's. These theories make a mockery of legitimate scholarship.
Shopping for a new religion? Try understanding religion (one can understand and believe) first.
2
Ross, if the Jesus of the Gospels, especially the least magical
version, Book of Mark, likely the first written, returned to earth, would he spend time worrying UFO's or even the existence of God, in the face of the kind of woe religions perpetuate against human beings and the environment. He seems to me, even if the Gospels are historical fiction, to
be grounded in matters of this earth, and means the the
Kingdom of God is THIS earth, not a faery realm. Even
the Pharisses, and especially the Sadduccees, both of
whom let Jesus die, as a human being and not a God,
by collusion with the Roman military, at least kept issues
human, if not humane.
Your opinion seems to highlight the fact that religion is the only fairy tale that can be believed. In my opinion It seems clear to me that there has been far more evidence collected to believe in the existence of UFOs than there is evidence collected that a higher being should be worshiped by means of religion. The mere fact that our world and it’s living beings exist demonstrates the possibility that other words are inhabited by such living beings. One other thought, I suppose you are a Christian do you think it is possible that other worlds have similar religious beliefs that make them compelled to worship a deity. If so do they worship Jesus or some other deity worshiped on earth or other deity’s. So many question and so little evidence, except maybe evidence supporting the existence of UFOs.
1
Well, these are fairies that are caught on video and show up on radar, according to the original NYT article and released videos. If they are in fact a projection of our beliefs this could be even more interesting than actual LGM. And, congratulations Mr. Douthat for the use of a precise scientific method in your piece.
Trustworthy God? Doesn't play tricks? Please. On Christmas Eve it might be comforting to think so, but the ongoing slaughter of the innocents during the past century suggests otherwise.
2
What's the difference in believing that there are alien beings existing out in space that might one day contact and/or visit earth, and believing that there is an all-powerful being out in space who answers prayers and can grant eternal life? If you believe in one, you might as well believe in the other.
3
In the first place, it might just be wise to find out exactly what led an advanced carrier group to launch our two best jets, and exactly what it was that they saw and chased, whatever the heck it was.
In the second, Christmas or not, some of us would suggest that Christians might want to be a lot more circumspect about sneering at other people's sky-god worship and tricky angels.
2
It is very interesting that Mr. Douthat describes fairy stories, unconscious processes, and shape-shifting entities in a rather dismissive manner, and then announces that he believes in Christian mythology. What is the difference, Mr. Douthat? Describe to yourself the basic tenets of Christianity, e.g. God impregnates an earth wonan yielding a demigod who performs magic, flies and walks on water, and rises from the dead. Fairy stories, indeed.
1
Magical thinking used to be an escape from ignorance. No one knew what made the sun shine. Myth filled an honest yearning for knowledge back when the truth wasn't out there.
But today's magical thinking has become a flight to ignorance. Millions of dedicated men and women worked tirelessly over centuries to uncover truths about many things in our world. And those truths turned out to be simply unbearable for some.
Today we live in a moment when the very concept of truth is under threat. No longer content with merely escaping from truth, armies of ignorance are on the march determined to erase the very boundary between myth and truth.
In this season of miracles it is well that we remember Galileo Galilei, who died two weeks after Christmas in 1642. In 1616 his scientific studies which had concluded that the earth revolves around the sun were condemned by the Inquisition as "heretical, since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture," including conflict with multiple verses in Psalms, Chronicles and Ecclesiastes.
Many truths are out there now. But they were not brought to us by three wise aliens traveling in flying tea cups and saucers.
2
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks."
I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, the Abrahamic God, RD's God, is exactly that kind of trickster. A God who hides behind a curtain like the Wizard of Oz. A God who people are expected to believe in based on books of tales, written down by who knows whom, about events that they did not witness.
3
Hmm.. I believe these objects were simultaneously observed visually and via radar, that is not so imaginative, perhaps less so than christianity?
2
Merry Christmas, Mr Douthat, now that royal permission has been granted to once again use this phrase. I would be fascinated by a thought experiment in which you were born into an atheist family and went shopping for a religion from scratch. Can you honestly say you would choose to believe the foundational myths of Christianity above all (or any) others? Perhaps you would not “need” a religion at all.
Anyway, barring the discovery of cosmic “wormholes” capable of transporting anything other than quantum information, the rest of the universe is irrelevant to us given the distances involved coupled with the fact that everything besides the Local Group is moving away from us faster than the speed of light.
So the only extraterrestrial life remotely relevant to us would be in the Local Group, and the odds there are not good.
The Drake equation contains many unquantifiable variables, but one it does not contain is the improbability of developing higher order life from “basic” life. “Intelligent” life is NOT the inevitable result of a few “organic” molecules swimming around a primordial sea.
It’s infinitely more likely for any planet which has “life” to have amoebas at the top of its food chain.
4
I don't care whether there is a god or gods. I don't care if there are extraterrestrials. I don't think that makes me an Atheist, Agnostic or what. Life is complex enough trying to leave this a better place with less suffering and more joy for my species without worrying about what might be.
10
Mr. Douthat suggests that "other sapient species may indeed be out there." As humanity warms our climate, pollutes our biosphere, and turns a blind eye to the fact that we are in the midst of a self-induced sixth great extinction, I am still seeking a sapient species on this planet.
6
UFOs and Jesus occupy the same place in my head. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I’m still waiting.
6
The commentariat cracks me up. It strongly believes in science that supports "correct" political beliefs (i.e., anything supporting man made climate change). But, with no evidence at all that we have been visited by creatures not of this earth -- many leap to embrace that silly notion.
Science, at the least the way it runs on planet earth, depends on verifiable observations (among other things). So, while there may be suspicious "unexplained" sightings, there were also sightings of all sorts of various sea monsters back in the early days or maritime travel and exploration. Just as we've had big foot, abominable snowmen, etc. In science, the burden of proof lies with those who make the proposition. You can't say, there are unexplained sightings and place the burden of proof on everyone else to prove these weren't alien visitors. If you have an ET living in your house, introduce him. If you've got a crashed flying saucer in your garage, please share Otherwise, absent proof... And why do these advanced civs make space craft that always crash?
Given the notion that there are billions upon billions of stars (probably more) and many more planets, it makes sense that some may support life, some of it perhaps intelligent. But that doesn't mean these planets have actually developed advanced civilizations or that they've bothered to pay us a visit. The rules of physics seem to apply across the universe, and interstellar travel -- let's say it's a long way off.
3
It’s a weak and insecure mind that must resort to ridicule to summarily discount an important occurrence that fails to fit neatly into his traditional mind box. Where’s the sense of wonder and curiosity that enables humans to explore the unknown and consider what might truly be possible? Certainly God’s universe should be large enough to embrace lifeforms that don’t look or act human. I look forward to sharing our future with other-then-human partners. We could sure use the help.
1
Ross, your intellect is at times blinding. The sincerity however does comes through even if simplistic and myopic. The idea that we as a species invent or intuit certain mythologies should not be limited to one god or a savior. That seems to me extremely egocentric even if that mythology represent self sacrifice or humility. Burning bushes, seas parting, walking on water and rising from the dead are not too far off from faeries or aliens. The search for truth or the oneness or connectedness of all things does not need to boil down to a transparent god that does not play tricks. That seems like more of a fairytale than anything else. Christ like Buddha tried to upend the staid belief systems of the time, and both messages touched on the same things; Compassion and unconditional love. These themes or practices seem to be at their core the key to finding peace in this life, the distractions of aliens and faeries might just be there to also put us in our place as ultimately insignificant and also serve a purpose and not just their to trick us. Openness to the fantastic is also a gift to humanity. Merry Christmas!
4
I'm surprised Mr Douthat doesn't see the connection between man's need to believe in UFOs, fairies, goblins and Leprechauns, and Christians' need to believe in a human God who "comes down" to Earth, is tortured and killed for some sort of ancient sin we are supposed to have committed in some blurry and distant past, and is then resurrected three days later to "ascend" once again to the heavens whence (and not from whence) he came. If ever there was magical thinking, the Christian story is a perfect example thereof.
8
I'm having a hard time seeing the similarity between these UFO sightings and fairy sightings, since fairies were not detected on radar, followed by F18s and recorded on video.
2
A strange column for the holidays or is it merely an unwillingness to address the serious issues that confound us at the end of this turbulent year. You set this is about “God”
- whose god? The turmoil around Jerusalem highlights this question. Evangelicals for some reason claim this City - holy to three major religions that have been fighting over it for centuries. Trump, Pence, and Halley (Tillerson is absent) - are using the most un- Christian behavior to defend their actions - I doubt that two of them even know the history of the Middle East. Among the alien and uncharitable acts about to be perpetrated is the forceable removal of babies from parents seeing asylum in this country, sick children removed from an ambulance, mothers arrested with only the clothes on their backs. Tyranny by the military and money changers who have all benefited from the new tax bill. I look for a more meaningful column in the new year- one about true religious values.
3
"There are more things in Heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy", Mr. Douthat.
Earth ego aside, there are probably other life-sustaining planets in our Universe and elsewhere but whether they are able or willing to visit earth, or have visited earth in our past, as seemingly depicted in all the similar cave art shared across our world depicting spaceships and beings in 'space helmets', is the scientific question.
I stopped believing in intelligent life on earth when this WH administration came into being. Merry Christmas, fellow Christian!
3
It’s way past time to get grounded in reality about stories of gods who enter their creation “in a vulnerable and fully human form.”
To explain the cause, purpose, and nature of life and the universe, men and women, priests and priestesses, profoundly ignorant of life as we know it, often claiming “divine revelation” as their source of inspiration, knowledge, and authority, created gods, creation stories, texts, and fiercely tribal religions with rules, rituals, costumes, and music.
Keep in mind that all of this occurred thousands of years before the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Reason when, in the 16th to 18th centuries, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, and anatomy put forward a range of ideas based on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy. Religious creeds, doctrines, and dogma were questioned, and the authority of religions were challenged. All with very good cause.
Sacredness is not a supernatural phenomenon. It’s that in life which at our peril we cannot violate, damage, dishonor, or destroy. Sacredness is not about a supreme being, it's about a way of being.
7
Increased attention to the prospect of UFOs and extraterrestrial visits in the form of legitimate press articles and official agency leaks is, in my opinion, an orchestrated effort to prepare us earthlings for the main event. Consider this a "soft opening". Stay tuned.
2
The only strange thing to me is just how forcefully opposed many people are to alien spacecrafts and/or visitors from another planet. I personally think the odds are in favor of alien visitation, rather then against it. And why would it be so hard to believe that they are cautious about contact with our race? Look at how people are treated here on our planet. Look at how fixated so many people and governments are about killing each other. If I was from some other world, I would be hesitant about contacting this crazy planet as well. For all those who doubt and continuously say that there is no evidence to support visitation, there is also no evidence to the contrary. I don’t believe all tales reported by people, but I do believe it is more than just possible that alien species and crafts have been here, and have contacted some random people to find out more about our human race of beings.
35
Nice try, Mr. Douthat. You seem to propose a faith-based alternative to what you perceive as a religious cult (a little reflection on your own beliefs is in order here). I think you miss not only the point of this article, but the bigger picture, which is that significant empirical evidence exists for these phenomena and has so for many decades. Unlike supposed visions/sightings of the Virgin Mary, which seem to occur only in places where there already many Catholics, encounters with UFOs happen to people throughout the world (very many of them observant pilots) regardless of what they may personally believe or not. Don't confuse psychology with our species' best attempts to observe the physical world (the scientific method). It's time to let go of the stigma of taking this topic seriously, which many other nations have already done.
3
Jacques Vallee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YfBdFTlEUA
A discussion of Reid's little green men might benefit from considering hidden variable theory about which Einstein famously declared, "I am convinced God does not play dice." His thinking was that quantum mechanics is incomplete—Heisenberg uncertainty principle quantifies the bounds—& that a "complete theory" would provide ways to account for all observable phenomena & thus avoid any indeterminism.
"Flatland" the Abbott novella, also might provide a clue. Flatland is a 2-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures; women are line-segments & men are polygons with n sides, the greater the n, the higher the station. The highest, the priest, is a circle, aptly the limit as n approaches infinity.
The problem w/ Flatland is our problem w/ space aliens among us. Flatlanders can view their world only sideways, along the plane, i.e., a plane has no height. Thus, all polygons, including circles, will look like line segments. Circles, however, can be differentiated from polygons: the circle line segment will remain constant, i.e., its diameter. The only way to differentiate men & women is that a woman's size will vary with the angle of view & if they are viewed perpendicular to the viewer they will be reduced to a point
Just as Flatland is a comment on the hierarchy of Victorian culture, a consideration of an alien presence among us is a comment on the hierarchy of our Deep-State political culture
"The only way they can win is to convince people we're space aliens" Bill Clinton
2
The column kinda misses the point of the Times story (including the additional audio segment). Outlandish claims should be examined not through folkloric or psychological arguments, but via cold hard facts. "We are being visited" is actually a scientific hypothesis requiring data to answer, and the Times, courtesy of Elizondo, has revealed that our military is holding potentially relevant data. While we are one of several nations doing so, I am guessing our recording instruments may be some of the best. This is good news no matter what your personal opinion of the answer might be.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, said Sagan, (and Laplace).
32
Faeries started wearing space suits only after humans started experimenting with rocketry.
Curiously timely synchronicity.
2
I don't know whether there is a god, or not. I don't know whether aliens have visited us, or not. I am not the end-all and be-all of philosophical and scientific thought. The point is that I possess a mere five senses, all allowing me to see the light (and dark) of day as it exists. I am therefore equipped to deal only with the present. If life for me continues after I die, I'll deal with it then. We have plenty of problems here on Earth that we should be addressing, so why worry about something that probably has no real answer other than ending with personal extinction? Try to make a Heaven of Earth right now, I pray, and the rest will fall into place. At the end I will be grateful for my little slice of earthly life I have had, no matter how silly or scary it was. To ask for more is like a glutton asking for more lunch.
9
Mr. Douthat,
Christianity and especially Catholicism is loaded with magic and fairy tales including the star or UFO that pointed the way to the manger in Bethlehem. What about Jesus' miracles, waking of the dead to prove his divine provenance? Isn't the New Testament an elaborate fairy tale in many ways? When Mohamed asked Allah to prove his power by way of a miracle, Allah responded that life is a miracle; there is no need to show anything more. People have always "shopped" for spirituality, to quote your disdain of those who don't run to the first parochial church down the street in order to find it. It's an arduous road with many detours and many ways to get there. And, yes, you are right in your last paragraph: The naked Christ offered himself to the naked man and there lies the essence of spirituality. But that same man gazes toward the stars and wonders where God may have hidden other sentient beings in some far off galaxy. It's a thought worthy of the great star gazing Catholic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He foresaw the eventual fusion of science and spirituality as the unwavering destiny of evolution. The secret is also out there in the vastness of space. I say let's look within ourselves where God resides but let's not forget to look at the night sky now and then, where we may catch a passing UFO or two and wonder what it's all about.
6
While UFOs may seem like fairy tales, they differ in one intriguing
aspect. Fairy tales evolved over centuries. The modern UFO
burst into public awareness in the space of a few weeks in 1947 --
a nice round 70 years ago. I pondered this fact 20 years ago
(see http://cpacker.org/misc/roswell.html ). I concluded that the
UFO phenomenon did not begin spontaneously, but was seeded in
an organized way and that the press was complicit in propagating
the fiction, if not actively involved in creating it.
To elaborate on the implications of this hypothesis would make this
comment too long and wear out my welcome with the moderators.
Merry Christmas and, definitely, a happy New Year.
2
Does it occur to anyone that the US government has an obligation to investigate intrusions into US airspace, whatever their origin? Instead of jokes about UFOs and wasting money, we should focus on what these unidentified objects actually are, and whether they are probing US defenses.
45
In keeping with the spirit of the season, I think we should include Santa Clause in the pantheon of visitors from places that mere mortals have never been. He obviously has other worldly powers that give him the ability to fly the world over in one night and deliver gifts via chimney to each household. As children we don’t question where he got the plastic ping pong ball gun or talking doll that he delivered. We don’t wonder if he shops for the best prices, or uses Amazon to get toys pre-delivered to the North Pole. As adults, however, we do question, and we know better. Or do we? Isn’t Santa just a child’s fairy-tale version of the same god adult Christians worship? Don’t adults pray as if sitting on Santa’s lap, asking for whatever they think they need? Don’t adults fear that he is always watching them, knowing if they’ve been naughty or nice and rewarding them accordingly? Don’t adults know the difference between mythology, wishful thinking and reality? In keeping with the spirit of the season, the answer is no.
8
The extraordinary ignorance or wilful dismissal of the overwhelming scientific knowledge which argues against the belief we are being visited by extraterrestrials is truly depressing. The vastness of interstellar space and the impossibility of generating and transporting the energy necessary to accelerate to and decelerate from the speeds required to travel those distances make the concept merely science fiction. UFO’s are just that - unidentified - nothing more. Believing otherwise is denying reality and believing in magic. But then, so is Douthat’s Christian faith.
4
To the families of Bedford, IN, circa 1958, the direct observation of a large craft hovering over the south edge of town, with five smaller bright white lit objects leaving it, with those objects buzzing close overhead for almost one half hour, then returning to the larger ship, this was not and is not a fairy tale. Hundreds of local citizens saw this, as if they were watching a fourth of July fireworks show. The next day the local paper mentioned lights in the sky and dropped the subject. Workers at nearby Crane Naval Ammunition Depot were told to not bring up the subject. My grandfather was cleared for the highest security clearance at that base, which included silos and nuclear bomb storage. He had been in the yard, with me, as our family and as many families as I could see into the distance, all watched a display that was probably later used as a basis for the movie Close Encounters (Spielberg set that in IN for a reason). My top security grandfather took me to the side, and said not to worry, that THEY buzzed the big base frequently. So, you have your fairy tales, like Trump's fake news, and propaganda, and I have what I call reality, burnt into my memory and the memory of hundreds of Bedford, IN citizens.
73
Pence country. Surprised the locals didn't try to shoot the UFO down with their guns and then pray about it in their churches. Two useless acts that pervade belief-based Christian white America.
4
The notion that fairies and aliens are the same has been around in the US for quite some time, from the Twilight Zone to Mark Twain. Why Mr. Douthat is afraid of them now is puzzling, as if belief in the Wee Folk is a threat to "the true God." I wonder if someone who believes their religion represents "the true God" can openly consider if maybe all of those religions that talk about heavenly beings are just talking about various types of aliens...aliens that maybe play tricks, like Loki- others that might bring knowledge to men like Joseph Smith or gifts like corn that was given to Hiawatha, who's father was a sky being -and there are those other gods of mythology that might start wars, like Ares.
Ironically, to dismiss people who believe in UFOs and aliens is essentially to dismiss all religions that claim connection to heavenly beings. Given that most religions claim some heavenly connection, maybe it is time to let UFO and fairies believers into the embrace of humanity again. In fact, maybe we should wonder more about just who made it such a stigma to have such a belief or experience and why they would do such a thing.
This opinion is great, because it brings up a major problem if UFO's were found to be real. When God talked to the special men who wrote His books, He did not include a notion of life beyond earth. If we did encounter intelligent life in outer space, it would raise doubt in the validity of the three major holy books.
Archaeologists get a lot of grief for finding examples of intelligent humans that do not fit the holy book timeline. Scientists are discovering forces and waves from the sun and other distant sources that influence our environment and climate. The effects of alignments of orbs in space, astrological tables, have been dismissed as a type of voodoo by the holy books. And there's the confusion about evolution. Scientific discoveries are challenged by religious dogma.
All it will take is the appearance of intelligent, communicating, external life, and the holy books will lose their power. Hundreds of millions killed in wars over which holy book is the real message from God, all for nothing.
6
All that divinely-inspired bloodshed is already for nothing. No extraterrestrial visitation required.
2
We know so little about the universe (or the multiverse, if you will -- the newest twist in physics) that we shouldn't rule UFOs out, but I think invasion is likely only if aliens decide to clean up our planet (in a Flip or Flop sort of way). We don't live in an expensive piece of real estate anymore. Global warming, toxic waste, the tragic destruction of war have devalued us immensely in the last 200 human years. Why would any truly intelligent beings want to meet us? If there are any bona fide UFOs visiting Earth, I'd guess they are not navigated by intelligent biologic beings but by their droids who report back the dire news of a strange species that trashed its habitat. Even the droids fly away from us.
6
"when the true God enters his creation, he does so honestly, straightforwardly, in a vulnerable and fully human form"
The 'form' may have been human, but the essence was divine, or so they told me in Sunday School. Christians seem to be a bit confused about the basic mat of the situation. Do they worship one god, or two, or three? And if Jesus is God's son, what happened to Mrs. God? Has anyone checked under the rose bushes in the garden of Eden for any suspicious mounds?
These are not idle, sarcastic questions. Christians have killed each other over the issue of Monophysitism, or how many natures Christ really has. I'll only say that if he did live and die as reported in the Gospels, and he was 'fully human' as Ross seems to imply, then he didn't really know what would happen when he died any more than we do. All that stuff about 'eating at this Father's table' was just brave talk.
On the other hand, if he KNEW he wasn't going to really die forever while he was on the cross, then where's the sacrifice?
5
I was watching Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; the story is silly and fun but it led me to think although the sightings may be real, the INTENTIONS we assign to them are definitely just conjecture.
The reality is we have no idea who they are and why they would come here. They could be scientists doing research or an ordinary military scout mission. But, they also could be a a family on vacation or a bunch of teenagers taking their parent's spaceship for a wild ride or they are religious pilgrims who think their God was born here. Or, they could just be lost (it's a big galaxy out there).
Or, something we cannot even fathom at our level of technological development.
32
Belief in aliens has become a kind of God substitute but is even more problematic. The evidence for this, according to 'Ancient Aliens' TV, is the early accomplishments of our ancestorssuch as Stonehenge, the Pyramids, etc. The assumption is that human could never have done these things without outside help. The aliens came to help and interbred with us. So....the reason for belief in aliens is that we are aliens.
Belief in God makes more sense. And who created the aliens, anyway?
1
If God is One, then there is no "entering of creation." God is both creator and creation, not Dual. God is not an old guy with a beard sitting on a cloud somewhere apart from His creation.
When Jesus said, "I am the Way..." it was because he recognized this and identified with the Unbounded Self within. The "I" he referred to was not his limited personality and body, but the One God. Followers who confused the limited Jesus with the Universal Christ made an error that still occurs today.
But the world is stranger than we think, and a lot is unseen, unheard and unrecognized by humans because of our sensory limits. Faerie and "he is risen" are both possible in an Infinite Universe.
3
Today's stealth aircraft, (not) seen by WWII radar pioneers in 1939 would have set off fears that the Germans were responsible, not aliens or future technologies. Authur Clarke's, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" only applies when there are no enemies to blame.
Assuming the technology of UFOs is well ahead of ours, earthlings see them only when they allow themselves to be seen. Why would they do that? For kicks? Like when people throw a Teddy Bear in with real bears? Or for psychological experiments like putting a mirror in with the elephants? Or maybe an alien teenager took the family craft for a joyride and forgot to turn on the cloaking device.
Oh, the possibilities are endless.
2
Every culture across the planet, throughout history has had the natural human impulse to mark the Winter solstice, usually with a festival involving light, a healthy response given that the low light conditions of Winter often lead to depression.
Christian leaders, as was their wont, incorporated a mish-mash of "pagan" symbols and ceremonies to create their own solstice celebration. This has nothing to do with a big, bearded Daddy in the sky and everything to do with universal human impulses.
As far as UFOs, Carl Sagan's statistically based argument in favor of the existence of alien life convinced me. There are simply too many billions of stars with planets for life NOT to have developed elsewhere.
However the realities of Einstein's Relativity and inter-stellar distances also convinces me that the possibility of us ever coming into contact with it is effectively infinitesimal. The very fastest space traveling vehicle we have created would take something like 17,000 years to reach the CLOSEST star. And of course, that's not a return trip. There is also next to no likelihood of there being life on any of the planets of that star. To reach the closest star that has planets which harbor at least a faint possibility of life you're talking about voyages of 40,000 YEARS or more. Even traveling at the impossible to reach speed of light, you're looking at 15 years for a one way trip.
Think we'll someday achieve light speed travel? Might as well believe in Santa Claus.
2
Distances in the Universe are simply too vast and the laws of physics too well-known to believe reasonably that visitors come zipping to Earth in their spacecraft to observe and impress the natives. If the Sun were the diameter of a quarter, the next nearest star (in the Centauri system) would be some 400 miles away, our galaxy would be 10 million miles across, the next nearest large galaxy would be 200 million miles away, and the farthest observable galaxy would be 20,000 billion miles away.. And that's if the Sun were the diameter of a quarter instead of nearly 900,000 miles in diameter. These figures are approximately accurate, and the conversion of mass to energy shown in M=E/c2 ( Einstein's original expression of the formula) means that no craft could be propelled at even a substantial fraction of the speed of light with nuclear conversion; solar sail propulsion would take too long to cross distances in the Universe; and wormholes, black holes, and antigravity are simply silly, imaginary ways of travel.. And morality aside, using religious mythology surrounding Jesus, devised by people who didn't understand what the Moon is, is a profoundly problematic way of grasping our place in the Universe.
3
If there is alien life in the galaxy and they can come from there to here, their technology is far superior to our own. Hopefully, their intentions will be peaceful. Perhaps the wisest course for the people of Earth is to not attract attention until our technology is sufficiently advanced to allow us to go to them.
23
This is exactly astrophysicist Stephen Hawking's warning.
4
The human mind is so tweaked with inference creating "circuits" that it should come as no surprise that all of us sometime "infer" something that is not there or that some % of us need something (religion for example) to quell the anxiety of too much "tweek."
for me.. I miss the loss of tradition at class time: the movie "Elf" just doesn't cut it "
1
All the organised religions are implacably opposed to the concept that somewhere in the vast reaches of the universe there might be extraterrestrial intelligent life, capable of travelling between the stars.
This is because all the organised religions, old and new, including Buddhism, are not only geocentric but geo-limited. If other species than humans can be in communion with the Creator, then where does this leave humans in the scope of things?
Because Douthat is a devout Roman Catholic, committed in principle to accepting uncritically the dogma and doctrines of the Church of Rome, Douthat is bound by his theological imperatives to reject the possibility of highly intelligent, and technologically advanced, extra terrestrial life.
7
My apartment overlooks a major approach route to LGA. I regularly see the pattern of lights from aircraft that are featured on TV shows as UFOs. The recent rocket launch near LA set off a major UFO scare. People should consider natural causes for unknown things rather than going off on fanciful ideas. While it is possible there is intelligent life somewhere beyond earth, the speed of light limit puts contact into the realm of science fiction.
2
Despite the seeming soundness of recent Pentagon data from the like of Commander David Fravor, one is sceptical about an alien visitation interpretation of UFOs for something like the same reason Hume had for refuting miracles: alien visits are inconsistent with everything else we know on rational-empirical grounds. (In particular what we know about life, the light years of distance to the closest possible uninhabitable planet, and the impossibility of travel at speeds exceeding the speed of light, sci-fi-like play with arcane scientific concepts.)
But surely Douthat has never bought Hume's argument, so why shouldn't he be open to the the suggestion of evidence like Fravor's -- of objects that move in the air with capacities for acceleration and speed beyond those of human technology?
Thank you for this column. I appreciate being informed about Jacques Vallée. As far as your conclusions I am disappointed that a writer as talented as you would put your own theological convictions on a plane of proof higher than the metaphysical or paranormal assumptions of others. Neither you nor I know the nature of the Divine. To the Jews of the First Century, the appearance of God in human form was an opposite expectation based on their scriptures; seems "tricky" to me! That this happened in "public" versus as hearsay is an article of faith.
3
I'm completely in favor of investigating any unexplained phenomena. I am skeptical of giving large sums of government money, with no oversight, to a politician's billionaire friend.
1
If you enjoy the idea of UFO sightings as a form of fairy tale, you would also enjoy Carl Jung's book, written in the 1950's, entitled "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky."
The very phraseology of UFO "believers" implies a quasi-religious aspect of the worship of sky gods, a myth for the technological age. Probably many are finding satisfaction in the apparent human need for myth with a belief in powerful extraterrestrials visiting Earth, as angels do in some traditional religions.
That said...there are some encounters between military pilots with unidentified aerial objects which have not been explained, objects that have been picked up on radar with multiple witnesses, flying machines, for lack of a better word, with abilities to move in the sky in ways we cannot begin accomplish with current or foreseeable technology.
Quite a leap to jump from there to extraterrestrial visitors, however. From what is known of the physical laws of the universe and vast interstellar distances, it is equally probable or improbable to posit beings from our future time-traveling back to us, or beings like us from a neighboring dimension.
sampling our real estate.
Two hundred years ago we were ignorant of applied electrical and atomic power. We still don't know what dark energy is, only that something must exist to accelerate the expansion of the universe. If we don't destroy ourselves, what will we know in a thousand years that someone, somewhere may know now?
55
Oops. At Nicea, it was determined that including texts that either placed women at the top of the Christian food chain, or revealed Jesus' royal lineage as descendant from the House of David, or emphasized his "mission" was political, not spiritual was of course tossed. Apparently, so were sightings, writings and experiences involving...visitors. Now the existence of such, if acknowledged, poses a few existential questions for persons like this columnist, try as they might to use erudite vocabulary to mask their fear. If there's a "them", then there is no He, though gymnastics will be performed to suggest alternative explanations for the greatest hoodwinking of humanity -- the notion of an almighty, in human form, that created everything in six days. Oops.
5
"Rather the Christian idea is that whatever capricious powers may exist, when the true God enters his creation, he does so honestly, straightforwardly, in a vulnerable and fully human form"
. . . Like a burning bush? Sure, sure, there a lots of ordinary people who take the form of flaming flora. Perfectly natural.
6
Just the whole story of Jesus Christ and the miracles he performed seem to be proof in the fallibility of the human experience especially when it comes to memory. We choose to believe what we believe. It gives us a grasp on reality. Whatever it may be. The UFO phenomenon started right about the time of balloons and dirigibles. When the flying saucer of the day was mysteriously cigar shaped or round. Check it out there are newspaper accounts of it. Lastly let’s not forget the strange cow mutilations in the seventies. Or the crop circles. If there is intelligent life out there, I can tell you it ain’t in the White House.
5
It's illogical that so many, like Douhat, discount extra-terrestrial life (almost unlimited galaxies and earth-like planets out there) and yet hold a firm belief in an all-powerful being in "heaven". Or could they be the same?
1
I didn't realize hallucinations and fantasms could be filmed in several wavelengths. Thanks for spending an entire column explaining that.
2
Leslie Kean, of the NYT UFO article, wrote a 2010 book – here is a Skeptical Inquirer review:
http://debunker.com/texts/kean.htm
Astronomers doing real science are searching for life out there, but almost all would say they expect to find no more than primitive life. Even so, most scientists who are members of the American Astronomical Society favor serious research into the UFO phenomenon, even though they generally do not believe we are being visited by ETs.
http://www.uapreporting.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/jse_08_1_sturrock...
“Although there is no consensus, more scientists are of the opinion that the problem certainly or probably deserves scientific study than are of the opinion that it certainly or probably does not.”
We have only found life on Earth. If we find DNA-based bacterial life in, say, the oceans of Europa, we won’t know where it came from within our solar system – we’ve been “swapping spit” with everything else here for 4.5 billion years. Non-DNA life here, or *any* life in an exoplanetary system, would be a holy grail, implying a “second genesis.” Regardless, SETI has yet to find any evidence for sentient ETs.
Within 1000 years, we will be subsumed by our own AI. Considering that humans have been around for perhaps 100,000 years, then for our hour on the stage, we have a little over half a minute left.
If Christianity, rather than UFO worship, is what floats your boat, then so be it. Maybe we should all just enjoy what time we have left.
3
Wait, so objects which have been picked up on radar, photographed by infrared cameras, seen by multiple reliable witnesses, recorded on official documentation, and are the subject of a multi-million dollar Defense Department Program, are “fairytales”, but a person born of a virgin, able to walk on water, able to create food from nothing, dies, is resurrected, and finally floats up into space, is “real?”
16
How does Mr. Douthat explain the 'Miracle of the Sun' experienced by tens of thousands of people at Fatima, Portugal on Oct. 13, 1917?
A floating silver disc was reportedly seen by them flying in the sky.
1
It’s really hard to get where Mr Doubt-that is going with this column. UFO’s are the same as fairies but they’re not? They come from the same place—but they don’t? Seems like an intellectual take on a phenomenon about which there’s really not enough evidence to make an intellectual, or definitive, call (tho some compelling evidence exists). Arthur C Clarke’s statement about advanced (“alien”) technology being indistinguishable from magic pretty much makes the same point, without getting lost in fairyland.
1
So, “The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks”? By that standard of divine behavior, we have all been mightily swindled, and the some.
1
This argument took a totally strange turn for me when you based it on the realism of Christianity. There seems to be a lot more eye witness proof, by persons deeply trusted with the responsibilities of military positions, as well as homeboys from the swamps of Mississippi who had absolutely nothing to gain by telling their stories and everything to loose, yet in both cases swore or revealed— on their deathbeds— the evidence of sightings, captures and abductions- than proof that a man name Jesus Christ ever even existed. He was not even mentioned for the first 300 years of his so called life. And no one has ever ever been observed to have literally risen from the dead, yet that is the premise of Christianity! If you have read about the lives of the saints, it is clear that a dull old man commemorated for a great deed will have a historical track record of a shape shifter- will, down the road, become a handsome knight for a village here and a santa claus in another circumstance, according to the needs of those that make up the stories to control the masses. Was Jesus Christ blonde and blue eyed or black skinned? HAve you looked at documentaries on sightings or read about the actual circumstances of Area 51. A truck load of loggers witnessed a spacecraft, one of the fellows was abducted and the boys did not recant, even though they were being eyed for murder, and then their companion suddenly appeared on the road. It's scary, but liberating, to step out of the box.
"There are demon-haunted worlds... regions of utter darkness..."
The Isha Upanishad, India circa 600 B.C.
As quoted from Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle In the Dark
2
What is a delusion? Three questions will answer that.
1. Certainty – you are certain a belief it true
2. Incorrigibility – you are unwilling to revise your belief – even with contrary evidence.
3. Implausible – claims of magic or improbable acts are held true (walking on water)
By this measure, UFO’s, fairies, Bigfoot, Thor, Flat-Earthers Poseidon, and yes, Jesus are all a delusion in one form or another. Some are fun to have, some feel nice when we believe, and some can be destructive if one takes them too seriously. Critical thinking should not be suspended during this holiday season – but maybe turned toward more helpful pursuits that actually make a tangible difference.
2
The god who doesn't play tricks? Your god who gave life, the most capricious trick of all? Hey, kid, here's a gift for you, take it and then go die.
If only all religions would "evolve" themselves out of existence. That all the popes and other male know-it-all's would evolve out of the medieval robes and beanies and crowns and out of their awful male-dominant dogma and live in the world with full-blooded people.
Judism, Christianity, and Islam came frpm a gang of guys in a desert, ignorant and fearful of natural phenomena. Like sex and death.
Though most of us may not be directly victimized by a religion in our lives, the consequences of it are everywhere in the destruction, terrorism, subjugation of women, murder and apartheid. Then there are the evils done by the church members themselves, the sexual predators and child rapists.
So Happy Holidays, Mr. Douthat. Hope you get lots of 'toys and goodies' as befits the nonsense of the season for which Jesus is the reason.
And watch out for that Space X rocket. It's really a North Korean missile, you know.
Or maybe it's a warning from god, a kind of North Korean style dictator-god, that she is not amused.
5
How about using the money that is spent looking for UFO’s for “civilizational health”, such as feeding starving children on our own planet?
5
A folklorist interpretation of the pilot video published by NYT is interesting, but without an accompanying physicist interpretation, it seems a bit meaningless. Equating misinterpretation of natural phenomenon in a time when humans had no understanding of gravity and believed Earth was the center of the universe to something similar occurring today is probably a stretch. If not, let's actually hear from those who could say with a level of expertise that the writer lacks as to why or why not. Otherwise, are you not engaging in the exact sort of willful ignorance that you suggest those interpreting this as a alien encounter are?
32
This article makes me ill in so many ways. I see no discernible difference between believing in fairies and believing in a Christian-type god. And is your faith so fundamentally shallow and weak that it can't accommodate life outside of Earth? It also denigrates the actual science of exploring the universe by equating that work with stories of little green men.
Meanwhile, the Earth (and humanity) here continues to suffer from the backwardness of the Abrahamaic religions.
6
Fascinating that an otherwise intelligent person discounts the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors but unquestionably buys into the existence of a supreme being in the sky who is, by definition, an extraterrestrial.
8
I agree with this comment in general. It is disingenuous to discredit one set of magical beliefs while affirming another. Magical thinking is magical thinking, period.
Human understanding, apparently by its nature, continues to probe the limits of present understanding, perhaps as a matter of reflex. Except for the methodology, that is what scientists do. But that methodology makes all the difference.
Rational thought has, in the age of science, been grounded in the scientific method, which requires repeatable results for proof. Human ability to do this has depended on the development of tools to sharpen and magnify our senses. The results have also sharpened our thinking.
Which brings me back to magical thinking. Religion relies on that combined with a conviction that we are right and they are wrong, a belief that is always based on faith. Science of course doesn’t rely on faith for belief. Moreover, religion has always embraced a set of beliefs that tend to be frozen in time, often long past eras. Science consistently, though not often easily, has always embraced new ideas.
Human existence is clearly surrounded by mystery, which is essentially the theme of this column. The question is how do humans approach that mystery. Religion (as well as UFO and conspiracy theories) approach mystery with answers. Science approaches mystery with questions. That distinction makes all the difference.
4
I'd rather put my money into proving the existence of little green men than supporting tax exempt institutions which exist to push the notion that an invisible, white-bearded man in the sky pulls all the strings.
7
I have heard and read about UFO sightings since 1954, and even seen something on a few occasions throughout the years. My conclusion to all that, contrarily to the mainstrean ufologist’s interpretation of the phenomenon, is that we are not confronted with something intelligent in the intellection sense we give the word "intelligent". The UFO’s are alive, they are a living entity by themselves, not a spaceship or what-have-you containing "pilots" or a crew. They behave too heedlessly, too eratically, sometimes even straight stupid. Like a bat uses the sonar without having invented it, they surf the non-locality principle of quantum physics because it’s in they genome and that is all. In other words, we will as an inetelectual species have more chance to make contact with bats than with them, because the bats are closer to us and three dimantional entities like us. Although, I think they are actually more akin to bugs than bats … Look at them fly around like fireflies …
3
The government should allocate some funding to determine if there is intelligent life here on earth....
9
Merry Christmas Ross, well-done, and thank you...
Some guy/gal said it below --- how many years did we think the earth was flat? I don't however think we should ever discard a search for further understanding, for things one can't explain. But as the bible suggests, "prove all things." There has to be more to the story of our own human form, and how it came into existence. And could it occur a million miles away in some other form? And maybe I'm wrong, but I think when one man, some call him Jesus, spoke to the physicians in the temple, he laid the ground work for the future work of doctors and scientists. And, we'll all get a lot further when man stops imagining fire-breathing dragons, sinners benches, and quit using ill-gotten religion to destroy man's thinking. Thought to myself yesterday after talking to one in a tizzy about the demonic state she thinks we live in, while she was urging all to pray, pray ---- if the lady had any resemblance of love, she'd find the demon --- it's in her head!
2
So ... people ought to be skeptical about UFO's and other paranormal phenomena, but should still believe unquestioningly in invisible all-powerful wizards who dance among the clouds? Douthat, do you even realize the logical absurdities of your own words?
1
This is where journalists get in trouble, when they assume they know the answer to anything and then pontificate on some "truth" they think they have some special insight on. The definition of UFO is "unidentified flying object". And that is exactly what many credible people claim to have seen. BE a journalist and question some of those folks- military, law enforcement, commercial pilot's, , astronauts, even a former President. Then come back to us and give us an answer.
1
Is the Christian God not just another denizen of a fairy realm? How is the fairy realm fundamentally different from the Christian pantheon?
UFOs at least don't demand fealty and punish us horribly for transgressions. (At least not so far.)
Very bah-humbug of me on this fine Christmas Eve morning, I know. :)
2
If Ross wants to believe that Jesus was "The Son of God" and born through virgin birth, than others can believe in the existence of U.F.O.s and alien beings. Both things are, at this time, grounded only in "strong belief."
3
Ah, fairy tales...ya mean like Christianity?
When I lived in Nashville, I used to ask my Christian friends if they believed in ghosts, to which they inevitably (and irritatedly replied), "no!" And, of course, the irony was lost on them.
2
Ross, Ross, do you not recognize angels of the Lord when you see them? Or, not seeing them, hear accounts of their presence?
I know people who believe that demons and angels are real and act in the world. When I ask them if werewolves or leprechauns are real too, they look at me like I’m crazy.
Mr. Douthat:
Silly is as silly does. In the next ice age we will all walk on water.
6
Both Sagan's and Tyson's Cosmos series have a segment explaining Drake's equation. I'll roll with these segments.
Like virtually every sacred text, 99% of every other article or book on UFO's and alien life reveal their utter stupidity within the first couple hundred words.
2
..but performs miracles
No Ross.
My faith is strongly biased towards other heavenly bodies inhabited by life than believing in the fairy tale of God
The only God that exists is in our mind.
So I am not sure what hokum you are talking about.
4
How appropriate this column was published on Christmas Eve. I'll leave it at that.
1
The Tooth Fairy ... Santa Claus ... Yahweh
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
4
Christianity is all fairy dust and unicorns. UFOs are at least interesting.
5
Ross, No one at my Christian church slights Buddhism -- or pantheism or paganism. Shopping for a new religion? That's said with a sneer. And out of place in what you call a Christian column.
7
Ross, you keep believing that Adam and Eve were historical figures, in Noah's Ark, or that Jesus rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of a “proof-less” God. I believe in science and that man-made global warming is universally supported by "scientific fact".
7
What about all the Christian fairies: angels? tongues of fire? talking doves? Well, all of These are Good! The other ones are hallucinations...Right! So right! God is on the side of those who know the kind of God worth trusting. Douthat's thinking is delusional: way out there with the idea of making great again what was never great, and never para-normal, just normal. 2017 was not normal, and likely 2018 won't be either, unless 1941 was normal too. But then, what is normal? We are just people, who have to live on one planet and with one another, all the time.
5
The reality is that our UFO (unidentified flying objects) programs are meant to keep track of earth generated intruding flying objects. There are drones, gliders, projectiles, rockets and myriad aircraft generated by government and criminals all over the world. Keeping those numbers down is worth spending some money.
29
The relationship between God (religious leanings in general), UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, ghosts, fairies, wizards, gnomes and the like?
They are among the best strip tease artists in all of history. A mere mortal, male or female sex object can only be green with envy compared to these superstars, these tricksters, these geniuses of almost giving it all, then leaving you ultimately with nothing but a bit of skin before slipping away.
Take God: You never really see him or her or what and you have people arguing for centuries and killing and fighting over even what he or she or it supposedly said. You get your peek and that's it. Take UFOs: For all that supposedly advanced alien technology apparently they have no radar or warning system to avoid detection--they are often seen, and with flashing lights too--but there you are, left with fuzzy pictures and a zipped off, zipped up alien.
Take Bigfoot, big beast lumbering through the woods. You get a little skin of hands, maybe face, then get that fur coat and off he or she goes, exit stage to woods somewhere or maybe Canada, Manitoba--a show for maybe the lumberjacks only. And Loch Ness monster, Nessie, giving us a few curves and a toss of the tail and down under she goes...
As for ghosts, fairies, wizards, gnomes and all the rest, it's some magic and Hollywood stars would like to know the rest. You gotta hand it to 'em, they have taste, magic, artistry, they know when to talk, stay and go--never outwear a welcome.
2
Is it your Christianity which prevents your mentioning similar visits from angels and demons alongside the UFO's and faeries? Surely the visions of Joan of Arc and the voices of Margery Kempe belong in this column as examples of the same psychological phenomenon.
2
If I was approached by an alien who pointed a ray gun at me and said "Take me to your leader", I would tell them I am more than willing to comply, but only if you take the leader with you when you go.
13
Good gravy, all the cranky atheists come out in full flower anytime God is brought up in a column. The atheists are guilty of their own certainty as those people of faith they call out.
2
If the faeries, sprites, UFOs & other sitings can be explained away as fairy tales, why can't the Holy Spirit be explained as a ghost story?
What if Jesus, Mohammed were actually schizophrenics, imagining voices? Is it sacreligious to say there are phenomena in the mind that we call hallucinations, & to suppose for a moment that's what these two saw?
And what if Moses actually made it up about the Commandments to keep people behaved.
What if prophesy really is the 'god part of the brain', a figment of our immensely complex minds, the 'need to believe', our brain's way of reconciling our awareness of death?
And what if the Christian & Muslim obsession with the 'afterlife' is no less pure myth than the Egyptian's?
Or what if the reality is that we really don't know, except that which we can verifiably prove, and that the verifiably proven keeps relently pushing back every single myth regarding God & 'his' actions, from creation forward?
If we're going to spend money researching sightings, why not research every Christian to whom god has supposedly revealed himself?
Or what if the punitive part, the carrot & stick approach to the soul in the afterlife is not the source of true morality, that god's wrath is a self-imposed false tyranny, and that it's really about this life not the next?
And what if then we find we really are left with 'ecce homo', mightn't it be prudent to remain skeptics & agnostics until offered provable evidence, instead of imposing belief systems?
87
Everyone missed the "God is love" part!
Check out "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes--a partly tongue-in-cheek assertion that before mankind's consciousness was fully developed he could hear thoughts (voices) coming from a part over his mind over which he didn't have voluntary access or control, allowing for the conclusion on the part of the individual that he was being guided or controlled by an entity external to himself, that nonetheless had the ability to access his consciousness directly (no tinfoil hats in those days). In other words, everyone suffered from a form of schizophrenia
1
Mr. Douthat,
Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that the objects which have been caught on radar, infrared cameras, etc, are, as you say, some kind of expression of the human unconscious.
There is then no basis for arguing that Christianity is anything more “straightforward.”
UFOS have an unfair advantage: there was no radar or infrared devices two thousand years ago to document the events chronicled as “true” in the gospels. To argue that one set of paranormal phenomena is “true” and another is “fairytales “ is absurd, because there is no empirical proof for either. This is just the old dualistic thinking “my religion is “true” and yours is “false.” This Christmas, I recommend you treat yourself to THE BOOK OF MORMON, the Broadway musical. It’s the best exegesis of the mythological mind so far.
3
Christianity is also a fairy tale, as are all other Abahamic religions and all polytheistic religions. There is exactly as much evidence on the existence of UFOs and alien life as there is for God(s).
4
Come now Sal, there is significantly more evidence (and probability) that there is intelligent life beyond earth and that this life form may even be visiting earth than for God's existence. We, at a minimum, have footage of a military jet's radar screen showing a flying object which looks like no airplane I (or apparently the pilots) have ever seen easily out running a top-of-the-line US war plane.
1
If my memory serves me right, the Christian god requires us to believe in his existence, and in that of his divine son, for us to have any chance of making it into heaven — but then he reveals himself to us in such an unclear fashion: as a mortal human who, from the look of it, might have been just that: a confused, charismatic human being, or even just a composite literary character, created by writers decades after his supposed death. There are stories about the miracles he performed, but no clear, irrefutable miracles for us, living now, to witness. And when raising these objections, we’re just told that this god wants to test our faith.
I would be hard put to dream up a trickier trickster than that.
11
A rather arrogant essay, Ross. Surely you might have found it within your heart to embrace the possibility of extra planetary life with your religious tenets. Certainly the UFO phenomena fall on fecund soil that in centuries past has nourished credulity embracing fairies. Infrared video and gun radar "locks" are a bit more difficult to explain.
3
Faeries, UFOs, Coyote, Job: these are all examples of the work of trickster Gods. Believe or don't believe, it makes no difference to them.
2
Indeed, the irony of reading Ross's amusement at "magical thinking" and a "metaphysics of caprise" is, well, profound.
The "enduring phenomenon" of hope for "bizarre secrets" is not restricted to UFO seekers, it is obviously prerequisite to an embrace of the Christian narrative, as many have already noted here.
That Ross's "true God" is apparently present or absent on his divine whims is to admit nothing trustworthy about Him. And to declare that "The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." is to blythely ignore ALL of human history.
At least the UFO-ers don't claim their hoped-for aliens are created by immaculate conception.
4
Long ago our ancestors stumbled upon dinosaur bones imbedded in rocks and saw with certainty the proof of great and deadly dragons. Eventually our scientific community studied such rocks and strange bones and through time, thought and great analysis found the truth: huge beasts were very real long ago and no less amazing than dragons of lore. Why waste money and attention to these UFO sightings? Because it’s what science does: search out the truth, and wondrously so to our all benefit. If aliens are real, yay! Let’s learn how not to war. To govern well. To heal all the sick. Educate our young. Heal our planet. In all... it could greatly reduce suffering in all generations to come and enrich human life evermore. Or we can, you know, ridicule the coming truth (it’s out of the bag! Thank you journalism!) and waste everyone’s time.
Fairy tales are based often in truth. And to wit, the truth is more fantastic in the end anyway.
Come scientists. Shake the fear and be bold. It’s not just answers waiting for you. It’s your role in wondrous betterment for the billions yet born (if aliens are real, which they likely are). Be smarter than this article’s attempt at keeping the lid on the truth.
3
More childish taunts. My imaginary friend is realer than your imaginary friend. A pox on both houses. By all means, let us continue to investigate, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that does not exist, for gods or alien visitors.
71
It does is you believe the bible and the part most have missed, "God is love".
Dear Name:
Do you know that the fellow (not Carl Sagan!) who coined the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" rues the day he said it?
Marcello Truzzi used it in a very limited context, and said that the way it is commonly used (as "Name" uses it above) is a prime example of circular reasoning. To wit:
1. Telepathy is impossible. It doesn't meet the normal standards of scientific evidence.
2. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist whose sole claim to fame is twisting evidence in his frantic efforts to debunk parapsychology, admits in 2009, that by the normal standards of scientific evidence, telepathy, remote viewing, psychokinesis and precognition have been proven.
3. He adds, after stating this, that this is insufficient evidence, since psi (parapsychology) is "extraordinary," so the evidence must be BETTER than that of any other scientific research.
In the 8 years since he has made this statement, dozens of scientists (most of whom understand methodology and statistical analysis far better than Wiseman) have asked him to define what he considers to be "extraordinary" about psi. As of this date, he has failed to provide an answer that is even remotely reasonable.
When you ask psi debunkers even the simplest logical questions, they inevitably betray their bias, much as biologist Richard Lewontin did when asked why we must debunk parapsychology and defend materialism, no matter how irrational or lacking in evidence.
www.remember-to-breathe.org
A case could be made that the publication of legitimate press articles and shadowy government agency news releases concerning UFOs are actually drip by drip public preparations for the main event, a "soft opening", so to speak. Stay tuned.
1
There has to be intelligent life out there somewhere, because there certainly isn't any on this planet.
7
The columnist is clearly a smart person, so, as others have noted, it is befuddling to see him embrace "... the fairy encounters of the human past ..." as they pertain to religion, but dismiss out of hand similar irrational beliefs as they pertain to UFOs. The mental gymnastics involved to achieve such dissonance is certainly impressive!
5
What Douthat will do to justify his Christian fables. He acts as if they are so different from all the other superstitions of the world when in fact they are of the same cloth. He should have read "Religion's Smart-People Problem."
https://reasonandmeaning.com/2015/01/01/religions-smart-people-problem/
1
You lost me at "from whence."
A God that does not play tricks. Huh...does one exist? (in our myths, not actually.)
I love it when nominal Xtians try and force their smallish beliefs on the whole. Its fascinating how any one, like this author, who claims to have a deep faith, and knowledge of their doctrine, dogma and tradition of same...would say this.
The Judeo-Xtian God has a trickster side to him, as he incorporates many aspects of the multi-deity religions that surrounded the Jews, and early Xtians. The testing of Job...trickster-god-like. Abraham and his test using Isaac - trickster god behavior. As trickster gods were always testing humans most often to annoy the "Father" - or higher family Gods.
But the Biblical God, had to play those tricks on himself...their self, the Trinity.
Testing humans is a trickster God device. Be it by withholding blessings, hitting someone with a lot burdens, allowing an entity with super-powers (Satan) to have full and unencumbered access to us...are all signs of a God with a sick sense of humor, and a whimsical idea about how faith is to be guaranteed. All to make sure his best blessing, Eternal Life, is not inadvertently given to the wrong parties.
That he sent his son, in human guise, and didn't tell us his exact substance. (was he part human/God? was he ever all human, all the time? The early xtians didn't agree, the bible doesn't clear it up) Then allowed his alleged book to fate, and then open to differing interpretations.
Tricky stuff.
91
A fine answer. One is reminded of all the Christians who condescended to pity the poor, misguided Heaven's Gate folk ... whose supernatural beliefs were, finally, no more impossible than those of the literalist Christians, and who seem to have died gladly, led by their beliefs -- which is precisely what Christians generally believe about their own martyred saints, right?
2
Odd that you don’t see today’s supernatural belief of the moment - UFOs/little green men — in the same light of your own Catholic (or fill-in-the-blank religious tradition). Both UFOs and religions are both based on supernatural beliefs combined with a lack of logic and rationality with a healthy dose of wishful thinking added.
6
It is always amusing to watch Ross get all tangled up in his logical underwear when he opines on anything even vaguely related to religion. Here, he embraces Vallée's UFO thesis and uses it to explain how fairies, Buddhism, new age spirituality, paganism and such are all in our head but then goes on to claim that Christianity is the exception because its God is the real McCoy. Of course, that's just what every religion in the world - and the fairy snd UFO believers - also claim. Ross regularly demonstrates that he is definitely human if not logical and consistent. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all, believers and shoppers alike!
15
You realize, of course, Mr. Douthat, that the Christian God also lives in "some fifth-dimensional fairyland", as you put it...
5
The number of exoplanets in a given volume of space -- say a cube of a parsec on each side -- has to be divided by at least the number of years the universe is likely to exist. Say 10 billion years. The answer to how possible? is thus clearly rendered at no meaningful difference from zero. Wherever "they" might come from, they would miss us -- and we them, if they even got here at all. Now, on the subject of God: I get it, you don't like religion. You really don't like religion. Thank you for sharing. Kindly go about your business and leave me to mine.
Ross has recently been writing the most deeply intellectual, spiritual and post-modern philosophical commentaries in America. I’ve been reading Ross for a number of years but it is only within the past few months that he has revealed the depth of his thought and intellect and dare I say .......genius.
The aliens are only interested in studying areas of very low population density in the American West. If Route 66 goes there, that’s where the UFOs are.
1
God, in all conceptions, would rightly be characterized as alien to humans.
2
In “Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism,” Llewelyn Vaughan-Lee uses the word “God” a great deal. Out of concern that his readers might possess a superficial, utterly rationalist view of God – of the kind that Ross conveys “religiously” throughout his columns, Vaughan-Lee clarifies the meaning of “God” in an endnote:
“I use the term “God” not in reference to any anthropomorphic father-figure, or other personalized image, but to an all-pervading ever-present Reality that is both immanent (“closer to him than his neck vein,” Quar’an Surah 50:16) and transcendent (“beyond even our idea of the beyond”). Orthodox Christian theologian David Hart Bentley views “God” similarly, referring to the confusion espoused equally by Ross and by Socrates (our accountant-commenter, not the philosopher) of God as a “being among beings,” rather than Being, or as Bentley refers to That in his book, “Sat-Chit-Ananda,” Being-Consciousness-Bliss.”
The universe is the evolving expression, emerging at each “moment’ from Eternity into time (Eternity being in love with its expressions in time, as Shelley noted).
Viewed sub specie aeternitatis, in fact, there are no rules, which are merely human inventions, and the whole world is seen to be enchanted, full of faeries and elfish Yo Yo Mas as well as Rakshasik manifestations of Trumps and Cheneys – all of whom are none other than Allah – closer to us than our jugular vein, as the Quar’an rightly notes.
www.remember-to-breathe.org
2
I'll throw in my theory on the sasquatch, yeti etc... he's a cultural vestige of the days, 30,000 years ago, when homo sapiens had exterminated most of the neanderthals - leaving only small groups of them confined to the deep forest. Parents warmed their children to beware these not-quite-humans that lived in the deep woods or in mountain hideouts for thousands of years - and that stuck, culturally, surviving well after the last neanderthal had died.
1
Most of the comments here today are much better, and make more sense, than our estimable Mr. Douthat.
5
Just wondering whether God turned into aliens in different planets? Or human is the only and the highest form? I doubt UFOs are real. Don't get me wrong, of course there are other creatures in universe. If they have the technologies to visit us, they will stop the stupidity of Homo sapiens. Unless they are just watching us destroying ourselves.
I don't believe in God. But I do know the significance of religion. It has been with human for a long time. But lately, Christianity is becoming (how do I put it) interesting. We have a VP who didn't want to be alone with female but he is happy to be alone with (and serving) a king. I guess certain moral corruptions are more acceptable as long as Supreme Court Justices are Republicans. I get it. But just don't preach me about moral high ground.
Merry Christmas!
2
While the government of Japan publicly acknowledges UFOs and is funding a program to make contact with aliens and while the Vatican, almost 20 years ago, stated that the existence of ETs did not conflict with the Catholic religion, Ross Douthat wants to keep his head in the sand. Yet he is in favor of federal spending on what he terms as "fairy tales."
BTW, both Explorer 1 and 2 each carried discs with messages hoping to attract a reply from the fairies.
1
It seems to me you may not have studied up on your Christian God - a god who built a paradise, but seeded it not just with a fruit that was forbade, but a snake that was fundamentally capricious, then blamed the two human rubes for His poor design and forced them into lives of misery and toil until he sent himself in the form of his own son to be slaughtered like a goat in order to absolve us of His first mistake but only if we believe that the son's slaughter was a gift from on high and if we don't we are destined to an eternity of pain and agony. Is this the god who plays no tricks and is worth trusting? Surely not. This is exactly the kind of God who would make faeries and demons alike. Though not the god, in our myopic, anthropocentric cosmologies, who would deign to create another sapient species beyond the stars.
8
Your Christmas rappings - poignant as those of the late, gifted Reverend Al Carmines who radicalized Christianity off Broadway musicals- remind us of magick. You've read about the Fatima Visitation, eclipses & saucer-like platform on which the Blessed Mother arrived . Shakespeare wove mystic imagery as did the Greeks.Theologians & controversy experts explore these. Let us recall the Virgin Birth was indeed a Light Experience. In Arizona Playwright Dr. Larry Myers ,
of St. John's University & Director of The Playwrights Sanctuary has studied metaphysics 25 years & is conversant with Spiritualism s "Advanced Catholics" (former priests & nuns who've crossed borders belief-wise)
Myers' own "#Ialso" movement has ignited in Carefree, Arizona, mentoring newer/ younger dramatists writing about spirituality, social crises & giving voice to the misbegotten. He s penned "Myanmar Melee" & "Navajos at the Cave Creek TB Hut" (both deal with persecution, revelation & necessary faith)- models for novice playwrights. Sanctuary's Myers' (authorized by the late Edward Albee) had a close association with Tennessee Williams. Williams' conversion to Catholicism coupled him with Eugene O'Neill as the 20th's major playwrights - both Catholics. Incidentally Paula Vogel & Mart Crowley ( of the seminal Broadway revival "Boys in the Band" both were Catholic University grads. The Pope vowed to bless arriving ETs; the government vowed to quarantine. UFOs are as unspoken as Burma s Muslems.
2
Well, the probabilities are simply that the world is much more mysterious than the author can imagine.
He sounds like a well versed atheist in all the atheist arguments. We have no idea what the universe consists of....and I doubt we ever will.
Some things are simply beyond our reckoning, and probably always will be.
Go and try to teach your dog algebra......you'll have as muck success at that as you will trying to have humans understand the real mysteries of the universe.
And, congratulations to president Trump for a great year #1, and many more years to come.
Seriously? A god who "does not play tricks?" Like turning water into wine, walking on water, and multiplying the loaves? Tricks like an immaculate conception and a resurrection?
Mr. Douthat's current opinion piece boils down to little more than well-written, hypocritical hogwash. His omnipotent patriarch in the sky is no more or less legitimate than unicorns or aliens.
6
So let me see if I have the pretzel logic of this exercise in neo-Flat Earth theory straight: highly trained Navy pilots flying advanced fighter-jets with the most sophisticated on-board optical and radar systems possessed by our defense forces see, track, and clearly videotape a craft whose aeronautoc design and flight characteristics surpass by orswrs of magnitude anything possessed by any country on Earth. And the official who was in charge of a high-level, high-security government program to field and analyze these reports states this is just one of a trove of many years worth of such incidents whose only likely explanation is extraterrestrial technology. Our redoubtable Ross scoffs at this “fairy tale” while extolling a story whose proof is contained in what some pre-scientific religious believers wrote in sacred scrolls 2000 years ago claiming that an invisible being impregnated a mortal woman with a living diety who later rose from the dead for the first and only time in human history. It’s a relief to know such clear-minded defenders of rationality are employed by the NYT to guard the gates against an invasion of silly beliefs.
6
No intellectual would ever require “an excuse to read” material as heady as the text you mention.
Mr. Douthat
Surely you must be aware that there are those who view your self-proclaimed Christmas column to be based on cultural sociological tales no different than the existence of faeries or UFOs. The birth of a patriarchal male child to a young maiden (Isiah) who knows not man (Luke), the resuscitation of an insignificant insurrectionist peasant who in between these two supernatural events works astonishing miraculous cures that speak of supernatural voodoo is worthy of any foundational ur-myth.
I agree never-the-less that indeed that“…the only type of god worth trusting is the kind that does not play tricks.” This would be a god who as the supposed source thereof is the embodiment of the rules of nature and not a fabulous exception born of divine in vitro fertilization who does not die as do all mere mortals. You set forth a god who plays tricks and is utilized by many to subjugate rather than liberate.
3
You close your column with the following gem: “The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks.”
Do you realize that your fellow traveller Conservative Christians do not share this belief?
No, those Bible literalists believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
When queried about the fossil evidence to the contrary, they reply that God created the fossils with the illusion of age. That we are not to believe what our science teaches us. That God is a trickster after all.
Of course, these same folks are unclear as to what language Jesus spoke. After all, the Bible (the only one that matters anyway) is written in English.
Sorry, not buying what you are selling.
3
God does not play tricks? Isn't existence and reality a trick of sorts? When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to only stop him at the last minute a pretty nasty trick to see how devoted Abraham was? If you believe fully in all these established religions you have been tricked. Maybe not by God but by people.
1
The late George Carlin once quipped that the same people who deride UFOs, for the existence of which there is at least some evidence, are often the same people who believe that the Infinite appeared to someone as a burning bush, procreated with a woman to sire himself, proclaimed the generation of his day would see his "kingdom" on earth (we're still waiting), performed miracles like multiplying fish and loaves of bread, raised someone from the dead by saying "Come forth!," and himself rose from the dead after being executed as a criminal. For these phenomena there isn't a shred of evidence. Carlin had the Ross Douthats of the world in mind with his gag.
4
Calm down, Ross. Russ? Whatever. No one's bailing on God. It's all about proving exidtensene of extraterrestrials life. Religion and science can coexist.
2
The time of UFO and extraterrestrial disclosure is coming soon. The cover up that started with Truman and then got institutionalized under Eisenhower will be blown in the next year or two. People like Mr Douthat will have to eat their words and all journalists will have to hang their heads in shame for ignoring the truth.
1
"...if woven together with multiverse and universe-as-simulation hypotheses that imply a kind of metaphysics of caprice."
But the universe is a simulation -- not of God, but of the human senses that God and evolution presented us with. Even a hundred years ago, the idea of the microscopic world and the atomic/subatomic nature of matter would have struck most folks as "metaphysics of caprice." Do we assume humankind has now reached the apex, and that the true nature of reality is now perfectly known? The idea that science is not yet perfect and that there remain holes in our knowledge does not equate to magical thinking. Nor does it mean that God and the universe is playing tricks with humanity.
1
When this country was created, there was a general consensus among many of its founders to separate the world of politics and religion. Now it seems that many, whether evangelist or atheist, continually conflate the two realms.
Many of these same people believe, without apparent irony, that they have reason and logic on their side. If there is one thing a reasonable person can conclude, it is that there can be no rational explanation of how something was created from nothing. Yet our existence is a daily reminder that precisely that occurred. Fundamentalists and atheists alike stumble over this insurmountable impediment and then proceed to deny that the encounter left them with bruised and battered feet.
The holiday season is an excellent time for all of us to give our tired dogs a rest. This is a good time to admit that none of us quite understand this strange and wonderful world, but that all of us can strive to treat one another with compassion and respect.
9
Why do you assume that something was created from nothing? To assume that, you'd have to know that at one point, there was nothing. Can you prove that?
1
There certainly can be a 'rational explanation of how something came from nothing.' It may involve an advancement of our ideas of what 'something' and 'nothing' really are.... and folks are working on that as we speak.
At any rate, to take your point at face value - if the universe could not have come from nothing, then neither could God, for the exact same reason.
Talking about "God" as some "thing" coming from nothing only betrays your lack of understanding what the word "God" refers to. Being is not something that exists within "time" - time is an expression of Being.
Almost every skeptical commenter is talking about a 'thing" in the same manner. The problem is, Ross is talking about a thing as well. And everyone is conflating mythical language (mythos as opposed to logos) with quantitative physicalist scientific thinking (which is about as far from real science - which once referred to "knowledge" - as can be imagined).
When reading these comments, one can only call on the great prophet Louis Armstrong, who when asked to explain jazz, said, "If I have to explain it, you won't get it. Just listen."
Exactly. Rumi, I think, said, make your whole body an ear, and listen. Then you can transcend the nonsense that both Ross and Gemli write about the Absolute.
I'm not an astro-physicist but I did take a couple of astronomy classes in college. And I have to say, the likelihood of us being the only intelligent beings in this universe, let alone our galaxy, is near zero. When you consider the sheer vastness of the distances and number of stars with orbiting planets similar to our own, the question is not if there are others out there, but when they will eventually make contact. And if you buy into the big bang theory, and that the universe is ever-expanding, that means some faraway planets might actually have a head start on their evolutionary trajectory by tens of thousands (or even millions) of years. It's quite conceivable that they have technology we haven't yet dreamed of and very possible they are sending probes to check us out.
The absence of confirmation doesn't make something untrue. It just means we don't yet have the evidence.
13
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks."
Virgin Birth? Rising from the dead?
If Douhat wants a god "who does not play tricks," there is only one god like that: one who would give us the ability to reason and come to the conclusion that he doesn't exist.
15
Is there anything more ridiculous than a man who believes that the world was created in 7 days calling UFOs a myth?
19
The pilots who filmed the UFO encounter with flying objects showed in the news nationwide whose behavior and presence on film and radar couldn't be explained can simply reply to you: "Very clever article Ross, but you weren't in the cockpit. I was. I have years of flight training and observation training. You have none. Now anything else you'd like to add?"
10
Are you sure that photo is from 1947? The jeans, sweatshirts, sunglasses, bag, and long hair look more like 1967.
Yes, false gods and idols proclaiming magical powers are dangerous indeed.
Sigh...
3
Forgive me but i read "false gods and idiots."
1
Sneering about Harry Reid seems undignified and unprofessional. It's gratuitous, and it means nothing.
6
The society should be completely open to any pursuits of new knowledge, be they as bizarre, as the quest for "little green men" from outer space. But one should realize that the stories of U.F.O.'s are like of those who claimed to have seen mermaids, levitating clergymen in churches, and decapitated saints picking up their severed heads and marching off to the site of final repose.
To say nothing of the alleged source of Mary's pregnancy ...
Merry Christmas to all!
From the Old Testament... Ezekiel. They had flying saucers then. Perhaps not so hard for Christians of today to accept a notion from the Jews of yore?
4 And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
5 Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
6 And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.
4
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes in ETs. I believe him.
He knows a great deal more about the universe than you or I.
8
Stephen Hawking, like most scientists, believes that there must be other intelligent beings in the universe, based of probabilities.
That is not the same as "believing in ETs," as in aliens visiting Earth.
1
Never trust a god who always tells the truth, for in truth there is found much cruelty. God, UFOs... Bigfoot, Atlantis, and of course little green or grey men- these (and more) are the thought pursuits of our stifled minds.
Our species cries-out for knowledge, yet no teacher appears.
And, sadly science is so limited and limiting...
Time to think in a new color.
Merry Christmas!
"And, sadly science is so limited and limiting..."....Only to those who don't watch and listen and study. The real world, the world of science, is more exotic and wonderful, more exciting and full of adventure than anything you can imagine. And the very best thing is that it exists and is knowable.
10
Let me add to the chorus, Ross: Those who live in religious glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Happy Solstice. Horus's birthday, you know.
7
This article is fallacy-ridden twaddle.
Most notably, we have the "special pleading" fallacy, where the author speaks of a "true God" (no trademark?) and distinguishes it without evidence from other fanciful beliefs, theistic and otherwise.
Then we have the cognitive bias where his "true God", presumably Yahweh-Jesus, appears in a "vulnerable and human form". The author, like most Christians, has presumably never read the Bible. The OT Yahweh was anything but "vulnerable". Even some of the Gospels (notably John) present a bombastic godman Jesus, not a "vulnerable, human" one.
We have only the author's "bare assertion" fallacy that the myths surrounding Jesus ever actually happened as they are reported by non-witnesses some 40 years or more afterwards. At least the UFO stories have "eye-witnesses" reporting after-the-fact.
The assertion that the fanciful should seem anything other than either angelic or demonic to the Christian is something that comes out of left field. There is no "Bob the Neutral Christ". There are only two sides in the Christian paradigm.
What a waste of space for an otherwise excellent newspaper.
4
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." So much for Loki.
Not a surprise that you’d make this argument Ross, given your unwavering belief that a young Jewish preacher 2000 years ago was the son of a non-existent, omnipotent, eternal being.
5
Let's keep the "unidentified" in UFO.
1
I look forward to the little green men and women showing up, soon.
I look forward to their concepts of gods and goddesses, their virgin birth myths, what they consider verboten and what rewards there will be for believing. Will their heaven be more interesting? How wide are the wingspans of their angels?
Do they have 613 commandments or ten or 63? Does their priestclass abuse children?
And are the little green women equal to the little green men?
Confess, Ross - you're eager, too, to see how the larger universe handles the Institution of Religion. For sure it won't be fairy talk or bowls of gold at the end of the rainbows!
And, actually, God does play tricks: He used to talk all the time and now since those "chariots that had iron wheels" he hasn't spoken even once.
What WAS that all about - ?
Maybe the little greenies can tell us.
6
The only reason I can think of why aliens might visit our country is a fact finding mission that would bring back information to educators on their home world who, in turn, would use this information to create lesson plans that would teach their students on how not to screw up their own world.
8
For those of you interested, Linda Stasi (at one of the other NY papers) has a very different take on this story - and includes intriguing quotes from a number of the researchers involved with this government research.
IMHO, she demonstrates a good deal more intellectual honesty, and authentic curiosity about the potentialities suggested by this research, than our beloved if stuck-in-the-ecclesiastical-mud Ross.
4
When people talk about space travel between distant, or even close stars, they tend not to take into account the physical necessities. In order to make travel across tens or millions of light years practical, a traveler would have to be beyond the boundaries of energy and matter. They would have to step outside the bounds of everything we know as existence.
Why would such a being require a ship constructed of matter? For that, how could such a being be material either?
As Mr. Spock would say, "Material aliens traveling in material ships, across distances measured in millions of light years is illogical."
6
So Ross, where have you seen God walking around in human form? Could you describe him/her for us? Height, weight, skin and hair color? No glasses, I assume?
9
I guess its too idealistic to think that somewhere in Washington, building a new school or hosptial would be chosen over UFO research......
2
The only reason I can think of any reason why aliens might visit our country is fact finding mission that would bring back information to educators on their home world who would use this information to create lesson plans that would teach their students on how not to screw up their own world.
1
What kind of trick is it to choose a tiny minority of your "children" and give to them alone the crucial knowledge that will save them from eternal torment? What kind of trick is it to insist that your children must pick one set of cultural/religious myths from the hundreds that exist to avoid that eternal torment, or to reward a tiny minority of your children for having the good luck of being born into the "right" believing family? Coyote God is a trickster, seems like he must be in charge of Christian dogma.
8
Yes.
1
Right, Ross. The tales of the talking snake, the virgin who has a kid, and the dead who return to life are much more plausible. And the god who encourages slavery and genocide just can't be beat!
9
Fairy tales and myths include god and the tales of various religions. No sentient being can possibly believe the fairy takes found in the various religious books.
3
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." which imaginary deity would that be Ross?
3
And some people believe in a virgin birth, someone rising from the dead, healing of lepers through just a touch, and even a second virgin birth of the first virgin mother. Fifth-dimensional fairlyland, indeed.
3
So UFOs sound like fairy tales. OK, you are right. But a 2000 years old story of a God that sends his Godly Son to live and die within humans, so he can resuscitate and ascend to heaven to live forever with his Godly Father, the Holy Ghost, and all the saints, seems more credible?
4
They are us from the future on tourist buses exploring our Pre-Nuke destruction period. I mean from way into the future after the radiation has dissipated and the few healthy survivors from the Trump Family bunker have ventured out to procreate again. Yes, hard to believe they could morph into an intelligent species of homo sapiens instead of saps. Stranger things in nature have happened. Okay so having their kind accept evolution without God grabbing another rib iand using another six thousand year arc is stretching things.
1
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks."
And what faerie nectar doth thee imbibe?
4
Wow, talk about delusional!
UFOs and the "True God" all in one article.
Only on Christmas Eve I suppose would people waste time reading this.
1
Lines from Monty Python's "The Galaxy Song".
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
5
It is a joke that the federal government spent money on UFO stories and it makes Reid look horrible.
Amazing how some people find so easy to disprove someone else’s make believe fairy tales yet hang on to their own equally fantastic claims like they are gospel
6
I certainly think that the existence of UFOs is a lot more credible than, say, a virgin birth.
4
Ross, you lack a needed training in science. It can be dangerous to not know what you need to know.
5
This article is an insult. Equating fairies and other religious myths to hard scientific data obtained simultaneously at different locations by the most sophisticated tracking system on the planet is either the height of stupidity or a deliberate attempt at obfuscation. Hopefully we are leaving the days when UFO reports by ordinary citizens are ridiculed and denigrated. We have finally reached the point where pilots, radar operators, air traffic controllers, military officials, etc. have the confidence to talk openly about their experiences and present the data to back up their observations. The government sanctioned the disclosure of a craft with no identifiable propulsion system, exhibiting extreme speeds and maneuverability which defy our known science. And a few days later the New York Times prints this drivel. I don't think we have any radar data regarding the flight paths of fairies, Nordic gods, angels or prophets rising up to heaven. There is legitimate inquiry into historical texts and documents regarding the UFO subject. But that line of inquiry, ultimately deriving from conjecture and interpretation cannot be equated to hard scientific data obtained from our most sophisticated equipment. We need to be asking the hard questions concerning the energy source necessary to power such a craft and of course the intent of it's presence here. We could clean our planet and sustain our civilization with that power source. And learn the truths of our universe..
3
But who can say that fairies are not piloting the UFOs?
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." Tell that to Job.
3
Well that’s a selective Christian history that leaves out the magic of transubstantiation, and the check list of miracles that certify saints, and a holy host of angels and demons just for starters.
2
Gods, angels, demons, prophets and devils are among the most damaging malign hateful bloody inhumane selfish cruel fairy tales ever concocted from ignorance, stupidity, fear and lies.
"Christians" like Ross Douthat, Donald Trump, Roy Moore, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Cliven Bundy, Ben Carson, Mike Pence Pope Francis, Richard Spencer, David Duke, Rush Limbaugh, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell judge and cast stones against their fellow human beings. Contrary to Matthew 25:31-46 that quotes Jesus loving the poor, hungry, thirsty, homeless, sick, depressed and imprisoned as the embodiment of the blessed deserving of eternally dwelling in Heaven.
Jews, Christians and Muslims all have different scriptures and theologies.
"God created man in his own image. And man returned the favor" George Bernard Shaw
2
And yet atheists still believe that something came from nothing. A big bang on the head LOL
1
@Douglas
There has never been nothing in this universe. There no empty space-time. There is no vacuum.
What we know about physical reality is hidden behind a mystery force aka dark energy that comprises 70% of reality and an odd mass called dark matter that is 25% of reality. What we know is 5% of reality is explained by two incompatible theories- relativity and quantum mechanics.
1
The Big Bang theory is not limited to atheists.
If our "satellite-surveilled world" was really that surveilled we would know where that Malaysian airliner went down.
2
“For those of us who remain Christian....?????” From a columnist of our “paper of record?” Good grief. This is a country founded on the principle that none of us have to “remain” anything or anyone. Isn’t that what religious freedom is about?
2
***Please note***My previous post needs an important correction:
In my last sentence, it should read the odds of all these ideas ARE TRUE (absolutely).
My apologies, as I got it backwards the first time! Thank you.
The really nice thing about Victorian faeries, when compared to Christians, is that they have never organized a bloody crusade against Muslims, never carried out an Inquisition or massacre, never politicked to impose their religious doctrines upon other citizens in a democracy reliant on "the separation of church and state," and don't require massive stone cathedrals and manly costumed rituals to assert their power and daze visitors into believing their chosen miracles (i.e. this drop of wine I give you now is really really blood). Instead faeries sip from flowers and are born with gossamer wings. They enjoy the outdoors. Something to consider.
6
Nice column for Christmas eve, Ross!
That’s the most dangerous part of “Faith.” Fool yourself in your personally favorite way. Pick a myth and then announce what it means, secure in the knowledge that no one will show up to prove you’re wrong. Faced with incontrovertible proof or total lack of creditable evidence you can always fall back on the very human ability to have faith. Happy holidays
2
Not play tricks you say? A funny trick to play on a true believer is to tell them to sacrifice their son on top of a mountain. Then at the very last second send an angel to tell them that you were just kidding.
11
But wait a minute, Ross. So, "faith" is reality, but only Christians make that determination? Only you can "faith" something into (or out of) existence?
What would happen to your "faith" if it were possible to prove the likelihood that a 2,000 yr-old sexual affair (rape) involving an entry-level teenage girl was the source of the "virgin birth," finding a religion for billions in the millenia afterward? Or, if we did make extraterrestrial contact, what would happen to ancient storybook "faith" then?
Or more to the point: what is it about "faith" (belief) that allows the denial of overwhelming empirical evidence when it inconveniently disqualifies whether certain people are ready to believe it or not? I speak, obviously, of human-induced climate change/global warming, and it's already too late even be entertaining this discussion, but we are. Our survival rests on whether the delusional are WILLING to "believe" in overwhelmimg MEASURABLE evidence or not? How is it that THAT'S even part of the equation?
Chances are, intelligent/conscious life does exist elsewhere in the cosmos, but it's precisely its vastness as to why we'll probably never make contact. And with a human species unable to de-frag it's own convoluted "realities," and save itself from itself, why would any of them want to know us anyway?
6
My kingdom is not Of this world, Ross.
1
I don't believe in UFOs. You believe in God, I guess the virgin birth and that Jesus is the son Of God. Biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race. Why not believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny and merry old Clause and UFOs? I believe there HAS to be other life in the Universe--this mindboggling existence that no human can explain yet too many have the ridiculous belief that it was created by a god.--but I don't believe we have been visited or observed. Too much space.
2
'The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." Is this the same God in the Book of Job???
2
The author writes:
“The educated class of Victorian England went wild for fairies and spirits in the heyday of scientistic optimism.”
Please try to wrap your head around the fact that today the “educated class” (in most countries) does not believe in fairies.
Also please stop with the question-begging “scientistic.” The word you want is “scientific.”
3
I believe in Fairy tales, including the Christian ones.
2
Ezechiel and the fiery chariot, a spinning disc at Lourdes, Christ ascending into Heaven as well as Mary his mother are are far easier to believe in than UFOs.
2
Mr/ Douthat, your statement that "the glamour of UFO's...is...a dangerous object for any kind of faith" exposes the tragic flaw of your thinking. You are locked into a self imposed dualism that one must believe in either God or UFO's. The notion that one must choose between the realities of God or UFO's is the product of narrow-minded thinking.
4
“The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks.” You mean like the One that hides Himself beneath the nutshells of multiple all-too human faiths and then says “Choose!”? “And woe unto those who choose wrong.” You mean that kind of trick?
23
Carl Sagan's excellent book "The Demon-Haunted World" is a tour de force look at this subject, from someone who believed that life exists in other places in the universe, but has not visited us to date.
4
So God doesn't play any tricks in the Hebrew and especially Christian bibles? What version have you been reading?
6
Of course those are all fairy tales, but Ross's religion in which a sky god sacrificed his son, who was born from a virgin, and walked on water but couldn't introduce germ theory to humanity, is totally true.
15
What’s more tricky than the virgin birth? The resurrection of the dead?
12
"A God who does not play tricks" ? ...virgin birth; water into wine; resurrection..hmmm?
8
Odd, if you can believe in Virgin Births and Gods appearing in the flesh you might just as well believe in aliens visiting Earth. Personally, I think aliens are more believable that supernatural beings rising from the dead etc etc.
6
Thus dies critical thinking...
12
Careful, Ross, you are dangerously close to admitting that accounts of faeries, UFO'S, and virgin births and resurrections from the dead are but the attempts of more primitive minds than ours to account for phenomena mysterious to them yet actually have more prosaic explanations.
5
whenever you have a war - god is usually on - both sides ...
my god can beat your god any day
(that's a joke)
'why does god let bad things happen to good people ?' - concerned Tinytown resident to Tinytown creator Lisa Simpson
1
The western god is the epitome of the UFO/myth/fantasy.
9
Netflix has already scooped you...watch 'Bright.'
Dude, c’mon, the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it, just like the Catholic Church said. All else are fools or unbelievers.
6
God doesn't play tricks! Ross, the universe is a sadistic joke
1
It amuses me when those who believe in magical sky gods take a tongue-in-cheek approach to UFO's or ghosts, or when someone like this columnist imagines himself generous for being "agnostic" about what are less zany stories than the religion he embraces.
2
Jesus came into this world as the King of the Jews. He didn't deny it so he was executed for treason. When he left this world it was as the King of the Jews. His crime is written on the cross. To put UFOs in the same category as fairy tales is absurd and dishonest. Religion is a fear based system held together by blind faith. How dishonest is that ?
1
Catomb...so your implying UFO's are not believed in with blind faith?
BTW; Jesus never, ever claimed to be the King of the Jews. Not once.
Douthat believes in the Virgin Birth, turning water into wine at Cana, that Lazarus rose from the dead and the resurrection. Why not aliens?
4
I was first introduced to the UFO experience when I was like 10 years old. Yes, I was born in 1938. I loved the thought of visitors from space. When I went into the Air Force in 1957, I spent 4 years in Radar, both on the ground and in the air. I ended up with thousands of hours flying radar on an RC-121-D. Neither myself or anyone I knew ever spotted a so-called UFO. That doesn’t prove that they don’t exist, but surely narrows the field.
Do I believe that we have so-called visitors from other worlds? Yes, but not little green men or women with huge heads and enormous eyes. Any rational being who knows anything about science rejects the idea that material beings can and would travel across light years of space and only appear to a select few people is on something I want.
Let’s look at scientific FACT. One light year is equal to about 7 Trillion miles. While shows like Star Wars and others are fun to watch, please remember that these movies are just that: Movies. Our closest neighbor outside of our planetary system is Alpha Century which is about 4.2 light years away and it doesn’t have planets. Also remember that material bodies can’t exceed the speed of light.
Do I believe that there are mortals living on other worlds throughout our known and unknown universe upon universes? Of course. Probability and chance tells me Trillions of them. Do I believe they travel the universe in flying saucers? Only after taking some of my favorite drugs in the early 60’s.
7
Ever interested in the psychology of religion, Carl G. Jung in 1958 presaged Jacques Vallée’s notion that U.F.O. phenomena reflect a contemporary version of an older mystery pattern with his publication of “Flying Saucers : A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies”.
Asked by the U.S. Air Force to comment he noted that he could say nothing about it as a physical phenomenon but much about it as a psychological one of projected hopes and fears. There is an all too human need to project beyond the currently known limits of natural phenomena hence things that go bump in the night. He noted that those with more controlled personalities (airline pilots) were more susceptible than others to having such close encounters. Also, reports tended to cluster out of cultural settings that were industrializing. Sure enough, subsequently over the intervening decades such reports did emerge first out of the old Soviet Union and later China.
Over the years, I have witnessed a number of mature feral cats that were successfully “converted” into household pussy cats. The steps involved exactly follow the commonly reported alien abduction experience complete with medical experiments.
And as some are free to believe in their UFOSS, 9/11 conspiracies, and other fairy tales, you are free to believe in yours.
2
The relationship between God (religious leanings in general), UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, ghosts, fairies, wizards, gnomes and the like?
They are among the best str*p tease artists in all of history. A mere mortal, male or female s*x object can only be green with envy compared to these superstars, these tricksters, these geniuses of almost giving it all, then leaving you ultimately with nothing but a bit of skin before slipping away.
Take God: You never really see him or her or what and you have people arguing for centuries and killing and fighting over even what he or she or it supposedly said. You get your peek and that's it. Take UFOs: For all that supposedly advanced alien technology apparently they have no radar or warning system to avoid detection--they are often seen, and with flashing lights too--but there you are, left with fuzzy pictures and a zipped off, zipped up alien.
Take Bigfoot, big beast lumbering through the woods. You get a little skin of hands, maybe face, then get that fur coat and off he or she goes, exit stage to woods somewhere or maybe Canada, Manitoba--a show for maybe the lumberjacks only. And Loch Ness monster, Nessie, giving us a few curves and a toss of the tail and down under she goes...
As for ghosts, fairies, wizards, gnomes and all the rest, it's some magic and Hollywood stars would like to know the rest. You gotta hand it to 'em, they have taste, magic, artistry, they know when to talk, stay and go--never outwear a welcome.
2
Oh Ross, you destroyed Catholicism (and other isms too) in your last sentence!
If God does not "play tricks" then how can I trust a God that created me woman, "knowing" I would give Adam an apple with the outcome being humanity's fall? If God does not "play tricks" then why is salvation tied to suffering at all? If God does not play tricks, then why are we created of an everlasting soul, but born unknowing in a frail body whose only outcome is to sicken and die? If God does not play tricks, why does He make salvation so difficult? What, after all, does he wish for us to prove to him? Are we not already His/Hers (For after all, what father was ever born that was not created by a mother)? I don't trust a god that puts me through hell to get to heaven. But I do believe. I believe no man or woman can imagine the enormity of Mind of God. I believe Mind of God is not the least bit threatened by our search for meaning, whether it involves ufos or fairies. And if you knew anything about Buddhism you'd know it has defined Mind of God in ways your church hasn't even begun to approach. So project your guilt and dismissals elsewhere. Allow it all and have faith, real faith, that Mind of God is happy and pleased with Its creation. We should be too, for it is we who have created all the suffering in this world by playing tricks upon each other, thinking we could do so without harming ourselves. God is One and so are We.
4
Ross, Bigfoot is REAL. He has to be.
2
Should I believe in a strange craft caught in the gun-sight camera of an F-16 or in a 2000 year old fable, told in four different conflicting ways? Should I have "faith" or depend on my senses? Does the vast universe revolve around a swarming, self destructive species on a tiny planet that is literally lost in space? Prick yourself and deflate your sense of self importance.
3
This is a good time of year to revisit the virgin-birth stories and reflect on the honest, straightforward way in which god entered the world. I just haven't figured out which virgin-birth story to read: the one in Matthew or the separate one in Luke. I guess I could read and compare them word-by-word, line-by-line, verse-by-verse, side-by-side and then, in deciding which one to honestly believe this year, I'll do what I always do - flip a coin.
3
Decades ago I read about a mystic/philosopher who was asked what he thought was wrong with humans. He replied that, if you asked the average man on the street if he thought there was life on Mars, the man would have an opinion.
At the time I didn't grok what he was getting at but his insight eventually started making sense.
Mr. Douthat demonstrates the absurdity of the need to pretend we know better, and are therefore somehow smarter/superior, than others as clueless as we are.
4
In their time, the most profound and incredible revelations have been verified only through observations: the imperfection of the heavens as seen with Galileo’s telescope, Einstein's warping of space-time from Eddington's sightings and now Ligo's, teasing out the Higgs boson, etc.. And, when the tough observational tests are conceived and conducted, we may learn whether we indeed do live in an 11-dimensional Universe as posited in super string theory.
For testing for interplanetary visitors, data is key. One can gain an impression of such efforts by reading the scholarly accounts as in Condon Report or Sturrock's The UFO Enigma, recounting professional observervations and instrumental recordings.
The Time's story also had "legs". The morphology of the object was captured on video as were it axial rotations. The radio dialog spoke of many more objects in the vicinity. It is intriguing that the chased object reappeared at the commanded CAP point ahead of the jets, implying our radio commands were understood.
Bigelow's statement that his lab tested site metals. That these objects show non-ballistic trajectories and can be seen expanding or disappearing orbs of light might hint at the use of a higher dimensionality than ours, like a lamps through a microscope slide. But the real scoop here is the acknowledgement of a greater trove of data guarded perhaps with undue paranoia.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
3
Or in other words, we like to believe - need to believe - in the supernatural or other worldly - things.
We need to think that some of us can see spirits and that some of us are magic and that some of us have come from another planet. (That some of us live on our own private planets is observed daily and treated with medication when it gets too bad.) Grounded by gravity, lumpishly un-magical, surrounded by explainable physics is too, well, grounded.
For Christians, science is a hurdle - does it explain everything, are we grounded there too, held down by gravity? Fundamentalists don't think so, as miracles are part of the Word. And Mystics don't think so either, miracles happen before their eyes. As for the rest, we believe that the science *is* the miracle, the whole fabric of creation: we just amy differ on who put it in motion. What more magic do we need?
6
I haven’t seen the word ‘unseelie’ since I binged on the Dresden Files books. Thank you for the memory.
1
Hard to fathom how belief in a supernatural God is really any different than a belief in fairies or ghosts or an afterlife or, well, you get my point. Extraterrestrial aliens would be a natural phenomenon which, unlike God or fairies etc, would therefore be subject to scientific inquiry. A fundamental difference between religion and science is that the latter starts from an attitude of skepticism and any findings are tentative, subject to refutation. Scientific inquiry starts with a null hypothesis i.e. that something is not true. Experiments are designed to reject the null hypothesis by showing that a result is probably true with the ever present caveat that there is a small chance (generally 1 in 20) that it might not be. Science also requires that a probably true finding be repeatable by other scientists. Religions of any stripe are based on received wisdom about absolute truths that are not to be questioned but taken on faith. We human beings have difficulty living with uncertainty and will tenaciously cling to beliefs that reduce or eliminate it. We seek explanations for what we experience in life and for most of human history have been satisfied, indeed comforted that a god or devil or unseen spirit is the source of both good and bad. Though religion has been the source of much good in the world, that good will go on as religion recedes in influence.
3
Early humanity inhabited a treacherous ecosystem, populated with numerous species of very large mammals who could squash our ancestors with ease. Hostile tribes of his own kind added an element of planned and organized malice to the spontaneous threat represented by the 'lower' orders. The price of survival in such an environment included a wariness of unfamiliar life forms and phenomena, an attitude that seems to form part of our evolutionary inheritance.
Fascination with UFOs seems more akin to this ancient fear of the unknown than to any spiritual substitute for conventional religion. Most depictions of aliens in popular culture present them as conquerors or sinister practitioners of scientific experiments on humans. As our technology has advanced, we have upgraded the menace posed by humanity's bogey man. After all, an ice-age creature that would have terrified our ancestors would evoke less fear in a people armed with nuclear weapons.
For most people, I think, UFOs resemble Medieval demons more than they do fairies or any benign spiritual beings.
Amen to the last sentence, real God does not play tricks. Thus, dinosaurs were not put here to test people’s faith, hurricanes are not punishment for homosexuality, evolution is real. Catholics do a decent job of admitting reality as revealed through science; other forms of Christianity, especially the fundamental or evangelical varieties, not so much. Enduring faith is skeptical, and not only tolerates but gains strength from moments or periods of doubt. Shallow faith is the lot of those who think they know all there is to know, who are certain in their religious convictions, who never question. I too applaud spending money on things that may not exist (like UFOs), it brings a healthy skepticism to our too-comfortable worldview.
4
Having stopped believing in humanity's gods long ago, and having never believed in fairies, or in aliens visiting the earth a la van Daniken, to me they all just seem to be products of human imagination.
But I am an agnostic, not an atheist; who am I to say that my truth is the truth? I think that humans are spiritul beings and I respect people's religious beliefs. God(s) is (are) real to them, and so long as they don't force their beliefs on or do harm to others, people have a right to believe in whatever gods or myths or fairies or alien visitations that they want to.
But I take issue with the last paragraph of this piece. If the only God to trust is the one that doesn't play tricks, the God of the Old Testament of the Bible doesn't qualify. One only has to look at the Book of Job to see that.
6
We are a people who are always searching and asking. As real as our lives are, there seems to be that quest for the unknown, that mystery that perhaps exists or maybe does not. Is it because our lives can be challenging and painful that attracts us to myth and the ethereal? Is it evolution of the mind and soul? Who knows, and maybe we will never know.
I find myself cringing that we are spending money on UFO research, especially when our needs are great in the areas of health and economic welfare. Just think what can be done for our seniors, our kids, and those who struggle daily with the money spent on this venture.
We are entitled to believe in whatever we choose, however. I choose to believe in God, but I can not prove his/her existence. Perhaps, it is just a need, a reason, to be at peace with not only my struggles but also every other human beings' on this planet. But I prefer that the government, be it religion or aliens from outer space, use our taxes to help instead in our earthly, material necessities.
2
You're treating it as if it were some moral or spiritual questions -- "Do you believe or not?"
Valée and others didn't. The question is a scientific one, and the scientific method begins with the collection of data and attempts at analysis. I see no need to jump from credible sightings by credible witnesses to some extra-terrestrial hypothesis.
But it's hard to understand how some people, not including you, could treat it as a joke, something to chuckle over at the ene of a news broadcast.
I suppose every generation believes it stands on the peak of knowledge with only a couple of gaps left to fill in, just as our generation does now.
1
Spiritual experience is unlimited. As soon as one describes it the experience is diminished.
3
See Kathryn Schulz's excellent article "Fantastc Beasts And How To Rank Them" in the November 6 New Yorker. C.G. Jung also studied the presence of the UFO phenomena across cultures as an aspect of the collective unconscious. Also see Vallee's "Anatomy of A Phenomenon" which examines the potentially "other dimensional" aspect of UFO's.
2
I made this comment on Kristof's column:
"Humans experience life in four dimensions: Length, Width, Height, Space/time.
Mathematically there are more. Perhaps there is a God in one of those dimensions, but why does that God have to be anthropomorphic?"
Why do aliens have to be anthropomorphic? Many extraterrestrial observations and their exegesis can be classified as a form of cognitive bias, "Heuristics".
In other words, people draw quick conclusions based on internal needs and desires. I think Alexa said, she doesn't under stand that! Happy Holidays!
3
Ask 100 random people if they have any clue about Einstein's general theory of relativity and you'll be lucky to find 3 or 4 who can describe it at all. Once you have a basic grasp of the enormity of our universe it's obvious that there are millions of planets like ours with intelligent life, and it's also obvious why we won't encounter them. The idea that intelligent life would visit our planet and also arrive at the point in time where we humans would encounter them is silly.
God is a human construct, but there are many human constructs that are real, like fear, and hate for example. Churches do a lot of things right, I pray one day religion will learn to take scripture for what it is: stories written by humans with good intentions, in an era before science was even remotely understood. If God is love, that's a construct I can get behind and I don't need miracles and fear of eternal damnation to keep me there.
3
"The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." Yes! Indeed! So please stop raising the idea of the 'mystery of sin' when we call upon justice to adjudicate the abuses of those in power. Augustine long ago showed the idea of sin makes no sense, but it can be used for crowd control. Those days should be over, because, I agree; the big guy, the reason for the season, said love and forgive, and please forget your complicated theology which is but a confusion of purpose.
1
William Butler Yeats describes as well as anyone the fascination that faeries hold (read his poem The Stolen Child), yet he was not so smitten by them that he couldn't cast a cold eye on their appeal when measured against that of home and hearth. Who's to say what he'd have thought about Roswell, NM or Nazca, Peru?
For us Christians, it's not a matter of proof, but of faith, that we believe in a God, one whose vast universe most likely includes life forms other than our own. For Yeats, in the end he didn't look to the heavens for proof. In the last line of the last poem he ever wrote, he chose to look "in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart".
1
There may be fairies at the bottom of my garden, but I'll bet they are not the cuddly cute beings of popular culture. Keats, for one, knew better. There may be UFOs darting about the sky (well, of course there are! Any bright light up there that is not yet identified is a UFO, and it behooves us to try to identify or explain them). I agree, both may be fantasies, but both may well be signs of something deep down in our natures. Certainly both have been the inspiration for art as well as for intelligent speculation. As was that Babe in the Manger.
The problem, I think, may be with belief, accepting without proof. And then the codification of that belief and the insistence that belief in that codification is required of one. Belief is substituted for evidence. I've always thought that old Doubting Thomas was my favorite of the Disciples.
My own hope is that neither fairies nor UFOs are ever totally explained or explained away. It is valuable to have a bit of the unknown in our lives. In my youth so many years ago I loved tales of explorers finding mysterious mesas or caverns or hidden kingdoms with left-over dinosaurs or islands where the giant Kong might live. Now we can look down on such from above, and the mysterious thusly diminished. I believe (that word again!) that if fairies and UFOs are every explained away, something else will, must, take their place.
3
Denying the possibility of intelligent, extraterrestrial life, while affirming the existence of God as an intelligent, all-knowing being, strikes me as odd, if not altogether hypocritical.
Religion and a belief in God require a huge leap of faith, particularly so to sustain that belief in light of the tragedies and travesties we have long been witness to here on earth. Many have expressed the view that a compassionate, loving God would not allow such misery.
The pursuit of knowledge, in spite of the readily obvious, has sustained, nourished and increased that knowledge since the beginning of intelligent life, in spite of a belief by some in the Almighty. One need not subscribe to the sometimes snarky dismissal of intelligent life elsewhere to recognize that a leap of faith is just that, and that sometimes, closing that chasm between "fairies" and fact can, indeed, prove to be both credible and worthwhile.
One need not dismiss the possible existence of intelligent life elsewhere in order to validate a perhaps mistaken, ethnocentric notion of the absolute supremacy of intelligent life residing only on earth. It is when the leap of faith dismisses the chasm of potential knowledge not derived from religion that we run the risk of falling into the abyss of ignorance.
2
Religion is simply fairytales for adults. There is simply no evidence that “God” exists or could exist, at least in the way religion portrays “God”. UFOs? At least the existence of spaceships from other worlds is scientifically possible. That puts the possibility of their existence way ahead of “God”. Still, with all of the surveillance technology – including smart phones - available today, there is not a single clear photograph of an alien spaceship. Sorry folks, it is almost impossible that they are here either. We are alone, at least for now.
The problem with your column Mr. Douthat is that the reason God had to give his only begotten son is precisely because he played a trick on mankind by creating the idea of original sin. That's not the idea of an honest god. That's the idea of god straight out of faerie land and so's the sacrifice of the son to atone.So rather than counter these tales as you intended, frankly it is all of a piece.
I'm not a Buddist but Buddism is much more straightforward and honest, frankly and a lot less superstitious when practiced by people who actually take the time to study it.
19
Let me understand this Ross:
Folklore, fairies and UFOs are touch points on the historical continuum of humanity’s expression of its subconscious mind - but God coming to Earth in human form, working miracles, dying, and reincarnating three days later is absolutely true.
Riiiiiight.
The cognitive dissonance required to make that claim is the best support your piece makes in its argument that believing in hokum is a design flaw of the human experience.
215
The nearest star to earth, Alpha Centauri, is about 4 light years away, or about 24 trillion miles. At present we can crank up a spaceship to about 24,000 miles per hour. At that rate it would take 1 billion years to reach our nearest neighbor. Even if we could travel at 1 million miles an hour the trip would still take 24 million years.
I believe life, intelligent and otherwise, exists in the universe, perhaps in millions of places. It is hard for me to see how we can bridge the immense distances though. Science fiction aside, perhaps there really are limits to what we can accomplish.
52
@Dr. OutreAmouir - Taking your comment at face value, I bet that people who lived 2,000 years ago couldn't conceive that anyone, or anything, could travel at 24,000 mph or walk on the moon. They couldn't even conceive of the fact that the Earth revolves round the sun, or that our sun is one of billions of suns that comprise just a single galaxy or that there are billions of other galaxies in the universe.
Using existing thought processes to deny the possibility of bridging the immense distances you mention doesn't mean that such bridging is impossible. At the very least it just means that there is more out there to discover.
15
Einstein's declaration that nothing can travel faster than light is an axiom of his theory. Like all axioms, it is a first principle and not proven. Quantum science is in its early days and the strange phenomena it reveals are not fully explored or accounted for. Both quantum entanglement and quantum tunneling have implications that in some ways seem to violate that axiom. Physicists present slippery logic that seems to rescue the axiom. But perhaps it only seems to.
2
The big difference between the past and today is that we now understand physics and the obstacle the speed of light barrier places in the way of unlimited travel.
I have yet to see a plausible thesis from the most advanced minds in physics on how the speed of light could be exceeded, or how a so-called worm hole could be created to shortcut the immense distances of outer space.
Back in the 1960's I was fortunate enough to be in a program directed by Dr. Hynek (ex project Blue Book). The last class he showed his personal collection of pictures and cartoons -- many poking fun at the project. UFOs (the term unidentified is a clue) are part of a vast array of observed phenomena that we do not understand. And he did mention at the time that some reports refused to go away when subject to the usual swamp gas, light of venus, etc. observation erasers. Does that mean they are little green men? Not necessarily -- just observations of some unknown phenomena. It seems prudent to not close our eyes just because we dont understand it. And as the last few years suggest, if there is intelligent life out there, I am glad it exists somewhere.
73
Project Blue Book was an enormous waste of government money, based on the wild surmises of journalists who ran with and enlarged the "flying saucer" hysteria of the late 1940s. Anything for a headline.
I disagree with one of your sentences. Not knowing what something is is not the same as not understanding it. I think we can assume that if we knew what those unindentified phenomena were we would understand them.
Earth is an unstable planet, with life being wiped out every 60 million years or so. Imagine a world where intelligent life has thrived without disaster for a hundred million, perhaps a billion years. their technology would seem to us like magic. odds are there or at least hundreds of such worlds in the universe, why should we be surprised if we occasionally catch a glimpse of their technology?
36
There is nothing irrational about believing UFOs are extraterrestrials. The existence of extra-solar planets was a virtual certainty way before we ever confirmed it. The existence of life on other planets is also highly likely and intelligent life too, some beings far beyond us, just based on the raw numbers. Lots of stars and planets out there.
None of that means that the ever frequent sightings (it has never happened to me) are ships. Nor do I think that sightings by trained professionals are more exacting. They want to believe too. It just seems incredible that there would not have been open sustained contact - conquest, trade open communication - something - before now. They would not just be having bizarre meetings with people on lonely roads or making designs on rural farms corn fields. If they are visiting other solar systems or galaxies, they are enough like us that we can use our own behavior when discovering other lands to guide us.
Also, if you consider the power necessary to go from another solar system to ours, it seems highly unlikely that they would need to follow a jet plane to observe it - they could do so from the moon or Saturn. In fact, after the first visit, we'd have probably been a feature on ET-TV somewhere. And robotic ships of some sort are much likely than beings.
So, while it is a possibility we are being visited, and it is much more likely than that there are elves, angels or gods flitting about, I doubt very much we have been.
23
I tend to agree. I have no argument with ET’s dropping by to be bored at what they see: You mean I came all the way just to see this!
Using Drake's equation (I don't know how to put in a hyperlink ), there are many advanced civilizations in the galaxy.
What no one seems to talk about is how many (or how few) of them have developed a culture that promotes spacefaring. Maybe not so many.
Chinese and Mayan civilizations were advanced, for example, but they would not have become spacefarers if left to themselves.
At least I don't think so.
6
It may never be possible to travel to other stars. Even if there are other advanced races in the universe who have developed space travel, neither they nor us may be able to go beyond our own solar systems.
However, electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light. If there were any developed beings within the time span of humanity's invention of the radio — a little over a hundred years, and thus about a hundred light years of distance — one would expect that SETI would have picked up some signals by now.
China has a historical set of documents that details them going to the moon, where it was terribly cold and no air. India has tales of their Vimana and even detail wars in space. We are NOT the first high tech human civilization on the planet.
Mr. Douthat, the Christin deity is in the same league as faeries: the Myth League. Neither evidence nor logic provide even a grain of support for belief in a deity.
People will believe what they choose to believe even when they are proven wrong. You're one of the people who choose to believe in a deity.
Happy Holidays, Mr. Douthat.
176
Good column, Russ. I rarely agree with you, but you're fun to read. Re: visitations by divinities, (at the risk of hanging noodles from your ears, as the Russians say) I recall that Zeus & Co. were frequently invoked in olden days. Larry Gonick in "History of the Universe Comics" illustrates the offspring of Leda (she who met the "Gorgeous duck") with beaky-looking faces, Helen of Troy looking exceptionally gooselike.
Sleep paralysis is one of those experiences that gets described differently, depending on what culture you grew up in. We see aliens, the ancients saw the little gods.
7
Christ would likely be a refugee in today's America. I hope Mr. Douthat reads this article below and asks, "What would Jesus do?" This is a worthy question.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/opinion/christmas-jesus-refugee-crisi...
23
Mr. Douthat, you sell ancient fairy tales rather short by comparing them to U.F.O. sightings. In reality, these ancient stories are part of an authentic human folklore tradition that encodes a means of communicating patterns of thought that cannot be easily conveyed in any other way. The most authentic of these tales, versions of which can be found around the world, represent a dynamic template for this type of learning. And it continues, today, in the presence of humanity's live story tellers.
U.F.O. sightings are simply phenomena with likely many explanations, whether known or unknown. Like all human experience and perception (or "misperception") U.F.O. sightings might provide fodder for future stories that may or may not possess the kind of educational value that authentic learning stories, including some fairy tales of the past, continue to offer.
30
Storytellers... I love them, no matter what their culture. Years ago, there was an entire 45-minute programme, without breaks, that centred on an African Griot, a storyteller and preserver of his people's traditions. I was fully conscious that much of what he said can easily be explained away by means of scientific knowledge, but - and this is important - his creation story and the others that followed - he conveyed his people's ethics and customs in a way children and the unlettered can understand.
That is far different to science fiction and the belief in UFOs and the like, which seems to demonstrate a hope that there still is mystery in our existence, something out there we can dream about.
17
Given humanity's extremely limited ability (limited by the material constructs of our own physical bodies, our brain's perceptual abilities, our brain's emotions, our cultural baggage, and our family baggage) to accurately make conclusions about anything outside of the small scope our infinitely small seventy-year life, I posit that it is impossible to make any certain (or valid) conclusions about any of these phenomena. Likewise, we are just slotting them into our own culture's vision of what "they really are," be it Douthat's Christian dismissal of them as the "glamour of the fairy" or the secular humanist scientific materialist view of them as "visitors from other planets, solar systems, or galaxies. But the truly terrifying (and/or beautiful) thing is that we cannot prevent ourselves from slotting these phenomena into some type of narrative that fits our worldview. That is the true reality of human nature: We must always make narratives that give us a sense of control over our reality. Completely understandable, of course. Otherwise, many of us would go insane. But though completely understandable, also difficult to deal with in some large-group-appropriate way without lapsing into myth making, religion making. Because without that, there are likely as many narratives about such phenomenon as there are people on the planet. So, what are we to do except share and converse and listen to each other.Perhaps that is the best way to "deal with" UFO phenomena in the end.
32
Well, didn’t take long for the religious right to attempt to discredit and dismiss last week’s story. No surprise there, as the single greatest threat to their power and mythology is knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization.
102
Indeed. The Republicans have just passed the largest wealth transfer in history. In a plan that will undo 70 years of government, gut the safety net, send healthcare costs higher, and damage every institution (with Trump's help) we've come to rely on. It's anti-Christian by every measure--and flying saucers (et al) is the subject Douthat chooses to write about?!
128
A “progressive” income tax is a wealth transfer – those with lower incomes pay less in comparison to their share of overall income and receive the same or greater benefits from what government does with those tax monies. Social Security and Medicare are wealth transfers – those with lower incomes receive benefits out of proportion to their total payments into these programs, while high earners receive less relative to their total payments.
The recently-signed tax reform bill is not a “wealth transfer.” It is a reduction in the wealth transfer program that was our existing tax code. I don’t necessarily think that the changes that are being made to the tax code are good economic policy (though a reduction in the corporate tax rate almost certainly is), but to characterize them as “the largest wealth transfer in history” strikes me as a liberal fantasy on a par with the faerie stories Mr. Douthat writes about.
2
Gary R,
Your argument about wealth transfer depends on the tendency of most people to fail to see the value of all workers in a society. Whether it is bee hives, ant hills or human society all workers are necessary to the continued function of that society. We humans are the ones who act inhumanely in failing to appreciate the importance of all workers and to accept that some people are born with (or by accident acquire) disabilities that prevent them from working. Among the most important workers and lowest paid in our societies are EMTs and Paramedics who come to disasters and respond to illnesses. They are the ones whose work decides whether many people live or die. Hedge funders not so much! So why do some deserve to make a million dollars a day while others make less than a hundred?
3
The definition of extra-terrestrial is an entity not of the Earth, more specifically, of the 3-dimensional Earth plane. By definition, angels are as much ETs as fairies and little gray men.
The Disclosure Project held a long press conference in 2001 in which numerous retired military officers, enlisted men, airline pilots, and air traffic controllers from all over the world testified as to their encounters with, not just UFOs, but with actual ETs. One man's job was to scan spacecraft wreckage sites for radiation, so he was often on site before others could enter. He testified that the government had recorded about 50 different species in their recoveries - some dead, some alive. Many of them looked like us (i.e. human), but they were more advanced in their abilities, he claimed.
I greatly dislike anxiety-ridden conspiracy theories. Also arrogant people who think they've gotten reality figured out. In truth, no one knows how expansive inner and outer reality are. Science is limited to it's finite boundaries. We know what we know to a point, and not yet beyond that.
66
Great letter! For once, we seem to have truly on-the-ground data.
Ob, by the way, it was little GREEN men, as I recall reading from a small town in Kentucky. The kidnapped-by-aliens thing seems to have a psychology all its own, magnifies way too many times by desperate Hollywood scriptwriters.
I do not have any particular vested interest in whether we have been "visited" or not. I did however find much of Daniken compelling. Along with "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" (not mentioned by RD) I do feel that there is some probability either that we have been "visited" or that there are any things in the history of the inhabitants of Earth that have not been unearthed. After all Civilizations come and go. Technology gets lost for hundreds of years (for example the studies of the heavens which not only was lost in the West but also viewed as heretical. And if we annihilate much of todays' world with a nuclear halocaust, much of out current technological capability will be lost and 1,000 or 10,000 years in the future the discovery of some of our accomplishments will inspire awe and stories of "visitors".
Our brains are marvelously creative at taking something and creating a narrative to explain it using the pieces a person already has acquired. If other life "forms" developed and visited Earth, I doubt that our notions of what they will be, how they will act, or what they will look like will be quite different from the narrative that is currently constructed that is based on our current knowledge and experiences.
9
Daniken's nonsense was easily and widely debunked very soon after he published it.
Science fiction has its followers and it's exciting to think that earth has had visitors from another planet.
Let's keep some perspective and remember there's never been any evidence for that.
9
It could be argued that you (or, I) are the evidence for that J.
it depends on one's definition of the word evidence. lots of people say they have witnessed this or that, as many do with their experience with the paranormal. are they all crazy?
Remember the line from Easy Rider- "If there were no God it would be necessary to invent one.." I always admired that line.
It's a shame so many feel compelled to believe in "something," because they are too insecure to believe in themselves. Ergo humanity.
35
Voltaire said it in 1770. Mikhail Bakunin, the 19th century Russian anarchist said “I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”
1
Um, that line originated with Voltaire.
Easy Rider was quoting Voltaire.
The true god does so honestly? Does that suggest that such a deity is capable of dishonesty? Could that be, perhaps a concept we humans are unable to grasp, let alone avaluate? Setting conditions that apply to a particular superstition in order to establsih another is preposterous on its face. Is it possible that a remote, advanced, intelligent civilization that contacts our planet has/had no dealings of any sort with deities of any variety including thought experiments?
We can hope.
7
Just a reminder that to some of those Victorians, nicely faked photos of fairies (and Angels of Christian stripe) carried as much weight as uninterpretable cockpit images. The difference between random brain noise and established religion is the presence of a large organization repeating some dogma every day and multiply on weekends, no matter how implausible or poorly documented.
This season it's worth bundling up and looking up on a clear night. If those dots are really stars, and those smudges, great galaxies, human hubris about god and man shrinks to its proper insignificance.
43
They are obviously more advanced than any dollar amount may prove to reveal.More like have been here since the beginning of this Planet and longer so they have the upper hand no matter what except controlling the runaway advancing population growth and destruction of the earths surface may concern them because they may have originated from similar situations. We only perceive them to be some life form when they actually may be forms of intelligent energy which adapt to our surroundings.The ancients intentionally were aware of something from beyond and built structures and created art to offer explanations and possibly worship.As far as the shape shifter conception ,assuming they are leading us in certain directions ,this entering our realm of existence must be valid.
4
Just as Ridley Scott and Arthur C. Clarke both posit, there are two things we must ask ourselves when it comes to "UFOs":
(1) "We Are It": Consider the fact there are more stars in our (Milky Way) galaxy alone than the number of people who have walked the earth since humans first stood up and walked on 2 legs, then add in the fact that each star may have several planets or large moons in orbit which could support complex life. It is outrageous to think we are "it"; the only life in the universe. This is a ridiculously arrogant. It is simple mathematics. The odds of that being the case are infinitesimally small.
(2) The thought or idea that we (humans) are superior. It is simple mathematics (again). The odds are highly in favor of that being the case are (again) infinitesimally small. This leads me to a question. Have we had pre-visitation? I believe the answer is ya resounding yes, and probably more than once.
In closing, all of these things I mentioned are simply my theorizing. I cannot prove them. However, when you look at the odds, I think it is highly unlikely that any (and all) of these ideas are true.
17
And if our 'common evolved subconscious' is responsible for the production of faeries and other such ephemera, who is to say that a burning bush or a hand writing 'mmene, mene tekel upharsin' on the wall in the midst of a conflagration is anything different?
There is nothing to separate the tales of little green men from any other tale--except that there now seems to be some pretty interesting photographic evidence of an interplanetary Uber taken by the Air Force.
I say to each his own. If the tale you believe is pleasing to you, why should anyone else be discomfited? Ufologists invite scientific inquiry while the Church historically abjured it.
In the end, faith can sometimes lead to enlightenment.
12
UFO just stands for "Unidentified Flying Object", as in, there's an object up there, it's flying, but we don't know what it is. Yet most people jump to the alien visitation hypothesis as if it isn't a hypothesis at all, but a fact, and that for them UFO means 'spaceship.'
Vallee's work is fascinating. He describes a coherent phenomenon that has persisted in cultural stories and individual perceptions over millennia. Mainstream ufologists get angry because they equate 'myth' with 'untruth' or 'made-up story'. I believe all Vallee is really saying is we don't know what this is, never have, still don't.
Sometimes I wonder why we never look closer to home. Are ants aware of human beings? Probably not, but we live on earth just the same. How do we know there aren't creatures right here that we can't fully perceive, whose motives we can't comprehend?
What bothers me most is that usually when the government gets into admitting this or that about UFOs it's because they mean to deflect public attention from something military and unpopular.
So, you know, now what? Sppoks and kooks. I don't which is worse.
27
There appears to be an object up there...
I think these U.F.O. sightings are due to natural phenomena that has not yet been explained scientifically. Distances between solar systems are too apart. Whatever technology these aliens would use to travel between star systems would be very energy intensive, and they certainly can not travel faster than light. What makes our planet so special that somehow we're the object of alien observation? There are millions of stars capable of supporting life, after all, and any one of them could be selected. What makes us so special? The belief in U.F.O.'s from another planet is rooted in the age-old belief that humans beings are the center of everything.
10
This column, the substance of which I, and I think Frost, would identify with, supports the solution to Fermi's paradox which I would call, 'infinitism'. It thinks that if there are other sentient beings in the universe (very likely), that if they get past ethnic and sectarian divisions and get civilized, that they are inclined to sing their song, worship the Divine, enjoy their Creation, seek their Home (not of this universe), and not go on light year voyages of conquest or proselitezation.
Merry Christmas
6
Curious column.
Why the desire to ridicule the possibility of the existence of life on other planets orbiting other suns, in trillions upon trillions of galaxies in spacetime.
To presume that sightings, all sightings, are creations by someone, or some government, or some natural phenomena, here on our planet, is simply silly.
No one, that we know of, can say with certainty that intelligent life exists elsewhere in spacetime, but it is entirely presumptuous, and ludicrous, to suggest that we are the only speck of dust with life on it, in all of spacetime.
I believe there are countless planets orbiting countless suns, each in its own Goldilocks zone, in countless galaxies, in spacetime, teeming with life-forms, some of which are similar to us, and others which are entirely different from us.
The vastness of spacetime will prevent us, here on our rock, from ever being able to travel the tens of millions of light-years, to meet with other intelligent life, unless we discover how to open wormholes and bend the the fabric of spacetime, or some far off species decides we are ready to be part of an interstellar community and gives us the technology enabling interstellar travel.
Who knows ? Perhaps crews of scientists on those UFO'S are watching us, anticipating we will evolve and become civilized, or maybe they are getting ready to enlighten us, fearing we are on a very dangerous road and likely to annihilate ourselves, unless they knock, very loudly, on our door.
22
It's curious a gov't agency would go to the trouble to release THAT video, given it is of such poor quality. It was made in the 2000's after all, right? The video equipment used must have been at least as good as what you can buy at Best Buy for a few hundred dollars, capable of producing super-crisp images. But this video was of such poor quality it could be almost anything, a bird, a weather balloon, even just dust/water spots on the camera lens or windscreen. So it's curious why they'd bother to release it at all. I'd be embarrassed to release it as evidence of anything at all.
6
For journalists just tuning into the latest news about UFOs, there is 70 years of information to catch up on. Do your homework first, and then use a rational approach when considering the evidence, forming a theory true to the simplest explanation - without any a priori assumptions. Early on in this game, it was pretty clear that the "extraterrestrial hypothesis" best fit the facts, but couldn't provide much more clarification. What we do with that conclusion is the real issue here. Many of these craft clearly want us to see them, so that we can understand. That we have so much trouble acknowledging this reality says a lot about where we are in our evolution as a species.
11
A friend with epilepsy says that when she doesn't take her medication, little people appear in high-up places, say, on top of bookcases. (She's good about her medication, but sometimes enjoys a glimpse of the little people.) Are the people real but visible only to an altered brain? I think that way when I see what I know is a departed person or pet. On the other hand, I'm prepared to admit that little people and ghosts are hallucinations. I do not understand them, and I'm not going to build a religion - a set of superstitions - to explain what I do not understand. Frankly, it doesn't matter to me whether a vision of any kind is real or not. There seem to be realties we never think about. I for one do not think about the reality of what goes on in the current White House, but I fervently wish that something alien and powerful would whisk away all the occupants. Could UFO research facilitate that?
23
Go ahead and sneer, Ross. But remember how heretical or improbable all that we now know about our relationship to the cosmos once seemed. Understanding other forms of life is just the next step in the evolution of learning what exists beyond our planet.
In fact, it is more radical to assume that humans are the only cognitive beings in the universe - or at least the only ones exploring space beyond their own planetary home - than otherwise.
10
No need to look to outer space. There are aliens all around us. They participate in ordinary life, use the same gadgets, and don't do any special tricks. I was even married to one of them until I found out.
27
Einstein indicated a kind of faith that the only God worth trusting was the kind who does not play dice. On the other hand, how accountable can we hold him for the actions of his (assumedly self styled) minions: angels, nephilim, seraphim et al. All holding differing levels of distinction for the scale of their antics. Pillars of salt, Sodom and Gomorrah. Roswell?
If they do exist (and visit) the likelihood of us grasping their intent is probably on par with the cognitive abilities of the polar bear when challenged to explain to his peers how the radio tag got put in his ear. Highly likely the polar bears never even look twice at the radio tags, let alone recall the encounter that got the tag in place. Critters in general don't have a comprehensive context to understand wildlife study via location tracking, we don't have the yet undefined context to grasp what we may be perceiving - perhaps only through a kaleidoscope vainly, for now.
13
Another supposedly rational journalist dissing the whole thing. I wish one of these pundits with a yuuuge readership would sometime be one board an Air Force jet during an incident as described here or otherwise witness a unexplainable aerial phenomenon with fellow witnesses and then try to explain it away when no earthly explanation is forthcoming. Then the shoe would be on the other foot. I truly feel bad for the pilots who have dedicated their lives to the service of the US, only to be mocked mercilessly when they turn up something that, in their experienced opinion, deserves further analysis. That is what the pilots in question asked. That more research be done to explain what they all saw is not unreasonable. These are true patriots, much moreso than the self-procolaimed budget cutters currently fanning warm air in the general direction of Trump's behind.
14
Let's apply the same lens that some use to examine the explanations of UFO sightings to RD's own beliefs. When UFO's are sighted skeptics ask questions like the following. Why do we assume that the UFOs are from another planet? Maybe they're just atmospheric phenomena?
Well I ask why does RD assume that the stories that he believes are evidence of a "true God" and not simply human interpretations of some natural phenomena?
20
There are mysteries in the Universe so strange and bizarre to the ordinary human consciousness that we can only use our imaginations to fill in the void of the unknown, this phenomena may have been though out to be Gods And Goddesses in one era and in another Angels from heaven.
Today it is Aliens from Outer Space....or perhaps they belong to the Subconscious and they are really Mysteries of the Inner realms of the Mind occasionally manifesting in objective reality as a sort of collective human experience....
5
Ross, you often note, correctly, that many atheists ignore the complexity, depth and foundations of religious belief. You seem to be making similar errors here. Ignore area 51 U.F.O's and the musings of von Däniken. For 2018 read or re-read Carl Sagan's Cosmos. The universe is stranger and larger than we can imagine.
Merry Christmas!
6
So what was that thing in the naval pilot's cockpit? Swamp gas? Light off the underside of migrating Canadian geese? Venus? A meteor? Ball lightning?
All of these have been offered as explanations over the years for strange things sighted in the sky. And no doubt many--probably north of 95% of them--odd sights were indeed one or another of prosaic terrestrial phenomena. But all you need is one.
I'm a reasonably competent physicist, and I have no idea what that thing was. That doesn't mean little green men or women, but something is going on that wants an explanation.
17
What makes the tales of virgin birth, incarnation of God, crucifixion of same God, and resurrection any more credible than stories of ogres, leprechauns, and UFOs? Why are the "fairy tales" of the Gods of Olympus less credible than the that of the Trinity?
Since we cannot imagine our own non-existence (try it and see!) we are led to imagine some mode of being beyond the one we know --- and it doesn't hurt to also fantasize that in that mode of being the rank and obvious injustices of our present condition will be judged and made good --- in brief "pie in the sky by and by". But just because it may make present misery easier to bear doesn't make it true.
21
I'm fascinated that an otherwise intelligent person apparently doubts the existence of extraterrestrial visitation but believes in some supreme being in the sky, who, by definition, happens to be an extraterrestrial.
58
All major religions including the author’s are fairy tales too with either anti scientific beliefs like creationism or stories with no scientific proof but still receive government support in the tax code. What is the difference?
29
After a quick survey of the scene, would we expect Klaatu and Gort to plan on much of a stay? Even extraterrestrials must have standards.
15
Mr. Douthat does not realize he's a Pagan - or that all Christians are Pagans.
Christianity is an engineered astro-theological religion lifted from the Egyptian solar religion of Amen-Ra, which is why you invoke "Amen" after every prayer. Scholars have identified 300 direct correspondances.
The Son's halo and crown of thorns are the Sun's Corona.
Your "Soul" relates to "solar."
Jesus walking on water is the Sun glinting, sparkling on the water.
Three days in the tomb prior to the rock rolling away and "He has Risen."
That's the Sun on the 21st, reaching its lowest point on the horizon (Horus) and staying there for three days. On the 25th the Sun rises from the dead into heaven.
"Our Father, who Art in Heaven, Haloed be thy Name."
The cross represents the compass points around which the Sun journeys (Stations of the Cross) in its yearly cycle.
Christianity was specifically designed for the subconscious, which is why it makes no sense to the conscious mind. The power of the subconscious mind is far greater than that of the conscious mind.
As for UFO's, they combine elements of the subconscious and the conscious mind - they seem to be semi-physical intrusions of hyperdimensional space into our everyday reality, an idea that is not foreign to indigenous cultures.
18
Wow... I never thought I'd see the Times' Man-of-Faith Douthat make such a compelling argument for atheism. He states:
"Rather, it’s that our alien encounters, whether real or imaginary, are the same kind of thing as [GOD] encounters of the human past — part of an enduring phenomenon whose interpretations shift but whose essentials are consistent, featuring the same abductions and flying crafts and lights and tricks with crops and animals and time and space, the same shape-shifting humanoids and sexual experiments and dangerous gifts and mysterious intentions."
18
Ross If you are going to discuss Christianity at Christmas you would be better served talking about the unspeakable object in the White House rather than UFOs. Why is it conservatives can't speak up when Trump is so unspeakable?
27
According to the mundane methods of measuring astronomical distance, the closest potential planetary system to ours is approximately 4.2 light years away. This is approximately 25.2 trillion miles away - one way! How anyone can think that alien beings will ever have the physical capacity to travel successfully here and back haven't done the math.
5
I don't believe in the presence in our world of extra-terrestrial beings. But then I once did not believe the story of Rosemary's Baby -- until the election fo 2016 that is.
33
I am surprised that Mr. Douthat places limits on God's powers; God may not play tricks.
Up until now, I thought that Mr. Douthat only advised the pope, and the rest of us, how to behave.
21
"Unidentified Flying Objects" is a very good name for these things. It bespeaks respect for the people who have seen them and an intelligent modesty about what they are.
Deciding how important they are, and how much money to spend studying them, is a choice. To me, hungry children are more important and $22 million better spent feeding them. But that's just me - and Isaiah, and Jesus.
5
On May 1, 2005, I saw a disc-shaped craft in broad daylight from the backyard of my northeast Georgia home. I and another witnessed, for five minutes, the strange meandering trajectory of an object with no linear features, and when seen through binoculars, appeared to be a metallic craft with a mirror-like surface reflecting the rays of the late-afternoon sun. We were able to follow its course, using a tall oak-tree as a sight; two minutes into the event, the object stopped moving all-together for twenty seconds, before resuming its erratic course. I estimate it was five miles away, and operating at the altitude of a passenger jet. I guess it was approximately 100 feet in diameter. After five minutes it passed beyond a line of trees and out of sight. For the next three days, my mind played the five minute tape of the incident in an endless loop, from the moment I awoke in the morning, to the time I fell asleep at night, seeking resolution. I have no doubt the object we saw was an alien craft.
39
Not discounting your sighting but why is it these objects need to go through such needless acrobatics as commonly reported. Are they just showboating?
9
Seth-
Did it turn at right angles? My husband and I witnessed a similar sighting near lake Erie moving in right angles.
5
Years ago, while encamped in the Laramie Range of Wyoming while building fence (that's proper Western talk for constructing barbed-wire fencing; not building *a* fence, just, building fence) I witnessed three unidentified flying objects with two others.
On a crisp, clear, cold night, we watched three unblinking points of light race toward one another from different parts of the sky. They proceeded to perform a number of maneuvers — moving around one another in concentric circles, moving farther and closer to one another, and so on — that looked almost like a cosmic dance.
Here's the thing: They were extremely high up, and we could not detect any sound from them. But they moved with incredible rapidity across the sky, suggesting great speed at that altitude. Perhaps most surprising, as with this commenter's ufo, these points of light could stop on a dime with no apparent period of deceleration.
It was fascinating. One of the other guys, in his cups, said, "Well, I ain't worried too much. We got Captain Kirk to kick their ass!"
I don't know what they were (that's the "u" part, for Douthat and others) but they certainly appeared to use technology that was beyond the familiar. In fact, they might have been night-time versions of this commenter's ufo.
1
Perhaps when people are so desperate for salvation from terrible times, they tend to engineer a "deux ex machina" from their own beliefs or background.
And these are terrible times, indeed - everyone wants to be saved from them.
17
The Roman Empire was a slave state, with many people who had zero control over their lives, and parents had no hope for anything better for their children's lives. A hopeful belief in a creator/savior to lead them to a future of salvation was a means of coping in such a hopeless world.
This was an interesting column until it became a faux argument in favor of one superstition over another. The Christian God may not play tricks, but its followers do, including newspaper columnists.
334
And its followers often believe that God DOES play capricious tricks, if only to test faith and fealty. In other words, Christians often ascribe to God (according to their belief, the creator of the entire, vast, unknowable Universe) all-too-human negative characteristics, not the least of which are pride, petulance, and the deliberate falsehoods of a trickster.
21
what about telling abraham to murder isaac and then giving him a "just kidding"? What about killing job's family on a bet with an less powerful being? sound more like trump and a decent god to me.
1
What's the odds of all this being just a chemical coincidence and not the design of a greater being? Take a jigsaw puzzle still in its box, millions of pieces. Toss it up in the air and figure the likelihood of all the pieces coming down and landing in the correct positions with the puzzle complete. Not likely.
Duothat's last sentence, "The only kind of God worth trusting is the kind who does not play tricks." Tricks? Maybe they aren't tricks but God is a practical joker. We have the religious right to suffer.
18
Take trillions and trillions and trillions of jigsaw puzzles and throw them up in the air. What are the chances one or many come down into a complete puzzle, including conscious awareness?
At least one.
11
In the beginning, there was an atmospheric soup of chemicals and there was lightning. From those two begat precursor chemicals to amino acids. I think you know what happened next. The law of natural selection is not a puzzle thrown in the air. Nor does a bell curve show evidence of intelligent design.
1
Stephen seems to be asking whether the Creator is all that patient. If the passage of time meant nothing to you, it wouldn't matter how or when the first proteins came to be, no?
Which leads to the cosmological question to the hate-trained: just where did all that protium come from?
1
Ross, "sensible, secular, scientific-minded people" are part of a consensus reality resembling nothing so much as an enduring cultural trance. In other words, what you're presenting here does not have to pass muster with any particular received opinion. For hundreds of thousands of years the human mind has had basically the same capacity. Therefore my vote goes with those whose visions lasted the longest, not those in thrall to a narrow, rationalistic way of looking at reality that's only four hundred years old.
11
A "narrow, rationalistic way of looking at reality that's only 400 years old." Funny how life has improved for most human beings in the last 400 years. It's almost as if antibiotics, vaccines, modern sanitation, knowledge about things like bacteria, etc., have done more for the species than all the prayer in the world ever did.
3
'my vote goes with those whose visions lasted the longest' ?
OK that looks like vote for the Australian aboriginal people - with a culture of perhaps 80,000 years - and before that if you like India - and before that probably Africa as the birthplace of the human ape
what was the Australian aboriginal vision (apart from Dreamtime/Songlines) ? - I see a boat full of white men - I see bad times ahead ...
1
So, you then believe that illiterate people 1300 or 2000 or 3000+ years ago understood the world better than we do today?
1
This piece doesn't address the article from last week. That article was about some kind of craft that was picked up on radar, FLIR and the human eye.
I'm not prepared to put on an "I want to believe" shirt and stand around with a placard in my hands demanding disclosure from the government, but I don't think we can equate what we read last week with the fairy and spirit tales from Victorian England.
After equating these, you then add in your own fairy tale without being intentionally ironic.
183
Douthat's reference to "a simple visitation from the stars" reveals his perverse logic in what strikes me as a dismissive piece despite his claim to the contrary. I don't know what UFOs are, but they certainly exist, and whether extraterrestrial or not, there is nothing "simple" about them. It would be a great conceit to suppose that we have nothing important to learn from investigation of them, and a great foolishness to assume that our own government, now less trustworthy than ever, could be counted on to report openly and transparently whatever findings result from such investigation. One can have more than curiosity about UFOs without making them the object of religious faith.
Anyone who is prepared to believe in God's existence (and I count myself with Douthat on this) should also be open to the possibility that the cosmos is far more mysterious, and life far more varied and strange, than anything we have yet to imagine, let alone comprehend. God may not play tricks, but it could just be that God is much more elusive than Douthat suggests precisely due to our limited capacity to apprehend the ultimate nature of things.
58
I haven't any answers about whether the phenomena investigated by the military are extraterrestrial in nature. There are many reasons to doubt it and yet when military jet pilots encounter huge objects they can't explain that are able to easily outmaneuver speed away from them I'm glad to read that some money is put toward investigating. I do think there is something to be said for olde ideas being reborn under updated banners ... it can be hard to understand how people could see their neighbors as dangers to society who had come under Satan's spell during the witchcraft trials until one realizes that it so many ways The War on Drugs is just an updated version of that using the color of (bad) science to justify anything the persecutors want to do. Also, similarly, the only possible hope of social redemption is for those caught up in it to declare mea culpa & tow the line. Anything else was evidence of Satan's continuing control and is now evidence of being in denial even when a 19 or 20 year old was caught drinking a beer on his or her first night out and all manner of hysterics have ensued.
When one reads prison statistics it becomes difficult to believe that, whether consciously or not, The W.o.D. isn't also a continuation of racial control with poor whites thrown in for good measure & that all these reasons + the corrupting profit motive given to police through asset forfeiture provide the only explanation that such an obvious disaster continues ... now w/ renewed vigor.
5
The government spending 22 billion on UFO research is money better spent than subsidizing religious institutions. Add that Churches can steer their parishioners and we are not only wasting money on religion but allowing religion too much access.
73
22 million, not billion.
3
First, Ross must know that humans were made in the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), so if there are any aliens they must look like us unless God was experimenting with other designs. Second, Ross picks the wrong rationalist assumption -- the deep reason the Pentagon is willing to fund UFO study is to make sure some other country doesn't have a space weapon we don't know about. Talking about extraterrestrial intelligence, etc, just brings more support for the funding.
6
I believe in God, and I also believe the incredibly arrogant notion we are the only intelligent life in the universe. The odds of what you are writing are 1 in 100 billion (if not smaller)!
I also believe there are beings who may (or may not) look nothing at all like us, and who are vastly superior to human intelligence.
Neither of these ideas are proof, but the odds are totally in favor of what I wrote. Ask any scientist at NASA, and by far most would agree.
1
I always winder what God does with a digestive tract.
A god that doesn't exist doesn't play tricks. Simple!
Keep the sun in the solstice. it's the reason for the season.
89
Well Mr. Douthat your own beliefs are faith based, not fact based. Even some Christian sects do not buy into a "virgin birth" as your Church has. (As an aside, it has always seemed odd to me that the Catholic Church deifies Mary, while excluding women from sacred ordination, but that's another story.) To me, the folks who want to believe in UFO's and fairies are no different from those who want to believe in a father-figure deity. UFO's, fairies, gods, and God remain mysterious and their existence or non-existence unprovable. Maybe the belief by some in these entities gives them hope or comfort. After all "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Who could have imagined the existence of the unseen world occupied by microscopic entities until SCIENCE (the dreaded word of Republicans) and human curiosity led to the invention of the microscope (the tool of my profession).
Given who the president is, and the passage of the warmed over Reagonomics voodoo tax bill, I could certainly use some hope and comfort right now. So in the spirit of the season, Happy Holidays to all, and may the New Year bring the election of many Democrats to Congress.
125
Great column! Yes - belief is a natural phenomena. Like any natural phenomena it can be understood through the methods of agnostic, scientific analysis. The dilemna is of course that it is difficult if not impossible for humans to engage in agnostic, scientific analysis without employing an element of belief to provide a solid foundation of axioms. It's not difficult to believe that the great beyond is filled with exploding alien flame wars of intensity we can barely imagine now. We really should fortify our dogma and prepare for the day when an alien ideology from outer space turns up the heat and tries to disabuse us of our beliefs in who we are and what we stand for. Or has it already started?
5
A natural phenomenon, please.
1
I wish my father was still alive to read this article. He was in the Air Force and part of his tenure in the Air Force was being stationed at the infamous Area 51 we all know of from books and movies. My brothers and I would grill him about what he knew about Area 51. He would "plead the 5th" and just smile. Not sure if he was playing my siblings and I or if he really knew anything but the fact he made no denials about Area 51 led us to believe something was going on there. I don't believe in an invisible man that lives in the sky and cares about what we do but I believe something happened at Area 51.
25
Remarkable story. Thanks for sharing this.
Too bad you could not get anything out of him right before his end of life.
3
*It is a sign of civilizational health to devote excess dollars to the scientific fringe*
Hmmm. Mr Douthat, what exactly would you call it when that "civilizational health" takes away dollars, excess or not, from the scientific mainstream?
48
Is religious belief any more valid than belief in visitors from other dimensions or planets? They are pretty similar aren't they? I'd say that there is some validity in both. If Science wasn't so willfully blind it might find something worthwhile in studying both phenomena.
6
Science is not "willfully blind", it is a process & methodology to prove or disprove theories about how our natural world operates.
14
We may not be seeing reality in its completeness and do not know it. The apostle Paul says " For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror". This is similar to the philosopher's cave where there is a fire behind some people. They stare at the cave wall not knowing that all they are seeing are shadows, not the real thing. The author of Hebrews in the New Testament tells us to practice hospitality as we may be entertaining angels unaware. No God tricks here, just a complex creation that we do not have the ability to see it all.
17
Well, or some foreign country on Earth has developed advanced aircraft the US should know about. Which was one of the reasons for the study.
12
Merry Christmas, Ross. I wish you a lovely holiday and the best of fortunes in the year to come.
3
"the true God enters his creation, he does so honestly, straightforwardly, in a vulnerable and fully human form".
That's a misunderstanding, to be kind. "Man in God's image" has frequently been mistaken to be a reference to physical appearance. It was not. It's about the spirit, or soul. There can be a spiritual community that isn't Terracentric, after all. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
10
It's too bad that Douthat treats equal pay for equal work, climate change and caring for the environment, girls' and women's rights, racism, public schools, and contraceptives with the same suspicion that he treats UFOs with - to him, they're all UFOs.
19
You think UFO's are are all real?
I think I know just how you feel,
Dei ex Machina
Are in our arena
Get us out from under Trump's heel.
40
"Those of us who remain Christian — and yes, this is a Christmas column, U.F.O.s and all — can be agnostic about all these strange stories, not reflexively dismissive..."
Those who order their lives around the fables that a baby was born to a virgin, and as a man changed water into wine, brought a dead man back to life, performed countless other miracles, and was himself restored to life, don't really have standing to be reflexively dismissive about any story concerning other forms of life, no matter how strange, wouldn't you say?
377
Thank you!
1
@NA: Do you know how God got Mary "with child" while allowing her to remain a virgin? The Holy Ghost impregnated her through the ear. I learned that In Catholic school, not kidding. As my numerous siblings are wont to say, no wonder we're all so screwed up.
2
What most people don't know is that all over this great land of ours there are groups of amateur astronomers who are out most clear nights, sometimes in clubs, sometimes in their back yards. Even when the moon blots out faint galaxies and clusters, there are planets to be viewed, and the moon itself. And some people do advanced imaging with ccd cameras that use narrow band filters that are impervious to moon glow. There aren't a lot of us, maybe a million or so, but we are all over the place. And they spend hour after hour after hour looking at the sky.
The astronomy magazines are not filled with mysterious reports, likely for a reason: the people who know what is where in the sky, how bright, and how it moves, are not the ones filing UFO reports.
108
Like most people, astronomers or not, you are under the false assumption that astronomers don't report UFOs. If you had read the bulk of the best books on the subject like I and many others interested in the UFO phenomenon, instead of just pontificating on something you actually know nothing about, then you would know that astronomers report UFOs just like everyone else.
Of course they don't appear in astronomy journals, just like pilot reports don't appear in publications associated with their line of work - the stigma attached to UFO reports prevents most people reporting what they've seen, regardless of occupation. But for occupations where seeing a UFO may be detrimental to their future prospects, staying silent is the normal response.
25
Do you think that astronomy magazines would be interested in publishing such reports, inexplicable as they tend to be?
Furthermore, you assume that all the people who see strange phenomena are ignorant of normal celestial activity. Presumably, you include in this category such witnesses as pilots, sea captains, aircraft control tower personnel, et al.
I am a casual "backyard astronomer", with a 4" refractor and a basic understanding of the sky (I think a highlight was getting clear photos of a large storm on Jupiter some years back).
I have observed such activities ranging from meteors, comets, and satellites to reflective weather balloons and missile launches, etc. and find them easily recognizable. I have also been fortunate enough to have seen not one but TWO fireballs!
However, about a year before the encounter described by the F-18 pilot, I observed from a beach in San Diego something that resembled a satellite (no trail, no navigational lights) soundlessly and lineally traversing approximately 30 degrees of the sky in about four seconds, that to this day leaves me confounded. It was much too slow for a meteor, and likewise much too fast for a satellite. I am at a loss as to what this could possibly have been. I am interested in possible explanations anybody might have.
1
That is a great hobby, and it is reassuring to know of the enthusiasm.
Thanks for the info.
22 million dollars would feed a lot of hungry children. The Jesus whose birth is celebrated on Monday would not hesitate to choose where that money should be spent.
True, God does not play tricks. Scientists, get closer and closer to knowing the laws of nature because there are such laws. But if the Bible means anything at all, Mr. Douthat, it is to tell us how to live moral lives on earth.
Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless. Only once that's done should you waste money, and column space, on UFOs.
33
Check out the article regarding the Los Angeles Bel Air monstrosity called "The One". This so-called-home that will run the buyer 500 million. Disgusting beyond belief that anyone would lavish this kind of money on anything other than feeding the worlds hungry and still have money left over to live better than 90% of those in the U.S. There comes a time, even in the simplest of lifestyles, when we should choose to help the masses over living in a fantasy world where we whiz into gold plated toilets. Blessed be the poor, indeed.
13
Intelligent animals, humans excluded, reduce or stop breeding in times of lower food supplies and other environmental stresses.
Humans refuse to.
So, hunger and starvation is nature's way of counteracting overpopulation.
Maybe spend that $22 million on sex education and birth control.
2
Would it not be better to subsidize jobs for the hungry, naked, and homeless so they can obtain their food, clothing, and housing themselves? The 22 millikon dollars probably provided work for some 200 people, keeping their families fed, clothed, and housed.
Interesting to read Mr. Douthat's column while making my way through Kurt Andersen's book, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." Mr. Andersen's thesis is that American ultra-individualism entitles every citizen to believe anything -- evidence or not. Couple this attitude with the American strain of anti-intellectualism and you have the perfect storm of bat-guano crazy which we are now witnessing.
Yes, let's boost our civilizational health through scientific investigation. However, let's collect evidence and make inferences without political influence or patronage. While looking for E.T., maybe we should be investigating climate change at home? Oh, no, not that fringe conjecture, please!
Even as a Christian, I would really enjoy watching the world's religions try to normalize their beliefs after an actual, real-world, measured and documented alien encounter. These belief systems need a good overhaul.
135
Vallee’s thesis is fascinating and I am sure that there is some truth in it.
Having seen a UFO as a child— a friend saw it with me; someone else saw the same or a similar object in the same time frame and reported it to the local police— my attitude is the following:
The likelihood is that most UFOs are misidentified natural or manmade phenomena (which mine might have been), and others may reflect a yearning for the mysterious. But there are enough well-studied UFO reports from highly credible observers (pilots, astronauts, members of the military) that have not been satisfactorily explained and which appear to describe crafts of an unknown origin.
The object that I observed (oval, blue-green, low flying) certainly appeared to be a craft.
Should the government study UFOs? That depends on amounts and priorities. The Harry Reid study, which consumed $22 million annually over several years, coincided in part with the 2008 economic downturn and its afternath. It is arguable that the money would have been better spent on other purposes.
18
Christmas is an interesting season for us atheists. It’s about as secular a holiday as it’s possible to imagine, mostly driven by retail overload and travelling long distances amid unbearable crowds to be with family who, once you get there, seem much more appealing when they’re viewed from afar.
This is especially true this year, when families all over American are sitting down together at the dinner table, with turkey on their plates, holding sharp, serrated knives and staring at Uncle Fred, who voted Republican. Who’d miss him, really?
Christians everywhere claim this ancient Druid holiday for themselves. It was originally celebrated to mark the sun’s return, but somehow ancient people got the Son tangled up in the tale. Who knows what ancient people thought? They died miserably in their thirties and thought the earth was flat. Keep that in mind when you’re looking for wisdom in the Bible.
I’ve always suspected that True Believers of various religions are susceptible to other paranormal claims, but it’s good to hear a Christian confirm the suspicion. Once you believe in one invisible man in the sky, you’re bound to see others. But Christians claim that God is the one true placebo, and I find it hard to argue with that logic.
It’s remarkably honest that Mr. Douthat in his final paragraph claims that the true God “exposes himself publicly.” That makes the recent scandals in the Catholic Church a lot more understandable.
Happy holidays, and Keep X in your Xmas!
460
Actually there is great wisdom in the Bible, but not for the conscious mind.
Ponder this: Is it not reasonable to assume that the source of all Life and Consciousness (the Sun/Son) is not itself alive and conscious?
3
@Fourteen,
"Is it not reasonable to assume that the source of all Life and Consciousness (the Sun/Son) is not itself alive and conscious?"
Yes, that would be possible, if words had no meaning. But in reality, consciousness emerges from the operation of the brain. The sun is not a brain, but a very large mass of hot gas. Aside from the president, large masses of hot gas typically don't exhibit conscious behavior.
33
No. There is no reason to assume that. Life and consciousness could have come about by pure chance.
8
I'm glad Father Douthat conceded that this was a Christmas (and Christian) column, since most of us know that the most popular UFOs are a magical bearded Yahweh in the sky, a floating Jesus and a martyred Muhammad invisibly enforcing religious fraud, fiction, fury and fantasy from the conservative control tower just above those gorgeous cumulonimbus clouds.
I have no problem with the government spending $22 million on extraterrestial UFO research; after all, planet Earth is not the center of the universe, no matter what our dear backward-looking friends in the the remedial, religious 6,000 Year-Old Planet Earth Club think and pray in their stunning little houses of ignorance.
Remember, our current Christian Shariah Law Congress currently spends $90 million annually on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in an effort to combat the scourge of sexual UFOs, Unidentified Fornicating Outlaws.
Since 1982, our American 'Christian' government has spent over $2 billion on domestic abstinence-only education programs; that spending has produced nothing but a bumper crop of ignorance, teenage pregnancies, abortions and a deep sense of hypocritical satisfaction among America's Unthinking & Faithfully Oblivious (UFO) Christian community.
Extraterrestrial UFOs deserve as much or more research funding than the ones on Earth pretending to have man's best interests in mind as they mindlessly pray to their religious UFOs for fake solutions instead of opening their eyes to the real world.
467
Earth is indeed the center of the universe. It's the same distance to the end no matter which way you look.
9
I take it, Soc, that you haven't visited the recently opened Bible Museum in D.C.? Truckloads of entertaining God-stuff jammed within, courtesy of the Hobby Lobby Corp. Douthat would love the joint.
6
Those who use religion to exploit the masses are the worst.
5
Given the apparent ubiquity of exoplanets -- including some potentially capable of supporting life -- it seems very likely that there are other intelligent beings in other solar systems. But actual contacts between us and and our presumptive galactic fellows seem equally unlikely. The trouble is the distances involved. Unless one posits something like a Star Trek warp drive, we could not get to them, and they could not get to us, in any sort of practical way.
33
Bravo, rungus! And if an alien civilization possessed the technical abilities required for interstellar travel, "logic would dictate", as Mr. Spock would say, that we would have no idea of their presence as they observed our so-called civilization with incredible stealth.
Our stealth fighters show up on radar as small birds, but theses interstellar aliens light up the sky and radar like Christmas trees? Not likely. More likely they are natural phenomena or still secret technology programs, like the stealth aircraft once were.
17
Tricks? Yes, the craft was physical not mental, as it was observed thrashing the ocean surface and was clearly revealed on various radar screens simultaneously. Yes, it also apparently expressed intelligence as it did appear to react to the movements of the fighter jet, but I see no reason to dismiss the actions of the UFO as capricious. Thus, Valee's theories find no support in the video we saw on TV.
30
It is a sign of civilizational health to devote excess dollars to the scientific fringe,
***********
What are excess dollars, Ross? The current administration denies everything but the scientific fringe.
153
Ross, I assume that you've oft times heard the phrase "people in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks."
I would sooner buy Jesus as being "not of this world" (if you catch my drift), and thus having the potential to possess powers beyond those of mere mortals, than I would that he was the Son of the creator of the universe itself. But, then again, I long ago ceased being a member of a religious cult.
I celebrate Christmas nowadays as the rebirth of the light - and try not to allow either encrusted beliefs or my limited human consciousness to get in the way of one day knowing where that light ultimately originated.
Seasons greetings!
143
Clinton once claimed that the first thing he asked Gore to do was to get his tuckus over to Area 51 and find out what REALLY was going on with UFOs. If Gore found anything out, he never opened up, at least not to “we the people”. But it stands as an expression of the intensity of interest this issue generates in America and around the world.
To me, what’s most interesting are the possible implications. If aliens really HAVE visited us, it demonstrates, apart from proving that we’re not alone in the immensity of the universe, that faster-than-light travel somehow is possible given the distances between this third rock and the nearest potentially habitable other planet. That would be a revelation, if we could exploit it, tantamount to human discovery of fire. It would throw the universe open to US – imagine, eventually a Trump on each of a million colonized planets.
To Ross, of course and as he implies, it’s a major epistemological and religious complication. How do you rationalize the belief that a god, born of a human virgin, having lived and died among us to redeem our sins, was truly a god if little green men have massively different origin myths and not even all inhabitants on this pedestrian planet in the hinterlands of a so-so galaxy have the monumental chutzpah to claim the one true faith in the teeth of potentially millions or even billions of competing faiths … or no metaphysical faith at all.
I like and respect Ross, but this is his problem, not mine.
162
Back in pre-Vatican II days, when the Church was the confident monolith of old, the attitude was that God created the entire universe. He may or may not have created other intelligent beings; He may or may not have tested them; they may or may not have failed and fallen into sin. Maybe they're perfectly good, maybe they're perfectly evil, maybe they're somewhere in between.
Didn't matter. Whatever might happen, God created it and will allow us to deal with it if and when it is necessary. In other words, not a problem, epistemological or religious or otherwise.
Nowadays - hard to tell. The Church is no longer confident or (in practical terms) monolithic and may feel it needs affirmation from little green men to hold its head up in a world of competing theologies.
Maybe we'll find out. Watch the skies.
2
Migrant:
Wouldn't it be a jaw-dropper if we met the little green men and they told us of their own preeminent origin story of a god-savior born of a virgin female who lived and died among them to redeem their sins?
Everyone here named Muhammad and Avraham would plotz.
7
Richard: unfortunately it is all of our problem, because Christians are not content merely to believe privately what they want to believe, but rather they require the entire world to conform to their elaborate staged fantasy. So today we have gay couples looking for someone to bake their wedding cake who can be denied service because their request is an "infringement" on a baker's right to impose his religious beliefs on them. Tomorrow it will probably be me, looking to check out a copy of Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" in the local Barnes and Noble, who will be thrown out of the store for infringing on the cashier's right to impose her religious beliefs on me.
The irony to me is always Christians belittling people with "superstitious" beliefs. At least, a UFO is an observable event in the present, even if there are myriad explanations besides the default to little green men from outer space. Christians have nothing observable in the present. I suspect that this is what drives them crazy.
25
There is a much greater possibility of intelligent life on other planets than there is for the existence of a single, omnipotent, deity, who impregnated a young Jewish woman 2000 years ago.
Merry Christmas, Ross, and to all who believe.
I'm no Grinch; however, my New Year's wish for Ross is a greater appreciation for irony.
562
I agree. If there’s any god in the universe, I believe that being isn’t accurately described by any human religion. My agnosticism would not be challenged by proof of alien life or visitors, but I would be amazed at any technology that could allow such beings to do so in reasonable time given the immense distance between stars. Given our current understanding of physics, faster than light travel isn’t possible. But we would be suffering hubris to think we know everything about physics.
40
What a stretch! You just had to get that in for some reason? That is the worst formulation of the story of the Christ that I've ever come across.
My own favorite take on intelligent sentient life is the movie, Contact, 1997, with Jodie Foster. A tender, reverent film.
There are no objective answers right now - just wonderings. And that capacity in humans is priceless.
8
Perhaps the intelligent life on other planets and a single, omnipotent deity are one and the same — trying to save us, and "ascending into heaven".
1