Are UFOs actually the devil’s minions sent not from the stars above but the fires of hell below? Over a Fortean Times, Sheffield University folklorist David Clarke surveys this odd niche of ufology literature identifying ETs as demons or, if we’re lucky, angels. From the article:
On the one hand there is a group of evangelicals – mainly Americans, such as Dr Billy Graham – who have said the UFO occupants may be angels sent by God to watch over us. The best-known exponent of this idea is the Presbyterian minister Rev Barry Downing, author of Flying Saucers and the Bible. Downing appears to be open minded about aliens as part of God’s creation and to look to the scriptures for evidence of early ET contacts.At the opposite end of the spectrum are some members of the Christian Orthodox Church 1 who find it impossible to accept that there is any goodness in the elusive and contradictory nature of UFO behaviour. The most extreme expression of this view is that there can be no ETs because life on other planets is not mentioned in the Bible. It’s a point of view that leads its proponents to a further conclusion: if there are no aliens in the Bible and the UFO occupants aren’t angels, then UFOs can only be demonic in origin.
