We Need to Talk About UFOs

We Need to Talk about UFOs

The conscious Orthodox Christian lives in a world that is clearly fallen, both the earth below and the stars above, all being equally far from the lost paradise for which he is striving.

Fr Seraphim Rose, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future

At the beginning of the year, I read D.W. Pasulka’s book about UFOs, American Cosmic. I found this book of interest but it didn’t really nail the issue for me. Pasulka is a Roman Catholic but she is an academic really interested in the social effects of religion and religion-like phenomenon. One of the things that I took from that book is that UFO sightings are much more widespread, well-attested, and more credible than I realised. Since the Second World War they have been seen regularly and widely by many thousands of people. They have been reported and documented meticulously, although the documentation is often highly ambiguous. In any case, it is very hard simply to dismiss all of this as a fantasy, which is what I would have done previous to thinking about this. Pasulka does not go so far as to try and define what UFOs are - something I found a bit disappointing. I suppose that is slightly outside of her remit.

Recently I have started reading Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future by Fr Seraphim Rose. Written in the early seventies, this book documents the “new religious consciousness” which Rose believes is a kind of antichrist, post-Christian religion that is becoming increasingly prevalent. There is a fascinating chapter on science-fiction and UFOs. To begin with, he observes that science-fiction is a post-Christian phenomenon. He writes:

While appearing to be scientific and non-religious, science-fiction literature is in actuality a leading propagator (in a secular form) of the “new religious consciousness” which is sweeping mankind as Christianity retreats.

Rose, Seraphim. Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future (p. 104). St. Herman Press.

And:

Science fiction has given the images, “evolution” has produced the philosophy, and the technology of the “space age” has supplied the plausibility for such encounters.

Rose, Seraphim. Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future (p. 117). St. Herman Press.

One of the things that science-fiction film and literature has done is introduce the notion of a highly-evolved, extraterrestrial species visiting the earth in some form - perhaps to kill us, but perhaps conversely to help us to transcend our own limitations and besetting problems. The latter is similar to the plotline of the film The Day the Earth Stood Still, for example.