Rev. Barry Downing - The Religious Implications of the UFO Phenomenon

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted with him in 2001 in Irvine, California, Rev. Barry Downing (the author of The Bible and Flying Saucers) talks about how various Christian religious traditions view the UFO phenomenon, and how they might react if UFOs were proven to be extraterrestrial.

Paul Kimball

Rev. Barry Downing - Religion, Science and UFOs

Rev. Barry Downing, author of The Bible and Flying Saucers, discusses the difference between scientific and religious perspectives towards the UFO phenomenon in this excerpt from his lecture at the 2001 MUFON Symposium in Irvine, California, that I filmed while shooting the documentary Stanton T. Friedman is Real. 

 Paul Kimball

Rev. Kyle Wagner on The Other Side of Truth

My good friend Rev. Kyle Wagner, the Anglican rector for Seaforth Parish in Nova Scotia, joined me this week for a wide-ranging conversation about faith, spirituality, the nature of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, whether or not there is evil in the world, how and why the Church still engages in exorcisms, what happens to us after death… and some paranormal topics as well, including ghosts, the prospect of extraterrestrial life (whether here on Earth as visitors or “out there” among the stars) and how it might affect our view of ourselves and our relationship with God, and Kyle's own personal spiritual awakening.

Kyle has a Bachelor’s Degree in history and political science from Mount Allison University, and a Masters of Divinity from the Atlantic School of Theology. His occasional blog can be found here.

This episode was recorded on 4 September, 2013.

Download this episode directly here, or listen to it at The Other Side of Truth podcast here.

Paul Kimball

Paul Tillich and the Eternal Now

I made an impromptu guest appearance on Radio Misterioso this evening with my good pal Greg Bishop, and we got into a conversation about time, and timelessness, and consciousness, and the possibility of the existence of an advanced non-human intelligence, all of which led me to reference the idea of "the eternal now", which has been part of Christian theology for centuries, particularly the mystical tradition within Christianity, something I studied at length whilst a graduate student in history. However, in my opinion, the most thoughtful exposition of the concept of an "eternal now" came from the great 20th century philosopher and theologian, Paul Tillich, who I count as one of the primary influences on my own way of thinking. Greg and I discussed his work a bit on the show, in particular his work The Eternal Now, a collection of his sermons, from which I quoted at length. I highly recommend it as a work of profound importance, which should be of interest to anyone who contemplates our place in this universe, and the possibility of contact with an "other"; you can read it here.

The quote that I referenced comes from the end of chapter 11, which deals specifically with the concept of time, and an "eternal now". Here it is:

The mystery of the future and the mystery of the past are united in the mystery of the present. Our time, the time we have, is the time in which we have "presence." But how can we have "presence"? Is not the present moment gone when we think of it? Is not the present the ever-moving boundary line between past and future? But a moving boundary is not a place to stand upon. If nothing were given to us except the "no more" of the past and the "not yet" of the future, we would not have anything. We could not speak of the time that is our time; we would not have "presence."

The mystery is that we have a present; and even more, that we have our future also because we anticipate it in ‘the present; and that we have our past also, because we remember it in the present. In the present our future and our past are ours. But there is no "present" if we think of the never-ending flux of time. The riddle of the present is the deepest of all the riddles of time. Again, there is no answer except from that which comprises all time and lies beyond it -- the eternal. Whenever we say "now" or "today," we stop the flux of time for us. We accept the present and do not care that it is gone in the moment that we accept it. We live in it and it is renewed for us in every new present." This is possible because every moment of time reaches into the eternal. It is the eternal that stops the flux of time for us. It is the eternal "now" which provides for us a temporal "now." We live so long as "it is still today" -- in the words of the letter to the Hebrews. Not everybody, and nobody all the time, is aware of this "eternal now" in the temporal "now." But sometimes it breaks powerfully into our consciousness and gives us the certainty of the eternal, of a dimension of time which cuts into time and gives us our time.

People who are never aware of this dimension lose the possibility of resting in the present. As the letter to the Hebrews describes it, they never enter into the divine rest. They are held by the past and cannot separate themselves from it, or they escape towards the future, unable to rest in the present. They have not entered the eternal rest which stops the flux of time and gives us the blessing of the present. Perhaps this is the most conspicuous characteristic of our period, especially in the western world and particularly in this country. It lacks the courage to accept "presence" because it has lost the dimension of the eternal.

"I am the beginning and the end." This is said to us who live in the bondage of time, who have to face the end, who cannot escape the past, who need a present to stand upon. Each of the modes of time has its peculiar mystery, each of them carries its peculiar anxiety. Each of them drives us to an ultimate question. There is one answer to these questions -- the eternal. There is one power that surpasses the all-consuming power of time -- the eternal: He Who was and is and is to come, the beginning and the end. He gives us forgiveness for what has passed. He gives us courage for what is to come. He gives us rest in His eternal Presence.

Despite what some Biblical literalists might have you believe, Tillich clearly viewed all of this within the Christian tradition, but one does not have to accept that framework to see the merit in the general thoughts that he expressed about the idea of time and timelessness, and how it might affect our interaction with an advanced non-human intelligence that has unlocked the secrets of the "eternal now", i.e. time.

Whether we call it "God", as Tillich did, or whether we call it something else, an examination of "an other" amongst us requires more than just dogmatic scientism, or fundamental religiosity. In the end, it is an existential question, and the answer lies within each of us, and our ability to see beyond the "here and now" and into the "eternal now", in all of its possible manifestations. 

Paul Kimball

Why The Contactees Still Matter

There has always been an undertone of spirituality where the UFO phenomenon is concerned, particularly the extraterrestrial "space brother" explanation from the 1950s.

Here's an example from 1957:

In many ways, it's easy to dismiss this kind of thing completely, and most people today do exactly that. To do so is a mistake, however, for two reasons.

First, as my good friends Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop have stated over the years, the contactees might not have anything to tell us about the true nature of the UFO phenomenon (more on that below), but they do have a lot to tell us about the some of the people who are attracted to the subject. The same dynamics that were at work in the 1950s remain at work today - in a different guise perhaps, but still there nonetheless. The "sociology of the saucers" is a fascinating, and overlooked, aspect of modern American cultural history.

Second, and more important, is the possibility that at least some of the contactees had an actual encounter with a non-human intelligence. Sure, there were hoaxers, like George Adamski, but those types permeate all forms of human activity (Bernie Madoff pops to mind, in a different and more modern context). Perhaps nowhere has this been more true than in humanity's quest for "spiritual" knowledge (19th century America was rife with religious charlatans, for example), which in many respects lies at the core of people's fascination with the UFO subject - that search for "something more". 

To dismiss the experiences of all contactees simply because a number of the better-known ones were con-men is a mistake. They may in fact still have something to teach us about the nature of the UFO phenomenon, if we are willing to look deeper into the experiences as reported, and ponder what they may mean.

Paul Kimball

The New Light Experience of Henry Alline

Here is the 2000 pilot we did for a series called "Visionaries" on Vision TV, about great Canadians of faith. The series wasn't picked up, but I still love the concept, and remain an admirer of Henry Alline, the subject of the pilot episode, and I'm proud of the writing, which was based on my graduate studies in history. I've re-edited the original version in what is, I think, now a better film.

I've written about Alline here before, and referred to him on a few of my radio appearances (most recently, on The X-Zone), because I'm intrigued by the similarities between what we might now refer to as a "paranormal" experience, and what someone like Alline would have viewed through a spiritual prism. Perhaps the two have always been the same.

Here is what I wrote in a post call Wrapped Up In God... or ET? back in April, 2006:

Henry Alline, Canada's first great evangelist, and a Christian of a mystical bent, had a profound spiritual experience in the late 18th century that changed his life irrevocably, and set him on his short career as the leader of the first Great Awakening in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and eventually New England.

Here, in part, is how Alline described his experience, which occurred in 1775, and which was about as intense and transforming as one can possibly imagine, and which he attributed to the divine presence of God:

"O the infinite condescension of God to a worm of the dust! for though my whole soul was filled with love, and ravished with a divine ecstacy beyond any doubts or fears, or thoughts of being then deceived, for I enjoyed a heaven on earth, and it seemed as if i were wrapped up in God, and that he had done ten thousand times more for me than ever I could expect, or had ever thought of: yet he still stooped to the weakness of my desires and requests, made as before observed on the 13th of February; though I had no thoughts of it then, until it was given me. Looking up, I thought I saw that same light, though it appeared different, and as soon as I saw it, the design was opened to me, according to his promise, and I was obliged to cry out: enough, enough, O blessed God; the work of conversion, the change and the manifestations of it are no more disputable, than the light which I see, or any thing that I ever saw."

Of course, most people looking at this passage would say that when Alline refers to seeing a light, he was speaking metaphorically, not literally.

Or was he?

He continued:

"I will not say either of those lights with my bodily eyes, though I thought then I did, but it was no odds to me, for it was as evident to me, as any thing I ever saw with my bodily eyes (-in my Life); and answered the end it was sent for."

The excerpts above can be found at p. 63, The Journal of Henry Alline (Hantsport, Nova Scotia: Lancelot Press, 1982), which was edited by James Beverley and Barry Moody, one of my favourite history professors when I was at Acadia University, or at pp. 35 and 36 of the original, which can be viewed on-line here and here.

The phrase "though I thought then I did " gives one pause for thought. Did Alline actually see a light, and perhaps come in contact with some other intelligence, which he perceived as a religious experience (which makes sense given the era in which his experience took place)? Probably not. Almost certainly he's speaking in traditional Christian metaphor, using symbols that were common and well understood in his time. But... if so, what are the genesis of those symbols? At some point, someone must have seen a light? Or, perhaps Alline did actually see a light.

He was a prolific hymn writer as well as a preacher and theologian. Those hymns contain some imagery that - again - was almost certainly traditional Christian imagery. But... Alline did seem to have a preoccupation with variations on the "beams of light" theme. From "The Soaring Mind":

"Break Sacred Morn with beams of Light

And from My Soul Expel the Night

And Sweetly Steal my heart away

With raptures of immortal day -"

And from "Panting For The Spirit of God to Bear The Mind Away":

"Breathe on my Heart O Sacred Dove

And let me Feel Immortal Love

Inspired with One all Conquering Ray

Would Bear my Cheerfull Soul away."

I could go on and on as well about the imagery Alline uses that involves "the sky" or "realms above" or some other some variation thereof. While this was almost certainly metaphor, one wonders whether there might have been more to it than that. Yes, heaven was viewed as being "up there" and hell was seen as being "down there", so that's the most obvious (and, again, the most likely) explanation for the imagery - but why was it seen that way? Could there have been more at work than just superstition, if not for Alline, then for those who came before him and set the mold, so to speak?

I've touched on this before, because it's an aspect of the UFO phenomenon that interests me, which probably has something to do with all the time I spent studying and researching Alline and his successors as an MA student. He was a fascinating, complex, and inspirational man, whether you're religious or not.

But it goes beyond just Alline. As I have noted here before, there was a UFO sighting in the same general area where Alline lived (the Annapolis Valley region of Nova Scotia); it came in 1796, over a decade after his untimely death in 1784 at the age of 36 from tuberculosis, and two decades after his conversion experience. That sighting, which I discussed a couple of nights ago with Stan Friedman (who was unaware of it), was described by Simeon Perkins, a well-respected merchant in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, who kept a diary which has become one of the best primary sources for those studying Nova Scotia in the late 18th century:

""A Strange Story is going that Fleet of Ships have been Seen in the Air in Som part of the Bay of Fundy. Mr. Darrow is lately there by land. I enquired of him. He Says they were Said to be Seen at New Minas, at one Mr. Ratchford's, by a Girl, about Sunrise, & that the Girl being Frighted, Called out, & two men that were in the House went out & Saw the Same Sight, being 15 Ships and a Man forward of them with his hand Stretched out. The Ships made to the Eastward. They were So Near that the people Saw their Sides & ports. The Story did not obtain universal Credit, but Some people believed it. My own Opinion is that it was only in Imagination, as the Cloud at Sunrise might Make Some Such appearance, which being Improved by Imagination, might be all they Saw."

The original can be seen here.

Now, one might completely discount the potential extraterrestrial (or extradimensional) angle of Alline's experience, and one might easily discount the UFO sighting report, but when you put the two together... well, it gets just a little harder to completely discount it.

Which leads us to the experience of mystical Protestant Jane Lead in the late 17th century.

In her diary, A FOUNTAIN OF Gardens, or,A SPIRITUAL DIARY OF THE Wonderful Experiences of a CHRISTIAN SOUL, under the Conduct of the Heavenly WISDOM, Vol. III (which can be found transcribed on-line here), she recounts an experience even more "alien" (as we might call it today) than Alline's:

"February 9. 1678.

A Transport.

IN the Morning after I was awaked from Sleep, upon a sudden I was insensible of any sensibility as relating to a corporeal Being, and found my self as without the clog of an Earthly Body, being very sprightly and airy in a silent place, where some were beside my self, but I did not know them by their Figures, except one, who went out, and came in again: and there was no speaking one to another, but all did set in great silence, and I myself with my Eye fixed forward. And I did suddenly see at a pritty distance, where I was, a rich splenderous thing come down all engraven, with Colours, the Ground thereof being all of Gold. It was in the form of a large Ship with Wings, I cannot say, whether more than four, which spread themselves out, being like varnished Gold, it came down with the greatest swiftness as is imaginable. Upon which amazing sight, I asked some by me, do you not see this wonderful sight? And they said no. But I saw my self, or something like my self, leaping and dancing and greatly rejoycing to meet it. But when I came up to it, then it did as suddenly go up again, withdrawing out of all sight, unto the high Orb from whence it came. After which I found my self in my Body of Sense, as knowing I had been ranging in my Spirit from it for a while, that I might behold this great thing."

This seems to combine the ships sighted by the people at New Minas in 1796, and Henry Alline's mystical religious conversion experience in 1775, in what some would probably call an "abduction" experience today (one can only imagine what would happen, and how her story would morph into an alien experience, if Lead was somehow brought forward in time to be hypnotized by Budd Hopkins - one shudders at the thought!).

Is any of this evidence of anything? Absolutely not. In fact, we can't even be sure if Alline saw a light, much less what it was, and we don't know the names of the people who reported the ships above New Minas, and Lead's experience has any number of possible mundane explanations. However, if you do a bit of digging, you'll see that this is just the tip of the iceberg - and that there may be a relationship here that is worth looking into.

So.. is God an alien, or an extradimensional intelligence?

Or - and here's a question that most ufologists don't want to touch with a ten foot pole - are aliens and extradimensional beings God, but filtered through our own 20th (now 21st) century paradigms?

Or is there some other explanation?

Or are these things - Alline's and Lead's experience, the New Minas sighting, other pre-1947 events and experiences - unrelated to the UFO phenomenon at all?

More questions than answers, I'm afraid. But are they questions worth asking?

For my part, I say yes. I consider them intriguing questions which deserve more serious consideration, by ufologists, historians, and religious scholars, than they have gotten in the past.

However one describes it, Henry Alline had a profound experience that seems to defy explanation, and which changed his life.

Fascinating.

Paul Kimball

X-Zone tonight

A programming note: I'll be on the X-Zone radio show with Rob McConnell this evening, discussing ghosts (and Ghost Cases), consciousness, and other topics (I think religion may have come up when we pre-recorded this afternoon). I'm in the final segment, from 2 am to 3 am EST.

Paul Kimball

Stan Friedman - Religion and Flying Saucers

Podcast Powered By Podbean

In this excerpt from a lengthy pre-interview I conducted with Stan back in November, 2000 (in what was a very noisy office), he talks about the Bible and religion as it relates to his belief that the Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial beings.

Paul Kimball

Seth Shostak - "Who or What Built the Universe?"

In today's Huffington Post, Seth Shostak takes a look at the debate between science and religion over how the universe was built.

An excerpt:

The split between religion and science is relatively new. Isaac Newton, who first worked out the laws by which gravity held the planets and even the stars in their traces, was sufficiently impressed by the scale and regularity of the universe to ascribe it all to God.

Physicist Stephen Hawking, who has authored a new book on cosmology (The Grand Design), now says that Newton underestimated his own discoveries. The law of gravity is like "love" to the Beatles: it's all you need. With gravity in place, the cosmos-as-we-know-it was just a matter of hanging out for a few billion years.

However, this approach inevitably begs the question, "who designed gravity?" Isn't it remarkable that this gentle force seems so perfectly suited to the job of assembling a grand and habitable universe?

You can read the entire article here.

Paul Kimball