Bartholomew's Notes

The Peru Tribune (via Religion News Blog) reports on Christian apologists going boldly where few have gone before, and asking the question:

What if UFOs were really angels and demons?

Actually, this idea has been around in Christian fundamentalist circles for a while, and one book on the subject has been promoted on WorldNetDaily (the opposite idea, that demons were actually aliens, inspired Spock’s ears in Star Trek; Leonard Nimoy baulked at a tail, though). But three Christian apologists (with a lot to apologise for) have produced a new presentation on the topic:

The movie is a companion to “Lights in the Sky & Little Green Men” by astronomer Hugh Ross, philosopher/theologian Kenneth Samples and national security expert Mark Clark.

…between one and five percent of UFO sightings or abductions cannot be explained…These the authors called residual UFOs. Ross said abductions are suspect because the experiments done on people are not based on good science and it does not appear the aliens are that much more technologically advanced, as they should be.

For example, in the 1950s people said they were visited by beings from the moon, Ross said. Later when more was learned about the moon the aliens were from Venus, then Mars and later Jupiter and Saturn.

So could it be that people were imagining stuff, based on sci-fi movies and pulp fiction? Nope:

“The intent was on deceiving us and the science knowledge was inaccurate,” Ross said.

…Samples believes alien abductions and UFO sightings have occult origins and only people who have participated in occult activity have these UFO experiences. Examples of occult activity can include involvement in astrology, using tarot cards or a Ouija board, being a medium between the living and the dead, divination or predicting the future.

The reasoning is brilliant: demons wished to deceive the world about science, so they decided that the best way to do this was to persuade some flaky New Agers that there are aliens on the moon. When that belief was shown to be inaccurate, that somehow served a masterplan of scientific disinformation. And although the news report does not spell it out, I think we can safely guess that this is all somehow leading towards an explanation for why PZ Myers gets more respect from intelligent people than Ken Ham. The credulous report concludes:

For more information on or to purchase the movie “The RUFO Hypothesis,” log onto www.reasons.org.

Reasons.org is Hugh Ross’s organisation. The trinity of space cadets behind the movie is also connected to NAVPRESS, which provides handy short biogs:

HUGH ROSS earned a B.Sc. in physics from the University of British Columbia and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Toronto. He directs the efforts of Reasons To Believe, an institute founded to research and proclaim the factual basis for faith in God and His Word, the Bible. Dr. Ross has authored many books, including The Creator and the Cosmos and The Genesis Question.

KENNETH SAMPLES holds undergraduate degrees in philosophy and social science and a master’s degree in theological studies. He is currently vice president of Philosophical and Theological Apologetics at Reasons To Believe and an adjunct instructor of philosophy and religion. Kenneth is also the founder and president of the Augustine Institute, a nonprofit educational center for philosophical and religious studies.

MARK CLARK received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Southern California. He is a professor of political science and the chair of that department, as well as director of the National Security Studies program at California State University, San Bernardino. Mark is an adjunct fellow at the Claremont Institute and a consultant to TRW on strategic nuclear forces.

Mark Perakh discusses Hugh Ross here. Samples (or “Professor Kenneth Richard Samples, Founder”, as he prefers) actually runs the Augustine Fellowship Study Center – the Augustine Institute is an unrelated Roman Catholic organisation. And Mark Clark’s university page can be seen here, although links to his selected works and course syllabi are sadly broken (the page is still worth looking at, for the scary photo). I suppose it#s good that his presence must make the Claremont Institute look silly, but his association with TRW is somewhat worrying…

But I shouldn’t mock. As Criswell says in Plan 9 from Outer Space: “Can you prove it didn’t happen?”

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