President Trump – the most open president in U.S. history – has released a long-overdue host of secret UFO documents. The government has a right and duty to classify certain documents and keep them secret, but I see no compelling reason to classify information about UFOs. The information we’ve seen thus far is fascinating, but doesn’t clearly tell us whether extraterrestrials really exist.
Since ancient times, men have wondered whether we are alone in the universe. Those of ancient China, India and Mesopotamia speculated that other worlds in the universe may be the habitation of gods. Ancient Greeks like Epicurus suggested that intelligent life may exist on other worlds, intending to refute the notion that God may have a divine plan for men on earth. Such speculation continued through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, especially by Islamic thinkers. In Christian circles, Thomas Aquinas (1200s) believed God made only one inhabited world, but other theologians like Nicholas of Cusa (1400s) believed God’s creative power is so vast that intelligent life could exist elsewhere.
Before the release of the UFO files we were told that conspiracy theorists would have a heyday with them, but who would deny that conspiracies do exist? Are those we call conspiracy theorists simply more curious or more open-minded than the rest of us? We hear about “crop circles” in England and elsewhere, which some think were landing grounds for spacemen. I have a series of crop circles in my north pasture. I wonder about their origin (probably some natural explanation), but I doubt that Trump’s release will provide the answer.
Newsmax reports that church leaders were briefed about the UFO reports because supposedly the existence of extraterrestrials may shatter the Christian worldview of some believers. Should it?
One American founder, John Adams, speculated on the question. The diary he kept as a young man offers an interesting entry for April 24, 1756:
Astronomers tell us, with good Reason, that not only all the planets and Satellites in our Solar System, but all the unnumbered Worlds that revolve around the fixt Starrs, are inhabited, as well as this Globe of Earth. If this is the Case all Mankind are no more in comparison of the whole rational Creation of God, than a point in the Orbit of Saturn. Perhaps all these different Ranks of Rational Beings have in a greater or less Degree, committed moral Wickedness. If so, I ask a Calvinist, whether he will subscribe to this Alternative, ‘either God almighty must assume the respective shapes of all these different Species, and suffer the Penalties of their Crimes, in their Stead, or else all these Beings must be consigned to everlasting Perdition?’
But the next day he wrote:
The Reflection that I penned Yesterday, appears upon the review to be weak enough. For 1st. we know not that the Inhabitants of other Globes have sinned. Nothing can be argued in this manner, till it is proved at least probable that all those Species of rational Beings have revolted from their rightful Sovereign. – When I examine the little Prospect that lies before me and find an infinite body of Bodies in one Horizon of perhaps two miles diameter, how many Millions of such Prospects there are upon the Surface of this Earth, how many millions of Globes there are within our View, each of which has as many of these prospects upon its own surface as our Planet–great! and marvellous are thy works!
I don’t know whether there is life on other planets or not, but if there is, it won’t affect my faith in God, the Bible, or the plan of salvation through Christ. The Bible doesn’t talk about life on other planets because God gave the Bible to men on earth. Perhaps, in all this vast universe, God sovereignly chose to enact His plan for redemption on one small planet. Or maybe the blood of Christ covers the sins of people not only throughout the world but throughout the universe as well. Or maybe only the inhabitants of earth sinned. Or maybe God led Trump to release these UFO reports to show us there is another mission field out there to reach people for Christ. I don’t know. The UFO reports are of interest, but God and His Word are great enough to handle that and everything else.
Some readers will remember the 1997 movie “Contact,” based upon a book by Carl Sagan and starring Jodie Foster as Dr. Ellie Arroway, an atheistic scientist who explores extraterrestrial contact. Contact with a possible extraterrestrial being who somehow poses as her father doesn’t make her a believer, but she does become more open and humble.
At the end, she’s asked whether there is life “out there.” She answers that if not, “It seems like an awful waste of space.”
But “waste” implies purpose. And purpose presupposes God. No matter how you run from Him, it’s hard to get away.
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu), as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law (moralaw.org), and as Chairman of the Board of the Plymouth Rock Foundation (plymrock.org). He lives in rural Pike Road, Alabama, and may be contacted for speaking engagements at [email protected].
