I‘ve been “into” UFOs since I was a little boy. (I’d spend night after night in the fourth grade, alongside my friend Michael Fageros, searching the night sky for one. We told my parents that the purpose of the shiny new telescope they gave me for Christmas was to count the moons of Jupiter and observe the rings of Saturn. But those were not the objects we sought during the hours we spent after 8 o’clock every school night in the parking lot of the apartment house where Michael and his mother lived. No, we were searching for flying saucers, which is the name we used back then for Unidentified Flying Objects.
There are at least three things I think need to be said about flying saucers. And I write this with particular feeling for the ministry of Mockingbird and for all our Mockingbirders out there — Out There …
The first thing I think needs to be said is that you need to maintain a sense of irony, and even of the absurd, to “get” UFOs. The whole phenomenon is saturated with humor and off-sides imagination, at least if you let it be. Just listen to the Ran-Dells from 1963 singing their one-hit wonder entitled “The Martian Hop.” It is a truly hilarious song. And you know what? I could play you at least 50 rock ‘n’ roll singles from the 1950s and ’60s that are almost as funny as “The Martian Hop.” The whole idea of Little Green Men coming down from Outer Space to talk to us is delightful — if you let it be.
Moreover — and this is part of the first thing I am trying to say — UFOs/Flying Saucers are intrinsically cool. Just watch the first five minutes of the Japanese (Toho) space “spectacular” Battle in Outer Space (1961), when the alien saucers attack the space station orbiting the Earth. It is just, well, so cool. Everyone reading this will probably know the summit of Flying Saucer cool, which is the arrival of the Mother Ship at the Devil’s Tower (Wyoming) in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978). From John Williams’ positively religious score at that point, to the inspired special effects involved on all fronts, to the wistfulness and “When-You-Wish-Upon-A-Star” lyricism of Richard Dreyfus and friends entering the Mother Ship in wonder, love, and praise — that scene just totally works.
UFOs/Flying Saucers are intrinsically cool.
Are you with me so far? You need to be able to laugh at the inspired cultural absurdity of Flying Saucers/UFOs. You also probably need to regard them as cool. And maybe that will only come if you were exposed to them as a child, gazing into the night sky with uncorrupted awe.
The second point, though, is that Flying Saucers/UFOs are probably not real. Now maybe they are real, and maybe the videos recently released by the Department of Defense will confirm their reality beyond the shadow of a doubt. But the fact remains that the overwhelming percentage of sightings and encounters have been disproven over the years. I realize there are exceptions, but there aren’t many. Incidentally — point of privilege — John Zahl and I had our own personal close encounter in late August 1984. A very large UFO “parked” over the rectory of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Scarborough, NY, where we were living at the time, at around 10 pm.
John saw it first, came and woke me up, and we followed the craft for about a quarter mile down the Sleepy Hollow golf course. Then I got cold feet on account of Simeon’s being back in the Rectory sound asleep and undefended. I didn’t want John and me to be abducted and leave Simeon there alone. (Mary and David Zahl happened to be in Florida that night.) So we saw those famous lights in the sky, and stood speechless as they floated up the Hudson towards Peekskill, where they then dispersed. “Hot August Night” (Neil Diamond).
So when I say UFOs/Flying Saucers are probably not real, I write as a person who has seen one with his own eyes. (It came out later that what we saw was probably a group of Ultra-Light enthusiasts who were flying low and in close formation precisely to look, in the dark, like the CE3K Mother Ship the world had so admired in 1978.)
We have to probably admit that most UFO/Flying Saucer sightings are fake. Though maybe not all.
There is a third thing to say about them, however, and here we can get — maybe with slight tongue-in-cheek, but I am being mostly serious — theological.
What if Flying Saucers were real? And what if our planet were being visited by aliens from Outer Space? What if it were true? How would it affect our Christian believing?
This is a subject that has been written about by some writers I really admire. In 1951, Ray Bradbury published a story entitled “The Man,” in which Christ appears on other planets. “The Man” is a powerful tale of faith, unbelief, and incarnation. (Much later, Bradbury published a long poem entitled “Christus Apollo,” on the same theme but on a larger canvas. I recommend “Christus Apollo” highly.)
In 1952 a writer named Paul Lawrence Payne published a quixotic short story entitled “Fool’s Errand,” in which an astronaut visiting a far-away planet discovers an ancient metal cross in the sands of the desert where his spaceship has landed. The author ends up speaking out of both sides of his mouth, though the initial premise is tantalizing. (I owe it to Gil Kracke, of Cathedral Church of the Advent, for securing a copy of “Fool’s Errand” long before I knew how to work the internet.)
There are several other sci-fi attempts to connect Christianity with aliens and distant planets. Some are written by people of faith and some are written by purposeful de-bunkers. If you are interested in looking, start with Ray Bradbury.
Personally, I would welcome meeting a living entity from Outer Space. As a Christian I don’t feel threatened by the possibility. The Psalms declare that God is higher than the heavens and deeper than the Mariana Trench. (Don’t forget, while we’re at it, to see Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, 1961.) “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Ps 19:1). I have confidence that the same God who sent His Son in total mercy and forgiveness to the human race can and will do the same for all of his creatures — from the Little Green Men to the most evanescent and advanced living things possible. From a Gospel point of view, the universality of God’s graceful reach would have to apply to all reality in all forms.
So I don’t feel threatened by aliens and their coming — if they are coming and if they have come. As Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good” (Mt 5:45).
My only proviso is that when/if they actually come, I would like to be carrying a ray gun in my holster, like “Commander Adams” (Leslie Nielsen in Forbidden Planet, 1956).
P.S. Oh, and definitely see — run, don’t walk — the episode from the second season of the original Star Trek TV show entitled “Bread and Circuses” (March 15, 1968). It’s all there.
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