The debate over whether divine entities really exist or if figures such as Anansi, Yahweh or Brigid are our own creations continues to rage on. However, adherents to UFO religions take this concept of non-human higher beings a step further, centering their belief systems around the core idea that humans can and do communicate with extraterrestrials. UFO religions are either light years ahead of their time or serve as an interesting testament to an almost universal human desire to believe in something greater than ourselves.
How the Roswell Incident Impacted Our Culture
Some who heard about the strange objects spotted in the night sky on June 14, 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, did not believe the initial United States Air Force reports insisting that these were the result of a malfunctioning weather balloon. Speculation about the sightings eventually developed into several narratives, all of which propose that a vessel of extraterrestrial origin plummeted to Earth and that the being inside was discovered by government officials. This alleged crash landing of an alien spacecraft in Roswell is regarded as a cultural flashpoint in many ways.
Although there are still accusations that federal officials engaged in a massive cover-up to conceal the existence of alien life, these aren’t the only aftereffects of the supposed Roswell incident. Intense interest in life beyond our planet has been evident in pop culture artifacts such as H. G. Wells’ serialized 1897 novel “The War of the Worlds.” There was also an explosion in television programs, films, comic books and pulp novels about space exploration and aliens following the Roswell incident. However, these works also coincided with a heightened global interest in space exploration.
UFO Religions After Roswell
The middle of the 20th century saw the genesis of several belief systems focusing on teachings reportedly dispensed by enlightened extraterrestrials. One of the first was the Aetherius Society, formed in 1955 by an Englishman named George King. Australian News.com writer Nathan Jolly explains that the group’s core tenets include the idea that entities with advanced intelligence, including gods such as Krishna and spiritual figures like Jesus and Buddha, come from the higher dimensions of planets such as Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.
You may also remember news stories about Heaven’s Gate, the group that committed mass suicide in 1997 on the orders of its founder, Marshall Applewhite. As a 2017 Rolling Stone article reminds us, Applewhite claimed to be Jesus Christ and led his followers to believe that God was an alien. Sadly, Heaven’s Gate members killed themselves for a strange, senseless reason: to flee a doomed planet Earth on a spacecraft traveling near the Hale-Bopp comet.
Two “Mainstream” UFO Faiths
Aetherius and Heaven’s Gate are just a couple of examples, but you might be surprised to know that the Nation of Islam and Scientology are sometimes classified as UFO religions. The Nation’s first leader, Elijah Muhammed, claimed that a “Motherplane” existed that resembled the book of Ezekiel’s “wheel within a wheel” description. Meanwhile, Scientology posits several bizarre assertions:
- Human souls exist as “thetans,” which are reimplanted into a new incarnation on the planet Venus.
- People accumulate traumatic memories from past lives on Earth and in extraterrestrial societies.
- This past trauma causes physical and mental disorders, which can be solved by a process known as “auditing.”
Whether in fictional universes such as in “Doctor Who” or in religions such as the Aetherius Society or Scientology, our creations testify to the willingness to look past our physical world and put faith in seemingly impossible things. Although we may never be able to definitively prove whether aliens or gods do exist, the lack of evidence will not stop many from continuing to speculate, dream and believe.