Extraterrestrials

A term coined by C. K. Quarterman for evil, earthbound non-human intelligences. It is a proposed framework, not an accepted scientific category.

The U.S. Air Force’s official investigation of UFOs, run from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base from March 1952 to December 17, 1969. It collected 12,618 reports, 701 of which remained unidentified.

A panel of scientists convened by the CIA from January 14 to 18, 1953 to review the Air Force’s UFO evidence. It concluded UFOs posed no direct threat and recommended reducing public interest in them.

An Air Force-funded University of Colorado study of UFOs directed by physicist Edward Condon, completed in 1968 and released in January 1969. Its conclusion was used to close Project Blue Book.

A Pentagon program that studied reports of unidentified aerial phenomena with about $22 million in funding. Its existence was revealed by The New York Times in December 2017.

Some witnesses report headaches, nausea, and trembling soon after a close encounter. Fear can cause every one of those symptoms, so a frightening sighting is enough to explain many cases.

Many abduction accounts describe waking unable to move, often with a sense of a presence in the room. Sleep paralysis is a real and well-studied condition that produces exactly those feelings, and researchers have linked it to abduction reports.

Many people who report UFO or abduction encounters describe years of fear, nightmares, and anxiety, and their distress is real. A 2004 Harvard study found that people who said they had been abducted reacted physically to their abduction stories about as strongly as trauma patients react to theirs.

On the afternoon of January 8, 1981, a farmer named Renato Nicolaï told police that a gray, saucer-shaped object had landed on his terraced land near Trans-en-Provence, in southeastern France, and taken off seconds later. Police collected soil and plant samples the next day, and France’s space agency studied them.

Some people who report abduction have had small objects removed from their bodies. Surgeon Roger Leir removed dozens and said some contained unusual metals and gave off radio signals.

Bob Lazar is an American man who said in 1989 that he had worked on recovered flying saucers at a secret site near Area 51. He said the craft were not made by humans.

On October 13, 1917, a very large crowd gathered near Fátima, Portugal, because three shepherd children said the Virgin Mary would appear and perform a miracle that day.

The U.S. government studied UFOs openly in the late 1940s, ended its public program in 1969, and returned to the subject in stages from 2017 to 2026.

On April 8, 1665, six fishermen fishing for herring off Stralsund, Germany, reported flocks of birds that turned into warships and fought in the sky. At dusk, they said, a flat round shape hovered over a church.

In the summer of 1566, Basel, Switzerland, saw a series of strange sky events. On July 27 and 28 the sun and moon looked blood red.

In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul warns that before the day of the Lord, a man of sin will be revealed who exalts himself above God. His coming will be marked by the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.

Yes, most UFO reports turn out to be ordinary things. Among the cases AARO closed between May 2023 and June 2024, about 70 percent were balloons, 16 percent drones, 8 percent birds, 4 percent satellites, and 2 percent aircraft.

Ancient gods and modern aliens share more than a passing resemblance. Both are described as coming from the sky, both take an interest in humanity, both sometimes produce offspring with humans, and both leave behind fear, awe, and illness in the people who encounter them.

Some Christian researchers say yes, and I am one of them. The Bible does not say UFOs are demons.

Not with anything we know. Warp drives are mathematical solutions in general relativity, and the best-known design, published by Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, needs matter with negative energy that has never been made in useful amounts.

L.A. Marzulli is an author, lecturer, and filmmaker who has spent decades researching what he believes is physical evidence linking UFOs to the Nephilim and fallen angels described in the Bible.

Steven Greer is a retired emergency room physician from Charlotte, North Carolina, who says he saw a UFO up close at age eight. He founded CSETI, the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and the Disclosure Project, which advocates for government transparency about UFOs.

On June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mount Rainier, Washington, when he saw nine bright objects racing along the mountains at speeds he estimated between 1,200 and 1,700 miles per hour. He described their motion as like a saucer skipping across water.

In Zechariah 5:5 to 11, the prophet sees a measuring basket, an ephah, with a lead cover. When the cover is lifted, a woman sits inside, and the angel says her name is Wickedness.

The Tulli Papyrus is one of the most cited pieces of ancient UFO evidence, and also one of the most contested. Alberto Tulli, director of the Egyptian section of the Vatican Museum, reportedly found it in a Cairo shop in 1933 and copied it.

The Robertson Panel was a group of scientists that the CIA convened in January 1953 to review the Air Force’s UFO evidence. The panel concluded that UFOs posed no direct threat and that most reports were misidentified ordinary objects.

The article examines whether the biblical Watchers described in 1 Enoch are linked to modern UFO/UAP phenomena, summarizing Will Blesch’s arguments and offering a Christian perspective.

The extraterrestrial hypothesis, the idea that UFOs are craft piloted by beings from other planets, faces three problems that are rarely addressed together. It does not easily account for sightings that predate modern aviation by centuries.

Cultures with little or no contact with each other described beings connected to the sky, ruling, judging, or visiting humanity. Greek myth describes Uranus, the sky god overthrown by his son.

Some researchers argue that beings from the sky shaped major moments in ancient human history, including religion, kingship, and mythology. Ancient rulers in Egypt, Mesoamerica, and elsewhere claimed descent from sky gods.

In January 1996, residents of Varginha, Brazil, reported small, dark-colored beings in the streets and fields near their homes. Three young women who came within a few feet of one of them reported a powerful sulfurous smell and a feeling of intense dread, and one of the women fell ill and was hospitalized.

Some UFO reports were secret government aircraft. The National Reconnaissance Office says spy planes such as the U-2 and A-12 explained a number of Cold War reports.

Beginning on November 17, 1896, thousands of ordinary Americans reported strange flying craft in the sky, from California to Nebraska and beyond. This was seven years before the Wright brothers flew the first airplane.

Some people who report abduction experiences wake with scratches, scoop marks, or bruises and cannot say how they got them. Researchers such as Budd Hopkins photographed such marks and argued they were unusual.

David Grusch is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer who testified under oath to Congress on July 26, 2023.

J. Allen Hynek was an American astronomer who served as the Air Force’s scientific consultant on UFOs from 1948 until Project Blue Book closed in 1969.

Diana Pasulka joins Joe Rogan to discuss whether UFOs could be demonic, the preternatural category, and the Watchers, while proposing AI as a modern explanation.

Better sensors, safer reporting, and crowded airspace explain most of what military pilots are seeing. A smaller number of cases stay unexplained, mostly because the data is too limited to reach a conclusion.

The Bible never mentions UFOs. It does describe spiritual beings who appear in the heavens, deceive people, and work signs and wonders.

At dawn on April 14, 1561, many residents of Nuremberg, Germany, reported strange objects in the sky. A printer named Hans Glaser described them in a woodcut broadsheet.

On March 16, 1967, all ten Minuteman missiles in Echo Flight at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana lost alert status within seconds of each other. Air Force records confirm the shutdown.

Project Blue Book was the U.S. Air Force’s official investigation of UFOs.

On the night of September 18 to 19, 1976, civilians in Tehran reported a bright object in the sky. The Iranian Air Force sent two F-4 fighters to investigate.

On the morning of September 16, 1994, about 62 children at Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, reported seeing one or more silver craft near their playground during morning break. Some said small dark beings appeared, and some said the beings communicated without speaking.

In December 1978, the crews of two cargo flights over New Zealand’s Kaikōura coast saw moving lights, and Wellington air traffic radar reported targets nearby. On December 31, a television crew on board filmed lights and described them on tape.

Some witnesses say yes. The best-known case is the Cash-Landrum incident of December 29, 1980.

Missing time is a stretch of minutes or hours that a UFO witness cannot remember. The best-known case is Betty and Barney Hill’s drive through New Hampshire on September 19, 1961, when they lost about two hours and 35 miles.

In many UFO reports, engines, headlights, radios, and instruments fail while an object is close and work again when it leaves. The best-known cases are Levelland, Texas, in 1957 and Tehran in 1976.

Some UFO witnesses report eye pain, swelling, or temporary blindness after looking at a very bright light. Bright light from any source can cause this, so the reports do not by themselves point to anything unusual.

For many experiences, psychology is a large part of the answer. Sleep paralysis, vivid dreams, suggestion, and false memories can produce sincere accounts of abduction.

Not with any technology we know. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is about 4.2 light-years away, roughly 25 trillion miles.

A malaterrestrial is an evil, earthbound non-human intelligence. I coined the word for my book Disclosure: They Are Not Extraterrestrials.

Chuck Missler was a Bible teacher, author, and former businessman who spent decades studying UFOs from a biblical perspective before his death in 2018. He had a background in military intelligence and defense work, and he later founded the ministry Koinonia House.

The Condon Report was a study of UFOs by the University of Colorado, paid for by the Air Force and directed by physicist Edward Condon. It was completed in 1968 and released in January 1969.

AATIP, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, was a Pentagon program that studied reports of unidentified aerial phenomena. It ran with about 22 million dollars in funding, and the government had denied it existed until The New York Times revealed it in December 2017.

The alien gospel is a name some researchers give to a pattern found across many contact and abduction accounts, in which the beings tell the experiencer that extraterrestrials created humanity through genetic engineering or seeded life on Earth long ago.

In early July 1947, rancher Mac Brazel found unusual debris on his property near Roswell, New Mexico, and reported it to the sheriff. On July 8, the Roswell Army Air Field announced it had recovered a flying disc.

People described strange objects in the sky for thousands of years before anyone invented an aircraft. Ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Hindu writings mention circles of fire, fleets in the sky, and flying craft.

No. Most UFO reports do get explained.

Many people who report close UFO encounters describe more than a strange sighting. They describe a sense of dread, awe, or being in the presence of something far beyond an ordinary aircraft.

Reported UFO flight behavior includes sudden direction changes at high speed, no visible propulsion, and no sonic boom even at speeds that should produce one. Navy pilots who filmed the Tic Tac and GoFast encounters described exactly this kind of behavior.

Many people believe aliens created or engineered humanity because that claim shows up repeatedly in contact accounts, gets amplified by popular media, and offers an answer to real questions about human origins and unexplained ancient structures.

The ancient astronaut theory holds that extraterrestrial visitors gave ancient civilizations their technology, religion, and monuments, popularized by Erich von Däniken's 1968 book Chariots of the Gods.

Probably not. The strongest scientific objection is distance.

Government secrecy about UFOs is real and documented, from the Robertson Panel's 1953 debunking recommendations to the Pentagon's admission in 2025 that it spread disinformation for decades. I argue that this political cover-up sits on top of a deeper one.

In February 1987, sonar operator David Barnett says the Royal New Zealand Navy frigate HMNZS Southland tracked an object roughly 800 feet long and 150 feet wide. The object closed a 20‑kilometer gap in about 30 seconds, passed directly beneath the ship, and knocked out its power.