A Biblical View of UFOs by Richie Cooley Jr. - HTML preview

A Biblical View

of UFOs

by Richie Cooley

Licensed by:

Richie Cooley (2015); [heavily revised (2018)]

Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International

Email: richieacooley@live.com

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Terror in the Sky

III. A Matter of Prophecy

IV. The War Between Two Worlds

Before getting started, let’s review a few notes …

*This work mostly uses British spelling, except for the quoted material, which often employs U.S. spelling.

*New Testament Scripture is normally taken from the Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition (ALT3). Copyright © 2007 by Gary F. Zeolla of Darkness to Light ministry. Previously copyrighted © 1999, 2001, 2005 by Gary Zeolla.

*Old Testament Scripture is normally taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® (NASB), copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

*The ALT3 distinguishes between singular and plural second-person pronouns by means of an asterisk (*).

*Divine pronouns are normally not capitalized, unless they appear that way in Bible versions or other quotes.

*As a general rule, words that appear in brackets within quotes are not found in the original texts, and were added by the translators or are my personal comments, etc.

I. Introduction

A recent headline shot out with a thunderclap across the blogosphere: Did scientists just pick up the first intelligent radio waves from a distant ALIEN planet? The article (written by Jon Austin on November 29, 2015, for www.express.co.uk) reported on some “amazing” findings…

ASTRONOMERS have picked up five mysterious unidentified radio signals that could originate from OUTSIDE the Milky Way.

The “fast radio bursts” included one “double signal” never heard before and have left astronomers buzzing with excitement over the possibility of it being a message with alien origins.

Only 11 of the unidentified transient radio pulses have been recorded before around the world.

And it is the curious new double blast - which was accompanied by four “singles” - which has baffled astronomers analysing data from the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia.

Emily Petroff from Swinburne University, in Melbourne, one of the team who discovered the signals, believes the origin could be more remarkable than anything recorded before.

She tweeted: “We have no idea what’s going on, but we know it’s definitely something cool”…

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) were first discovered from records in 2007, and we finally saw one in real-time last year. 

However, there has never, until now, been a double blast.

They are quick-fire bursts of radio energy, originating from great distances away, and, as a result, must have contained a huge amount of energy. 

The source remains a total mystery.

As a Biblical creationist I can’t help but snicker. Evolutionists for decades have scorned those who believe in the book of Genesis for being lazy. Supposedly everything in the universe we creationists can’t easily explain we quickly attribute to God’s supernatural power. This is often referred to as the “god of the gaps” mentality. This has been a major insult used in countless debates and rebuttals by materialists. Yet now society has apparently gone from disparaging the “god of the gaps” to embracing the “aliens of the gaps.” As investigative technology becomes better (or simply more employed by people desperate for purpose and/or with YouTube channels) there is going to be data that can’t be explained via the ordinary and easily known, but there is a universe of possibilities out there in terms of matter and energy in outer space. Why choose aliens?

And by the way, this article is just a sampling. There are many similar ones being published all the time, where scientists studying the cosmos think they find something that they just can’t seem to explain without invoking aliens. To give one more example here, on October 14, 2015, Ian O’Neill wrote at www.discovery.com an article entitled, “Has Kepler Discovered an Alien Megastructure?”

…When Kepler [a powerful telescope] detects an exoplanet, it does so by sensing the very slight dip in starlight from a given star. The premise is simple: [as] an exoplanet orbits in front of [a] star (known as a “transit”), Kepler detects a slight dimming of starlight and creates a “lightcurve” -- basically a graph charting the dip in starlight over time. Much information can be gleaned from the lightcurve, such as the physical size of the transiting exoplanet. But it can also deduce the exoplanet’s shape….

For the most part, any dip in star brightness can be attributed to some kind of natural phenomenon. But what if all possibilities are accounted for and only one scenario is left? What if that scenario is this object appears to be artificial? In other words, what if it’s alien?

In a chilling article written by Ross Andersen of The Atlantic, at first glance, it seems we may be at this incredible juncture.

A star, named KIC 8462852, has been found with a highly curious transit signal. In a paper submitted to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers, including citizen scientists from the Planet Hunters crowdsourcing program, report: “Over the duration of the Kepler mission, KIC 8462852 was observed to undergo irregularly shaped, aperiodic dips in flux down to below the 20 percent level”…

This research paper focuses only on natural and known possible causes of the mystery transit events around KIC 8462852. A second paper is currently being drafted to investigate a completely different transit scenario that focuses around the possibility of a mega-engineering project created by an advanced alien civilization.

This may sound like science fiction, but [since] our galaxy has existed for over 13 billion years, it’s not such a stretch of the imagination to think that an alien civilization may be out there and evolved to the point where they can build megastructures around stars.

“Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build,” Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, told The Atlantic.

Really Jason, and how would you know? Star Wars? How can his peers accept this statement yet reject theism? And be honest Jason, it’s not at all the “last hypothesis” anymore. It’s quickly shooting up the chart.

Another funny feature concerning modern science and aliens is something I wrote about in a booklet I’ve now discarded. Since it is discarded, I’ll reproduce a relevant quote here. In short, according to one team of researchers, the reason why we need to invoke aliens is because there appears to be non-human intelligence at work that is directing microscopic particles. This appears to be the theistic “intelligent design” argument gone awry. The following article describes a claim coming from Sheffield University over an “alien” particle…

The photograph of the particle, shows a ghostly-white colored structure that resembles a wisp of smoke under the microscope. Sheffield University scientists claim the particle may have acted as a “balloon” which microorganisms inflated with lighter than air gases, so they could float on the atmospheres and seas of worlds. The particle was discovered in dust and particulate matter 27 kilometers above, in the Earth’s stratosphere.

Professor Milton Wainwright and his team from the University of Sheffield and the University of Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, who gathered the particle say it is biological in nature and is made of carbon and oxygen…

“This is clearly a biology entity (about 10 micron in size), although it is unclear whether it is part of a single organism or is made up of smaller, individual microbes. It is certainly unusual and seems to be like nothing found on Earth…

If our findings are true they will forever alter our view of life and particularly evolution on Earth…It is an amazing discovery and the evidence is overwhelming that these organisms have originated from outer space,” said Wainwright…

[Sravanth Verma; January 18th, 2015; www.digitaljournal.com]

Another article described more fantastic claims from this group…

Earlier this year, the astrobiologist revealed an image of what he said was a tiny metal ball spewing out a ‘gooey’ substance in samples gathered by a balloon in the Earth’s stratosphere.

Dr Wainwright said the ball, which is about the width of a human hair, could be an example of directed panspermia.

This describes the belief that life was deliberately sent to Earth by some unknown extraterrestrial civilisation. 

He argued that the strange material coming from the titanium ball is biological and could in fact be a colony of tiny microorganisms. [Ellie Zolfagharifard and Richard Gray; April 6, 2015; www.dailymail.co.uk]

Again, all this is somewhat humorous, for according to evolutionary scientists the universe isn’t so complex that an intelligence is required to have created it, yet these tiny particles look “too” complex to be random, appearing to be balloons or little balls intentionally spewing rare and complex constructions, etc. Directed panspermia says “life on earth looks too complex, so it makes more sense that aliens created it,” and yet its researchers would hate and scorn the statement, “life on earth looks too complex, so it makes more sense that God created it.”

Whether we’re talking speculations regarding microbes “displaying” a universe teeming with complex proto-life or whether we’re talking distant blips of lights and radio waves “displaying” a universe teeming with advanced civilizations, this is all having a very profound effect on popular culture. Such reports give scientific (which in this culture means, religious) validity to the mountain of information constantly being posted on YouTube and Facebook etc., where strange lights in the sky or strange rocks on Mars or objects in the background of video from the International Space Station are reported by novices as being the latest, greatest proof that we’re practically tripping over extra-terrestrials. The sum total of all this is a rocketing belief in aliens…

A 2012 survey reported that more than a third of Americans believe aliens have visited the earth, and only about one-fifth do not (the rest were undecided). With ET believers outnumbering non-believers nearly two-to-one, the intense fascination with aliens is obvious. Aliens permeate our society, as evidenced by warm and fuzzy -- and sometimes not-so-fuzzy -- ETs on every Cineplex marquee. [Danny Faulkner; Answers; Vol. 10, No. 4; pg. 47]

Yet a Gallup poll reported on June 4, 2014, shows a sliding concern for the Bible in the United States…

Twenty-eight percent of Americans believe the Bible is the actual word of God and that it should be taken literally. This is somewhat below the 38% to 40% seen in the late 1970s, and near the all-time low of 27% reached in 2001 and 2009. [Lydia Saad]

So in the U.S. more people believe that aliens have visited planet Earth than in the literal interpretation of Scripture! The above article from Danny Faulkner goes on to say…

Given all this hype, should Christians care? Does the Bible have anything to say? In case you’re worried that you might have missed the Bible’s account of an alien visitation, let me assure you that it does not actually mention ETs or flying saucers. However, as with so many other issues, biblical principles help answer whether flying saucers and ETs are real. It’s not a trivial question. [pg. 47]

I agree. As a Christian I’m not completely against the belief in UFO encounters, just as I’m not completely against society’s interest in demons or “ghosts,” etc. What is scary however is that in this rush to judgment regarding lights in the sky, detailed reports are almost always tied in with an evolutionary explanation. Belief in aliens via godless evolution is bound to have several pernicious effects; namely, an increase in terror and despair, along with confusion regarding God’s eschatological program. Let’s now briefly expand these topics.

II. Terror in the Sky

In 1980 one of the most important cases in UFO history happened in England around Christmas time. Over the years this case has grown in popularity. On February 16, 2015, Rupert Hawksley wrote at www.telegraph.co.uk…

Dubbed “Britain’s Roswell”, the Rendlesham Forest incident, which took place over a series of nights in December 1980, continues to fascinate UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists. It is easy to understand why. Consider the following three statements, for example:

1) “This was not some vague ‘lights in the sky’ sighting -- the UFO actually landed.” -- Nick Pope, a Ministry of Defence employee from 1985 to 2006.

2) “When I arrived [at the scene], it was going in and out through the trees and at one stage it was hovering.” -- Sgt. Adrian Bustinza, a security police commander who investigated the incident at the time.

3) “Okay, we’re looking at the thing; we’re probably about two to three hundred yards away. It looks like an eye winking at you... And the flash is so bright to the starscope that it almost burns your eye.” -- Taken from the Halt tape, recorded on December 27 1980 by United States Air Force lieutenant colonel Charles Halt.

It was a report filed by Lt. Col. Halt that helped send the case into orbit to begin with. The following are the contents of this early report, taken from a popular book on the incident, You Can’t Tell the People, by Georgina Bruni…

13 Jan 81 [This dateline was moved from its proper place due to formatting issues; it originally appeared across from “REPLY TO” below.]

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE  

HEADQUARTERS 81st COMBAT SUPPORT GROUP (USAFE)

APO NEW YORK 09755  

REPLY TO

ATTN OF: CD  

SUBJECT: Unexplained Lights  

TO: RAF/CC

1. Early in the morning of 27 Dec 1980 (approximately 0300L), two USAF security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge.

Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been forced down, they called for permission to investigate. The on-duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed on foot. The individuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest. The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three metres across the base and approximately two metres high. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank(s) of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it manoeuvred through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.

2. The next day, three depressions 1 1/2” deep and 7” in diameter were found where the object had been sighted on the ground. The following night (29 Dec 80) [Halt was mistaken about the exact dates] area was checked for radiation. Beta/gamma readings of 0.1 milliroentgens were recorded with peak readings in the three depressions and near the centre of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate (.05–.07) readings on the side of the tree toward the depressions.

3. Later in the night a red sun-like light was seen through the trees. It moved about and pulsed. At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared. Immediately thereafter, three star-like objects were noticed in the sky, two objects to the north and one to the south, all of which were about 10° off the horizon. The objects moved rapidly in sharp angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights. The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8–12 power lens. They then turned full circles. The objects to the north remained in the sky for an hour or more. The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time. Numerous individuals, including the undersigned, witnessed the activities in paragraphs 2 and 3.

[Signed]

CHARLES I. Halt, Lt Col, USAF

Deputy Base Commander

[from the chapter entitled, “The Memorandum”]

The article from Hawksley goes on to say…

…In the early hours of December 26 1980, US military personnel (sections of the US Air Force were temporarily stationed at RAF bases in Woodbridge and Bentwaters) spotted strange lights above Rendlesham Forest.

One of these men, John Burroughs, accompanied by his supervisor and one other individual, went to investigate the blue, red, orange and white lights…

Jim Penniston, who accompanied Burroughs into Rendlesham Forest on December 26, claims to have encountered a craft, covered in hieroglyphic-like characters. “I estimated it to be about three metres tall and about three metres wide at the base,” Penniston later explained. “No landing gear was apparent, but it seemed like she was on fixed legs. I moved a little closer. I had already taken all 36 pictures on my roll of film. I walked around the craft, and finally, I walked right up to the craft. I noticed the fabric of the shell was more like a smooth, opaque, black glass…

I left the forest a different man…I was in awe of the technology and yes, a knowing that it was not an aircraft which could have been manufactured in 1980 or even now.” Both Penniston and Burroughs have since suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Penniston was clearly very shaken by these events, and has never fully gotten over them. I saw an interview with him where he broke down and wept while describing the incident. This acquired dolefulness is best explained by Bruni’s book…

Jim Penniston sums it up when he says ‘the incident was of biblical proportion.’ [from the chapter entitled, “The Evidence of Jim Penniston”]

People who encounter such things realize instinctively that they are dealing with powers and forces that perhaps are found in the pages of Holy Writ. Jim Penniston apparently wrote an article himself a few years ago entitled, “Skeptics, lions, tigers and bears……. Oh my!” which has made its rounds on the internet. He says in the article…

So nothing was said in 1993. But the longer, I was out, the more I began dreaming at night. Some horrifying and so terrible I never could tell no one. Not even my loved ones, but none were of Rendlesham…So in 1994 the nightmares became worse and I was getting less and less sleep…

...I knew this was PTSD, and I needed treatment.

This is sad, yet common. Those who have had perceived run-ins with UFOs are often forever shaken and terrified, as was Barney Hill.

Betty and Barney Hill experienced one of the first major cases of a detailed close encounter. According to the website of Kathleen Marden, an expert on the case, this is a brief sketch of what happened initially…

As they motored south of the Indian Head area of North Lincoln, almost directly in their path, the couple encountered a huge flattened circular disc with a row of intense blue-white lighted windows along its forward edge. Barney rapidly brought the car to a halt in the middle of the road and grabbed his binoculars for a closer look, opening the car door for a less encumbered view. The silent hovering object descended to an estimated eighty to a hundred feet above their vehicle. Rapidly, in an arc like movement, it shifted from its location directly ahead, and rested above the tree tops in an adjacent field. Barney pocketed his handgun and walked toward it. The silent enigmatic craft was huge; maybe sixty to eighty feet in diameter. As he approached it, two red lights at the end of fin-like structures parted from the sides of the craft, and it tilted toward Barney.

Lifting his binoculars to his eyes, he spied a group of figures that were “somehow not human” moving about with the precision of German officers. As the craft tilted downward and began to descend toward him, one of these strange creatures, who remained at the window, communicated a frightening message. Barney had the immediate impression that he was in danger of being plucked from the field. Overcome with fear and with all of the courage that he could muster, he tore the binoculars from his eyes and raced back to the car. Breathless, trembling, and in near hysterics, he told Betty that they needed to get out of there or they were going to be captured. [“The Betty and Barney Hill Experience;” www.kathleen-marden.com]

Although Barney would live a normal life, it’s clear that what he experienced that night left gargantuan impressions on his soul. In a book co-authored by Stanton Friedman, Marden writes of a harrowing hypnosis session…

A previously unpublished excerpt reveals Barney’s highly charged emotional state. On March 21, 1964, he testified under hypnosis to Dr. Simon:

This is ridiculous! Oh, it’s huge! Oh my goodness. Oh, my God. I can see it. It’s there! And there are lights! Oh, jeez, I don’t believe this! I don’t believe this! It’s huge and there are people there and they’re looking back at me. Oh my God, help me! If there is a God, help me! Coming closer, I’m coming closer. There’s a man up there and he’s not gonna let me get away! Oh! Oh! It’s big…80 feet. Look at it! Oh, look at it…two red lights. They’re on the side of it. It’s like a pancake…it looks…I’m not going to say it…I don’t believe flying saucers are...[real]. I’m not gonna say it. I don’t ever want to say that word again. [Captured! (2007); pgs. 106-107]

Such understandable terror was explored by an article at www.new-scientist.com several years back, entitled, “Memories of alien ‘abduction’ cause physical effects.” The Betty and Barney Hill case, like most abduction cases, is extremely complex. Something certainly happened to the couple the night in question, yet practices such as hypnosis have greatly muddied just what that “something” literally was. These are the days when truth is relative. Someone encountering information through séance, meditation, or hypnosis often sincerely believes that the information is trustworthy (cf. the dodgy biography of Walter Stein that seduced so many Christians in the past, myself included) and can be related as fact. This is erroneous and harmful. Nevertheless, for abductees, reality doesn’t matter; if they have come to believe that an abduction has occurred, that is enough t