IN THE MARKET FOR A COSMIC CONNECTION? YOUR PERFECT MATCH MIGHT BE FOUR FEET TALL AND GRAY
Sure, it’s fun to think about space aliens. We know extraterrestrials are entertaining, but do we — and should we — take the question of whether intelligent extraterrestrials exist seriously? And yes, it matters that the extraterrestrial life in question is intelligent. Images of a slime mold from Proxima Centauri b, while a dream-come-true for some scientists, wouldn’t be something most people would consider worth writing home about.
For some people, the question of intelligent extraterrestrials is just as important as the question of God’s existence. Others, when asked, say it’s a complete waste of time. For brevity, I’ll mention only six ways of thinking about the question; we’ll call them positions.
People in position one believe we’ve already answered the question. These individuals claim that experiencers worldwide have been — and continue to be— visited by extraterrestrial spacecraft and, in some cases, by their pilots. There’s no use asking most of these people about evidence because they’ll say that if the space alien visitors didn’t cover it up, the Men in Black (government operatives) did. One person who doesn’t default to this kind of cover-up hypothesis is astrophysicist Avi Loeb. In his book Interstellar, Loeb argues (without much support from the scientific community) that the object astronomers call 1I/ʻOumuamua is an extraterrestrial spacecraft and not an asteroid.
People in position two believe that God created the universe for humans, and that, apart from God and the supernatural beings in His realm, it contains no other natural inhabitants, intelligent or otherwise.
People in position three argue that our existence is the product of so many improbable natural events that the likelihood of such a thing happening again anywhere in the universe is nil or practically nil. They say we should instead use our minds, money, and technology to connect with humans and other Earth animals: beings we know for sure exist.
People in position four argue that we should learn about any intelligent extraterrestrials that may exist to protect ourselves if they prove malicious.
People in position five argue that we should learn about any intelligent extraterrestrials that may exist so they can teach us about the universe and help us on our journey from cavemen to interstellar travelers.
People in position six argue that we should learn about any intelligent extraterrestrials that may exist simply because we’re cosmic neighbors.
While I identify most closely with position three in the schema above, I nevertheless regard the question of intelligent extraterrestrials as highly important. Whether intelligent extraterrestrials exist, the belief that they do — held by hundreds of millions of people — is so widespread that we might now consider it a religion. Here’s what ufologist Jacques Vallée had to say about it in his 1988 book Dimensions:
I think the stage is set for the appearance of new faiths centered on the UFO belief. To a greater degree than all the phenomena modern science is confronting, the UFO can inspire awe, the sense of the smallness of man, and an idea of the possibility of contact with the cosmic.
While I remain skeptical of both God and intelligent extraterrestrials, especially the visiting kind, I find humanity’s quest to find both entities endlessly fascinating and species-defining. I approach the extraterrestrial hypothesis not from a ufology perspective but from a religious studies angle.
I aim to understand why belief in the extraterrestrial hypothesis (the notion that UFOs are alien spacecraft) persists despite the null results of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and a frustrating lack of scientific-grade evidence for extraterrestrial visits. Regarding the latter, I believe that the cover-up hypothesis isn’t worth taking seriously, as it can be used to justify belief in anything one can imagine. The cover-up hypothesis shows the lengths to which we’ll go to make the extraterrestrial hypothesis appear correct.
Religions may or may not describe realms and beings that outsiders to their faith consider real. Since science can’t test religious claims, it must remain agnostic about them. Aside from ancient Taoism and Zen, every religion of which I’m aware insists that we humans are not alone: we have intellectual company of one sort or another. Of course, we share the planet with myriad life forms, some of estimable intelligence. However, we may argue that none of our fellow Earthlings share our level of intellect; in other words, they’re unlikely to understand that they inhabit a planet floating in space.
In religious narratives, humans interact with intelligent beings, many of whom are significantly more intelligent and powerful than we are; some are believed to be so potent that they’re thought to have created us. Through various religiously prescribed behaviors, we appeal to these beings for esoteric knowledge, protection, and, in the case of space aliens, technological booty so advanced that it may as well be magic.
C.S. Lewis spoke to our habit of glorifying religious beings:
I cannot conceive how one would get through the boredom of a world in which you never met anyone more clever, or more beautiful, or stronger than yourself.
In this passage from The Search for God, Lewis is doubtlessly thinking about God and His angels. Still, he might have been writing about extraterrestrials as we tend to imagine them: big-brained, lithe, and equipped with technology so far beyond our understanding that it stupefies us.
What does it say about us that this anthropomorphic savior theme appears in both traditional and UFO religions? We obviously have a persistent need for the company of others whom we perceive as similar to us, but — and this is essential — superior to us. In our grandest hopes for an alien connection, we’re hypergamists, seeking communion with beings who can give our cosmic climbing a hand up.
Not many people know about the word hypergamy, but most have heard of dating up. They’re the same thing. The idea behind dating up is to associate with persons of higher social rank, on the belief that we are the company we keep. Why, from the religionists’ point of view, should the social milieu not extend to the most uppity of upper realms, whether they’re revealed by scripture or by the James Webb Space Telescope? As Matthew 6:10 reminds us, “What is done on Earth, is done in Heaven.”
If intelligent beings inhabit the universe (or multiverse), we’re especially interested in finding and getting on good terms with the most knowledgeable, most potent, and most morally perfected of them. Christians believe they’ve already accomplished this. Many so-called UFO experiencers think they have as well. However much they may have resisted at first, they’ve made peace with a superior cosmic presence whose mission is to save humanity from the evil of its ways. In the case of UFO religion, this rescue narrative is sometimes referred to as the alien gospel, the word gospel meaning good news.
In 1902, American psychologist and philosopher William James published The Varieties of Religious Experience, in which he used a psycho-social lens to examine mental states commonly associated with religion. Given how incompletely we understand the workings of individual human minds and the collective behavior of large groups, psychology and sociology still have much to illuminate regarding the persistence of the extraterrestrial hypothesis and the rise of UFO religion.
Indeed, astronomical, meteorological, aeronautical, and optical components may be involved in many, if not most, sightings. These natural phenomena, imperfectly seen and understood, may thereafter carry symbolic projections, as proposed by Carl Jung in his 1959 book Flying Saucers. For example, consider the so-called face on Mars, whose low-resolution images served as a convenient carrier for the myth of a Martian civilization until higher-resolution images were obtained by later-generation technology in subsequent decades. This myth-making process is no less fascinating than the extraterrestrial hypothesis itself.
Just as believers in traditional religions often find psycho-social explanations of their beliefs and practices patronizing, we should expect the practitioners of UFO religions to chafe at attempts to explain their experiences in mundane terms. Reflexively, they may cite what they consider concrete evidence for the extraterrestrial hypothesis: sightings and purported abductions. In this regard, they’re not unlike believers in traditional religions who insist that events they interpret as miracles prove the existence of God.
Believers in the extraterrestrial hypothesis may justify the existence of intelligent space aliens using the law of very large numbers (which holds that anything that can happen will happen given enough opportunities) or the Drake equation, a calculation developed by radio astronomer Frank Drake to estimate the likelihood of intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. Such arguments, viewed from a skeptical distance, look much the same as the supposed philosophical proofs of God’s existence: sophisticated, though nevertheless assailable, arguments drawn up to justify continued belief in the face of uncertainty.
Hoping for Mr. or Mrs. Right, many daters stand accused of entertaining untenable rescue fantasies when self-sufficiency and realistic expectations would be more prudent. Still, many would rather hope beyond hope than, to invoke Lewis again, “get through the boredom of a world in which you never met anyone more clever, or more beautiful, or stronger than yourself.”
When it comes to religion, our hypergamy knows no bounds, extending to — and, in the case of God and the multiverse, beyond — the limits of the observable universe.
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Previously Published on Medium
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