Are we alone?

Although it has been and gone, 2 July 2021 was World UFO Day. Not much appears to happen on World UFO Day, other than for dedicated alien watchers to gather together and watch the skies for unidentified flying objects.

At present, many are convinced that an alien invasion is imminent. In fact, a recent survey in the United Kingdom found that six in 10 people believe it’s only a matter of time before Earth becomes the target of an alien invasion. Additionally, 63% say they would welcome an alien if they saw one land nearby and one in 20 people claim they have already seen an alien. Many years ago Josef Blumrich wrote a book titled The Spaceships of Ezekiel. He put forward the theory that Ezekiel chapter 1 is describing spaceships and extraterrestrial beings!

Although we affirm that the Bible does not speak about aliens, it does tell us about visitors from another world – the spiritual world. Since the beginning, instances of demons (fallen angels) visiting the Earth have been witnessed and recorded. We know from Eve’s encounter with Satan that demons are interested in monitoring (and altering) the progress of humanity. They want to be involved, with the goal of drawing humanity away from the worship of God and turning mankind’s attention to them (whatever form that takes).

For a while now, many Christians have asked if the end times would include an alien deception. The Bible doesn’t directly address the issue, but it is certainly plausible, particularly given that the Antichrist will firstly need to explain why hundreds of millions of people have suddenly disappeared at the rapture of the church. After all, Paul (in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12) notes that “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Another scenario that secular scientists are toying with is the idea of a multiverse. This is popularised in the hit TV show The Flash. In short, the multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information and the physical laws and constants that describe them. Essentially, they are thought to be “parallel universes” where life exists in a similar way and pattern to Earth, just on a different planet. In fact, in the aforementioned TV show, fictionalised characters are shown to exist in the same form on each of the different “planets” whilst obviously exhibiting different personality traits. Think of it as meeting a twin you never thought you had who lives on a different planet. But in The Flash, there is not just one other Earth, but many. This is no longer a fringe theory. In fact, two years ago in the highly-regarded Forbes magazine, an article was published with the title: This is why the multiverse must exist.

Regardless of the specific details of how this deception might unfold, we must recognise that the ultimate goal of our enemy is to destroy the image of God in people. It is to infuse fear and selfishness into human character. Satan wants to destroy genuine godly love from our hearts and minds, to destroy our individuality and to take away our liberty and our freedom to think and to act.

Whether Satan manifests his plan in this way or not, we recognise that what we need to do is think for ourselves, fix our eyes on Christ, present the truth in love and pray that more will come to a saving knowledge of the Saviour, not fall for the lies of the destroyer.