Rational Christian look at UFOs and Extraterrestrials.

The founder of Reasons to Believe presents a rational Christian look at UFOs and extraterrestrials.

Hugh Ross has a B.S, Physics, University of British Columbia; M.S. & Ph.D., Astronomy, University of Toronto.
Mr. Ross is the co-author of, Lights in the Sky & Little Green Men (NavPress, 2002)

Hugh has been stargazing since he was a young boy, and by the age of 17, he had become director of observations for the Royal Astronomical Society in Canada. As an astronomer, Hugh has logged thousands of observation time and has learned that science can and does address the possibility of life’s existence elsewhere in the universe. In the mid-'70s, Hugh was assigned the task of processing UFO reports at CalTech. At the same time, Hugh began an intense study of the Bible. "Secular society is gullible about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists without having scientific evidence to prove it," says Hugh. "The motivation for this book is the need to communicate clear, satisfying explanations from scientific, theological, philosophical, and political standpoints."

Hugh says that he uses the scientific approach called "the process of elimination" to answer the question Is there a place where extraterrestrials could live in the universe? Over the years, science has made some significant advances. "The number of candidates for life sites within the Milky Way grows smaller each day," says Hugh. At one time, biologists speculated that extraterrestrial life forms might be based on exotic chemistry, not carbon as earthly life is. But today the conclusion is that all conceivable life forms must be carbon-based. And if life forms exist on other planets, they must be planets like Earth, orbiting a star like the sun in a galaxy like the Milky Way. "Ongoing research shows that this seems less possible as each year passes," says Hugh.

Most people think UFOs are physical. "But they can’t be physical," says Hugh, "because they defy gravity." While Hugh does not say that UFOs aren’t real, no physical object can move like UFOs have been reported to move. Respected UFOolgists agree that there must be something real at the bottom of some UFO reports. Residual UFOs (RUFOs) is a terminology that refers to the UFOs that are left over after all the others are explained away. There is quite a bit of evidence that UFOs are real, such as crash sites. There are over 1,000 sites where allegedly the UFOs have crashed. "The ground is depressed, the trees and grass are burnt," says Hugh. "In these scenarios, we are dealing with non-physical reality." What this evidence suggests is that RUFOs are capable of producing physical effects, such as burnt grass, but are not physical themselves.

Hugh says the Bible proclaims the existence of a personal Creator who can act independently outside the cosmos and who is not restricted by the four, large space-time dimensions (length, width, height or time). The Bible also describes the spirit realm (the realm beyond matter, energy and space-time dimensions) and declares the existence of God and two or more distinct creatures: humans and angels. Hugh explains that humans remain physically restricted to the dimensions of the cosmos and cannot account for the unexplained phenomena. Angels, or fallen angels, remain as possible links. Fallen angels, or demons, intent on distorting God’s authority and purpose, draw attention away from God and the gospel and are an identifiable source of explanation.

The conclusion that demons are behind the RUFOs phenomenon is testable. According to the Bible, demons attack only those individuals who invite the attacks. "All that is necessary to further prove the conclusion of demonic involvements," says Hugh, "is to continue surveying people to ascertain who has encounters with RUFOs and who does not." Researchers continue to observe a correlation between the degree of invitations in a person’s life to demonic attacks (séance, Ouija boards, astrology, witchcraft, palm or psychic reading). One reason why research scientists may be reluctant to say specifically that demons exist behind the RUFOs is because that answer points too directly to a Christian interpretation of the problem.

Reasons to Believe is an interdenominational ministry that communicates the basis for belief in the Bible as the true Word of God.
www.reasons.org

Sorry I am not familar with this term Could you please explain and where they/it is mentioned in the Bible?

Gen 6:4 There were giants [05303] in the earth [0776] in those days [03117]; and also after [0310] that [03651], when [0834] the sons [01121] of God [0430] came in [0935] (8799) unto the daughters [01323] of men [0120], and they bare [03205] (8804) [children] to them, the same [01992] [became] mighty men [01368] which [were] of old [05769], men [0582] of renown [08034].

Taking 5303 from above:

05303 n@phiyl {nef-eel'} or n@phil {nef-eel'}

from 05307; TWOT - 1393a; n m

AV - giant 3; 3

1) giants, the Nephilim

From the Hebrew word Naphal:

05307 naphal {naw-fal'}

a primitive root; TWOT - 1392; v

AV - fail 318, fall down 25, cast 18, cast down 9, fall away 5, divide 5, overthrow 5, present 5, lay 3, rot 3, accepted 2, lie down 2, inferior 2, lighted 2, lost 2, misc 22; 434

1) to fall, lie, be cast down, fail
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to fall
1a2) to fall (of violent death)
1a3) to fall prostrate, prostrate oneself before
1a4) to fall upon, attack, desert, fall away to , go away to, fall into the hand of
1a5) to fall short, fail, fall out, turn out, result
1a6) to settle, waste away, be offered, be inferior to
1a7) to lie, lie prostrate
1b) (Hiphil)
1b1) to cause to fall, fell, throw down, knock out, lay prostrate
1b2) to overthrow
1b3) to make the lot fall, assign by lot, apportion by lot
1b4) to let drop, cause to fail (fig.)
1b5) to cause to fall
1c) (Hithpael)
1c1) to throw or prostrate oneself, throw oneself upon
1c2) to lie prostrate, prostrate oneself
1d) (Pilel) to fall

Nefil - fallen
im - ones

So the sons of God came for the daughters of men. The sons of God are angels. Where did they come from?:

Jud 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

They left their "own habitation".

Like I said, whether this is the classical sense of an extraterrestrial or simply spiritual beings, I don't know. But it looks like there is a chance for them to be the extraterrestrial as we think of them.

Actually, once you eliminate those objects that are only unidentifiable to the observer but not to a trained expert (aircraft, atmospheric phenomena, celestial objects), then I believe that the probability is very high that those few incidents left over (RUFOs) will eventually be found to either be incidents of classified military research or else a few odd types of geophysical phenomena that have not yet been scientifically discovered and studied.

As a Christian, I am open to the demon explanation, and perhaps there is some of that as well. More likely, however, there are still a few phenomena out there that our scientists haven't yet discovered, and very likely a whole lot of secret hardware that's been tested over the years, but that nobody is EVER going to admit in public.

As a Christian, the mere proposition that there might possibly be a few other planets out there in the universe capable of supporting life, and that God might have even created life on some of them, is not particularly bothersome. However, the necessity for such planets to be largely -- but not completely -- covered by oceans and an atmosphere that is not excessively toxic or pressurized (like Venus's) imposes a stringent set of constraints on planetary size and orbital location that would limit the number of possible planets to a very tiny fraction of all existing planets, even though it now appears that planetary systems are fairly common. To this must also be added the fact that unless the planetary system is located in the outer margins of a galaxy (as is ours), the radiation levels from the mass of stars in the center of the galaxy would be lethal to life, further limiting the number of possible candidate planets. Thus, we are truly talking about just a few planets, not the "milions and millions" that Carl Sagan and his fans would have us believe.

Added to this, there is no reason to suppose that the existence of life on another planet necessarilly must result in the existence of intelligent life. As a Christian, I have to believe that absent God's special intervention, it is in fact impossible that such would exist. But even if you fully buy into the evolutionist thinking, there is no reason to believe that intelligence is an inevitable outcome of biological evolution. Thus, even if intelligent life on other planets exists, it must be extremely rare.

Thus, even if such intelligent life could exist, it would be so few and far between that the cosmic distances would be so vast as to likely preclude any possible contact. Science fiction notwithstanding, science fact is constrained by the fact that it is not possible to travel at the speed of light without being pure energy, and that any living or even just robotic payload would thus necessarilly be constrained to traveling at a mere fraction of the speed of light. This would seem to me to necessarilly limit any interstellar research device to a radius of perhaps a few hundred light years at the very most -- too small a radius to allow for any contact with another intelligent life form, excepting an extremely forituitous happenstance. I can't imagine any society, no matter how advanced in its intelligence, that would be willing or able to launch a robotic probe that would travel through space for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, and then radio back its findings. The likelihood that something would go wrong in the interim, causing the device to fail, would just be too great. Also, the likelihood would be that future technological advances would make the device obsolete. Then again, how could they even be certain that anyone would be around by then, or would remember to listen in, or would still be able to understand the message? It is even more improbable that any intelligent being would volunteer for interstellar voyage of more than just a few light years, for the voyage would necessarilly have to become a multi-generational one. The original volunteers would never see their objective, let alone return to their home planet. Nor, for that matter, would their offspring. Any such intelligent beings would inevitably have difficult ethical problems with such a proposition. Such long voyages, in fact, would only possibly be contemplated if colonization of another planet were the objective. If the target planet is uninhabited by other intelligent life froms, such a voyage might perhaps be contemplated. However, the idea that any society of intelligent beings is going to send a massive fleet of ships across vast cosmic distances in a voyage that will take multiple generations, and then expect their descendants to successfully fight a war of anhilation against the entire target planet's population, is pure science fiction, and nonsense at that.

Sorry, but it is unlikely that they are out there, and it is certainly impossible that they have come HERE.

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