Learning is a lifetime pursuit. You will, if you choose to, learn far more after school (no matter how many years you go or don’t go) than you will in the classroom. Every adult, I think, should make a choice:
Commit to a lifetime of exploration and discovery, or let others control your mind.
Here are some books I read in 2025. What choice will you make in 2026?
“As a professor of the history of religion, I study reports of miraculous events and afterlife worlds in Christian history. This includes sightings of ariel beings of light, miraculous flying houses…monks and nuns who levitate and bilocate…[UFOs are] similar to religion because people see things in the sky, ariel objects…[and] UFO contact events include supernatural and paranormal elements that influence people’s lives.”- Diana Pasulka, Encounters
In part 1 of this series, Are We Alone in the Universe? we looked at what is the surprising (to some) reality of the rarity of life in the universe. In part 2, Are Aliens Among Us? we examined the nonexistent information that comes of the cyclic UFO/UAP flaps. The promised “disclosure” never comes, the alleged proof never materializes.
What of the small percentage of UFOs that can’t be explained away as misidentifications, frauds, or terrestrial technology? Professor Diana Pasulka isn’t the first to note similarities to what are often classified as supernatural, paranormal, or religious experiences. Unlike what she studied in Christian history, which were largely positive experiences, some UFO experiencers she spoke to, described “intense and dark energy” or los demonios: The Demons.
This isn’t surprising, as UFOs have a long history tied to abductions, terrible dreams, abuse, and other terrors. Many debunkers try to find rational explanations, but the problem is they predefine rational as anything excluding supernatural. Our ancestors were superstitious and unscientific, supposedly. We know better, don’t we? However, should we so easily cast aside voluminous stories and experiences from countless generations? Is that rational?
Astronomer Hugh Ross, has written on the multidimensional universe in Beyond the Cosmos, which allows for the existence of entities not bound by the four-dimensional existence as we humans are. In the book he coauthored on UFOs, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men, Hugh Ross calls the “unexplainable” UFO events RUFOs: Residual Unidentified Flying Objects. He argues evil entities are behind many of these encounters and that this is a testable claim. He has said:
“All that is necessary to further prove the conclusion of demonic involvements is to continue surveying people to ascertain who has encounters with RUFOs and who does not” and it’s not hard to find a “correlation between the degree of invitations in a persons life to demonic attacks (séance, Ouija boards, astrology, witchcraft, palm or psychic reading.”
Have we prematurely tossed the beliefs of our ancestors, thinking they knew less than us? Have we decided a priori what we want to be true? Beliefs can be based on facts, but as Pasulka writes, sometimes, “belief has nothing to do with what is true.”
Derek Gilbert, coauthor of The Day the Earth Stands Still, has stated, “We have been visited by inhuman human entities for thousands and thousands of years.” These have been recorded in many ancient texts and traditions. Gilbert asserts that modern RUFOs similarity to paranormal experiences are “too many to be coincidence.” These are a “spiritual, supernatural attack from the demonic realm.”
Many serious researchers explore theses events and this history in far more detail. It’s easy to dismiss things that make us uncomfortable, or we have been told cannot be true.
But what if this world truly has been at war for many millennia, and what if the greatest weapon of the enemy is to convince us none of the stories from our ancestors are true?
Many great thinkers and writers have seen through the lie. Perhaps we should take care to not easily fall to deception. We can’t win a war by pretending the enemy doesn’t exist.
This is part 2 in a series. See part 1, Are we Alone in the Universe?
“But where is the evidence? It’s MIA. Neither [David] Grusch nor anyone else claiming to have knowledge of secret government UAP programs has ever been able to publicly produce convincing photos showing alien hardware splayed across the landscape. And remember, we’re not talking about a Cessna that plowed into a wheat field. We’re talking about, presumably, an alien interstellar rocket, capable of bridging trillions of miles of space, and sporting technology that is obviously alien.” – Astronomer Seth Shostak
I have found the recent UFO (now called UAPs) revelations a bit curious. The media is acting like this is something new. The public is surprised the government is studying UFOs? Ever hear about Project Blue Book? Since the end of World War II, this topic has entered the public mind ever so often. The cyclic nature of UFOs is something to keep in the back of your mind. It makes this all seem orchestrated. Why, at certain times, are the flames of UFO encounters fanned?
I’ve already explained the unlikelihood of aliens visiting Earth, but getting past that, we need to first address a problem in ufology. Many researchers, though not all, seem to start with the assumption that UFOs are extraterrestrial life from other planets. The problem with this assumption is it colors these studies. For example, we often hear UFO sightings increased after WWII due to humans acquiring nuclear weapons. The aliens are supposedly here to monitor us and stop us from destroying civilization.
Why would aliens, so much more advanced then us, care if we had nuclear weapons? Why are these advanced beings crashing all of the time? Why are they mutilating cattle?
None of it adds up. The exponential increase in technological research during the Cold War, much of it secret, is a much more rational explanation. Many UFO accounts, when looked at a little deeper, appear rather terrestrial from a technological aspect. Even events like the iconic Roswell crash, with its alleged alien bodies, has a terrestrial explanation, one that’s more diabolical than aliens harassing us (see the work of Annie Jacobsen and Joseph P. Farrell). What then of the whistleblowers who claim they have access to secret sources about UFOs?
In the 1980s, Bob Lazar revealed he had worked at a site associated with Area 51 where they were reverse engineering alien spacecraft. He also claims to have glimpsed strange bodies that may have been alien. I undertook a meta study of Lazar, and looked at a number of Lazar’s interviews, documentaries and writings. His story has stayed remarkably consistent over the decades, and he doesn’t come across as a deceiver, nor has he benefited financially in a significant manner. As a whistleblower, though, the government has largely left him alone. Here are what I think are the potential interpretations concerning Lazar:
All things considered, I suspect it is #2 or #3. What about others in this UFO space like David Grusch, Luis Elizondo, or Steven Greer? Even when people have solid credentials, as many of these people do, it still comes down to “a guy says he knows a guy who knows another guy who heard from a guy that the government has alien spaceships” as astrophysicist Adam Frank wrote. We see a lot of secret sources, things that were seen but cannot be revealed, etc. Are these people being unknowingly used to spread disinformation? Are the efforts of some, like Greer, influenced by their own personal beliefs? Is the government about to use the alien scare as way to control us, as Werner Von Braun warned many decades ago? Whatever the case, over the past seventy years, no whistleblower or person with access to secret knowledge has brought us closer to evidence of aliens visiting Earth.
What of the small percentage of UFOs that can’t be explained away as misidentifications, frauds, or terrestrial technology? Astronomer Hugh Ross calls these RUFOs: Residual Unidentified Flying objects. These, as professor Diana Pasulka discovered in her research, are “UFO contact events [that] include supernatural and paranormal elements that influence people’s lives” much like similar events throughout history she had found in ancient archives, though those weren’t described as UFOs.
In part 3, we will take a look at what these encounters may be. Is there a part of this world our ancestors intimately knew, which we have relegated to myth?
“It’s impossible for [this] to be the only world…There are other intelligent entities out there, probably since life is so ardent…[do] you think that’s [life] only on this little rocky planet?” – William Shatner
The legendary Captain Kirk said these words after his flight on the Blue Origin NS-18 spaceflight. Is he right? Are the many people who have looked at the heavens and concluded, “There must be more life out there,” correct?
Probably not. What Shatner and others are saying is not a scientific argument. It is barely a viable statistical one. What we may think is true, or wish to be, must always give way to physics.
Life is very complex and requires very specific conditions, controlled tightly by very narrow constraints. We aren’t just talking about the obvious like temperature or air composition. There are a vast number of interconnected systems, large and small, terrestrial and cosmic, that allow us to be here at this time, in this place, on Earth.
For decades, astronomer Hugh Ross has been documenting the constraints that must be met, and cannot change, for life to exist. This is true of primitive life, to say nothing of complex life such as animals or humans. Among the hundreds of parameters he has identified from scientific studies:
There are hundreds of such constraints, from the quantum level to the galactic. Even the Big Bang at the origin of time and space, had to be so fine-tuned for Earth to exist here and now as it does. Mathematically, there is zero chance of this occurring on its own from random processes. What does this mean? Two things: One, these constraints eliminate millions and billions of star systems from contention of harboring life. Two, only design can explain what science has discovered.
Naturalists don’t like the implication of design behind the universe’s origin, and call these constraints anthropic coincidences, even though chance cannot explain what we observe. Nonetheless, opponents to design try to sweep this all away with one or another version of the anthropic principle. The popular “weak” version states, “We ought not to be surprised at the order and fine-tuning we see in the universe around us, since if it did not exist…we would not be here to observe the fine-tuning.” This was from Oxford mathematician, John C. Lennox, who further explains why this doesn’t work:
All the anthropic principle says is that for life to exist, certain necessary conditions must be fulfilled. But what it does not tell us is why those necessary conditions are fulfilled, nor how, granted they are fulfilled, life arose.
Evangelists of chance-based, naturalistic explanations like Carl Sagan struggled with this. He marveled at the complexity and beauty of the universe, yet claimed Earth was just a “pale blue dot” and our place among the stars was “demoted” due to the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo. It didn’t dawn on Sagan and his successors that scientists like Copernicus and Galileo studied the heavens to learn more about Creation and its Creator. Never did they think they were demoting humanity. As astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez has documented, not only have we not been demoted, the evidence points to Earth as being a “privileged planet” that could not be the result of chance, but was created in such a way to make the fine-tuning of the universe evident.
So while we cannot eliminate completely the possibility of life elsewhere among the stars, the physics of the universe guarantees it is exceptionally rare, at the very least. Should we feel despondent and depressed that we could, in fact, be on our own? Not at all. If, as the evidence points, everything from the moment of the Big Bang onward, conspired to allow Earth exist here and now, with its humans, we should feel quite special.
We aren’t a pale blue dot, but rather, we are a bright blue star in the cosmos. Rare and special, with design and purpose.
What does this mean for the current, how should I say, obsession, with UFOs/UAPs? I’ll be returning to this subject in part 2 as we explore what is going on in our skies.
Until then, ponder on what it means for little Earth, perhaps not at the center of the universe, but nonetheless being its central purpose.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson declared, “The universe is a deadly place. At every opportunity it’s trying to kill us.” When astronomers look out to the universe, some are struck by all the dangers it poses to life, especially to human life. In every region of the cosmos beyond Earth, they see gravitational disturbances, supernova, gamma-ray bursts…asteroids, comets, and solar and stellar flares that can easily destroy us.
This dark, doomsday perspective perspective makes sense for astronomers and others who’ve embraced the beliefs expressed by their predecessor Carl Sagan. His message — that the universe is all there is or was or ever will be — shapes their perspective…
What if all that appears so deadly and dangerous is actually what makes life, especially human life and its flourishing, possible? What if the cosmos is not all there is or was or ever will be? Such a perspective would alter the significance of everything about it and within it. – Dr. Hugh Ross, astronomer
When astronomer Hugh Ross first began writing about anthropocentric or theological science in 1991, many were surprised the universe appeared designed for Earth to exist. Not just Earth —but only Earth — and the human life on it. This was contrary to the alleged “great demotion” of humanity’s place in the cosmos, as naturalism evangelists like Carl Sagan preached. Some probably thought science would prove Ross wrong.
It didn’t.
In fact, the years since have become a golden age of astronomy. Discovery after discovery pointed to Earth’s uniqueness, but more importantly, that everything about the structure of the universe prefaced the coming of humans.
Ross has previously documented this growing body of evidence in books like Why the Universe the Way it Is, and Improbable Planet. His new Designed to the Core continues pulling this research together — and this is cutting edge science from around the world.
It’s the implications, however, that should give the chaotic peoples of this world pause. What if there was truly purpose to this existence? What if the reason no aliens have been discovered — and the constants of physics continue to rule out billions of worlds — is because Earth was the point of the universe’s coming into being?
As biologist Michael Denton writes in is recent book, The Miracle of Man, some may disagree with these conclusions, but the science is not in dispute. Those who disagree do from a place of philosophical bias, not a scientific one.
Why cling to a depressing view of the universe, where nothing ultimately matters, where chance decides everything, if the evidence points elsewhere?
Materialistic naturalistic philosophies have infected many fields. They have handcuffed science. Humanity doesn’t matter, if you follow these beliefs to their logical conclusion. Yet lives of millions contradict this every day, and like never before, so do the heavens.
From distant galaxies, to the Sun, and Earth itself; from the instant of the Big Bang, to the quantum and the atomic, it all has fingerprints of being designed to the core.
Let’s face it, when many people take a position on one issue or another, they often don’t put a lot of thought into it. Instead, we go with whoever sounds the best, ignited our emotions, happens to agree with our philosophy, worldview, or politics — these are the lazy reasons we employ in allowing others to buy our allegiance. Yes, we’re all busy, so much to do, but why take a stand without digging a little deeper? Why not pause, allow the emotions to calm, and think with the goal of finding the truth?
One topic that could use this wisdom are the debates on climate change. Is man causing the climate to change, or isn’t he? You know what I found? Most people — anointed experts included — leave out the overwhelming majority of climate data, yet try to convince us of their model. Let me explain.
Expensive biblical epics haven’t been a staple of Hollywood for decades, but this week saw the release of the first trailer of Noah which will hit theaters in early 2014.
Enter controversy.
Some like J.W. Wartick have written on concerns over possible “divergence from the Biblical story.” Fair enough, but I don’t have a problem with divergence, if it is in the sense Brian Godawa describes:
…there is nothing wrong with engaging in creative license, whether it is magical seeds or six-armed Watchers, or even Noah as a warrior. I don’t even think there is a problem in using non-biblical sources like the Book of Enoch or the Sumerian version of the Flood story, where unlike in the Bible, Noah receives dreams about the coming Deluge. The question is, does it support the spirit or meaning of the original story, or the original author’s intent. Bible believing Christians do not necessarily own this category of Biblical interpretation. The Bible doesn’t say what vocation Noah had before the Flood, only what he was afterward (a tiller of the soil). So if a Christian attacks the notion of Noah as a warrior shaman, he may really be illustrating his own cultural prejudice of the notion of a white bearded old farmer which is not in the Bible either…[bold mine]
However, Godawa does discuss quite a few concerns he had with an earlier draft of the script. Having only seen a brief clip of the movie, and not knowing how the script evolved or was edited, I’m not going to add or subtract from his analysis other than this: I do like how the film trailer does not depict Noah as a pastoral old man leading cute, Narnia-like animals into an ark. This Sunday School-fantasy version ignores the terror — and ultimately the point — of the account: Horrible evil is occurring in the world and mankind will be wiped out because of it. The actual story — an adult one — has been co-opted by preschoolers. Perhaps the film will spark debate on how shallow our take on Noah has become.
Hopefully, the filmmakers chose not to put modern agendas into an iconic account from the ancient world. There’s enough historical contextual sources to draw from, as Godawa does in his own novel on Noah. In a film of this budget, studios try not to be too offensive to anyone. It is a business after all. Then again, many big budget films failed in 2013.
Time will tell if Noah emerges under a rainbow or washes out.
Update [3/2/14, 3/17/14]: After continuing controversy over a film not released, Jerry A. Johnson, president of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), discusses Five Positive Facts and Five Negative Facts about the film. Johnson and the NRB were behind the recent press release from Paramount Pictures which states, “the feature film is a dramatization of the major scriptural themes and not a line-by-line retelling of the Bible story.”
Apparently the NRB thinks the Christian world is not intelligent enough to figure that out on their own. On the other hand, the “Sunday School-fantasy version” of Noah I discussed above that many envision in their minds is not “a line-by-line retelling of the Bible story” either.
And here, Dr. Hugh Ross looks at the biblical Noah account here and here. Or check out his new book that explores this and other issues of Genesis.
Update [4/3/14]: Here’s an interesting debate: Is Noah a Gnostic interpretation or not.
Darrick Dean 