Are UFOs signs of the Apocalypse? Though there is no evidence to suggest it, ever since the phenomenon arrived in 1947, some have seen it as proof that we live in the end times, before the Second Coming. An exploratory study reveals that UFOs within a religious framework may be a very dangerous thing.

Speculation about what precisely the UFO phenomenon is, is very much "helped" by the fact that the phenomenon is like a blank canvas. Various theories have been painted upon it. One which is now relatively out of vogue, is the connection between UFOs and the "End of Times" - the biblical end of times. And hence, the UFO phenomenon is placed within a religious, even apocalyptic, framework.
UFO author Dr. Frank B. Salisbury wrote: "I'm worried about the religious implications of UFOs not because I'm a scientist but because I'm religious. The Scriptures, which I accept as the Word of God, talk about a time when Jesus Christ will return in the clouds of heaven as a prelude to his reign of over 1000 years of earthly peace. Could the UFOs be forerunners of this new millennium? I don't want to sound like an Old Testament prophet, but UFOs could also be manifestations of the forces of evil. The Scriptures are full of prophecies that evil would abound in the last days before Christ's return, and obviously any display that tended to lead the observer away from God, or toward a false god, would serve the ends of the forces of evil. I don't know the answer, but I would certainly like to understand UFOs theologically as well as scientifically."

This theme has been expanded by Nelson S. Pacheco and Tommy R. Blann in "Unmasking the Enemy. Visions around the world and global deception in the end times." Here is their hypothesis.
"At the risk of sounding ambivalent, let us first admit that the UFO phenomenon is multifaceted. Many things can and do produce UFO reports - the majority of which are the misidentification of natural phenomena and earth-based technology. Yes, even swamp gas is responsible for some reports. There is also evidence of some elaborate hoaxes. No one theory or belief can explain all UFO reports, because many factors are involved and one cannot place all UFO reports under a single theory or category.
Nevertheless, we propose that the ‘reality' behind the UFO phenomenon, the very essence of it, is neither extraterrestrial spacecraft nor misidentification of natural phenomena or man-made technology. Instead, it is due to a manifestation of non-human preternatural consciousness - for the purpose of deception - that can interact with our physical environment and with our human consciousness to produce visual, physical, and psychological effects. The artificial construct created by this consciousness mimics our three-dimensional objects and systems and even our religious imagery - the purpose being to slowly condition our minds through subtle deception to accept a false belief, while undermining our rational thought processes and our human spirit. These manifestations have seduced many flesh-and-blood allies, who in turn are drawing millions into a death spiral of lies, trickery, criminal activity, and even death. The evil nature of the phenomenon begins to unveil itself in the many alleged abductions that have taken place."
Hence, Pacheco and Blann argue that UFOs are messengers of deception - the army of Satan, the false signs seen in the heavens, about which several people have warned, including the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Fatima in 1917. They continue.

These are, of course, very religious, rather than scientific conclusion, an observation the authors realised, explaining: "We realize that we can not prove any of these conclusions in a strictly scientific forum, for human science is confined to the directly observable universe. Likewise, we realize that many will dismiss our hypothesis out of hand because of its spiritual nature."

They then provided an insight into their thinking, as to why they arrived at this conclusion. "Perhaps our most important conclusion is what we no longer believe. We no longer believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin. We no longer believe that there is a grandiose international government conspiracy to hide the truth, even if some individuals or groups within governments like to play such games. Governments may have more data than civilian UFO organizations, but we no longer believe that they know any more than the rest of us about what is really happening. Nevertheless, governments become nervous about revealing the fact that they can't explain this phenomenon."
Specifically, they did not believe the notion that there was a "global conspiracy": "As is evident from the many unauthorized releases of classified and otherwise secured information (e.g., the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate conspiracy, the KH-11 reconnaissance satellite manual), it is very difficult to maintain secrets. Yet, proponents of the government conspiracy theory would have us believe that the government has been sitting on the most phenomenal story since recorded history, a visitation by extraterrestrials, for over 40 years. According to this theory, the government is even supposedly holding a collection of humanoids and debris. This in spite of UFOs doing everything they can to make themselves known to the general public.
Even if some will accept this unlikely hypothesis, and credit the US government with incredibly tight security, how about all of the other governments? Let us not forget that UFOs are not only an American phenomenon: they are worldwide. Some governments even have policies of officially accepting the authenticity of UFOs. And yet there still is not a single humanoid paraded out by these governments, or any disclosure of data that is not already known to UFOlogists."
Like Mulder in "The X Files", when he is put on the stand, he has no supporting evidence for "the truth" - that 2012 marks the arrival of an alien, occupying force. But he is nevertheless one hundred percent sure.

Pacheco and Blann published their conclusions in the early 1990s. Since 1997, the UFO phenomenon has been largely placed on the backburner, as the promised "revelation", the end of the cover-up, did not materialise. September 11, 2001 and America's subsequent period of mourning, in which the government could not be attacked (contrary to the 1990s, with thousands of people demanding that the government ended its UFO secrecy), pushed UFOs and "the cover-up" on a backburner.
With distrust in the US government on par with popular dissent over the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and 1970s, but with America now much more religious than in those days, UFOs might make a comeback. If they do, one should wonder - fear - whether the extra-terrestrial hypothesis may not be substituted for a religious, apocalyptic hypothesis.

The religious framework of the UFO phenomenon has never been far away. Reverend Barry H. Downing, a pastor of the Northminster Presbyterian Church in Endwell, New York, wrote "The Bible and Flying Saucers" in 1968, arguing that the burning bush of Exodus was a UFO.
Recently, the apparitions of Fatima have been reinterpreted by some as being part of a series of UFO sightings. Jacques Vallée and Paul Misraki were some of the early researchers who argued for this possibility, but Joaquim Fernandes and Fina d'Armada, two Portuguese historians, challenged themselves to prove these claims, and after six years of intensive effort they succeeded in assembling an impressive body of documentation and testimonial evidence that suggests a new hypothesis to explain the so-called "Virgin Mary apparitions".
In the new UFO paradigm, the greys may become the "forces of evil", whereas such apparitions of the Virgin may become the "forces of good", both of which are manifesting themselves within a UFO framework - but whereby the UFO framework is no longer about ET, but religious in nature.

There are straightforward parallels to make between a UFO and the "solar phenomenon" of October 13, 1917 at Fatima. J. Fernandes and F. d' Armada studied this phenomenon and learned that all of those who witnessed it were within a band of 70 meters wide. This band, oriented south-north, contained all the witnesses who reported secondary effects only experienced during the time of the "solar phenomenon", that is to say at the moment when the "solar object" descended in a terrifying parabola over the crowd of 60,000 people. The effects felt were:
1. a sudden and intense heat;
2. drying of clothing and of the soil;
3. physiological effects or "miraculous cures".
The authors then drew the obvious comparison: if one was not told that this accompanied the apparition of the Virgin Mary, what conclusion would one draw? Indeed, people would conclude that these people had witnessed a mass UFO sighting. And the effects the phenomenon had on them overlaps with many reports of close proximity to UFOs, which several UFO researchers have linked to microwave radiation. The two Portuguese investigators made that same link.

Within a religious framework, it is worth noting that the ideas of Carl Jung on UFOs may come in "handy". Jung noted that Jesus Christ appeared at the time when one zodiacal age came to and end and the Age of Pisces began. The next change, which is now "imminent", will be the Age of Aquarius. When confronted with the existence of the UFO phenomenon, Jung wrote a book on the subject, stating that in his opinion, the UFO experience was a symptom of the end of an age. Jung contended that during these periods, the psychic changes upon the population as a whole invoked a variety of occurrences, like mysterious objects in the sky and apparitions. He saw them as manifestations of the archetypes, which would either help us guide through, or push us into, a new frame of mind, required for this new zodiacal age.
Let us also not forget how UFO sightings in the 1990s in Mexico, specifically in and around Mexico City, were linked with the end of the Mayan Calendar, December 22, 2012 AD.

Jung thus made a connection between UFOs and the "End of Time" - an apocalypse of the traditional values - as many others have seen it since, as Jung drew these conclusions as early as 1959.
Already, a number of researchers and observers have chosen to see in the "grey aliens" the forces of evil - the demons. They draw parallels to medieval times, when these forces were said to enter the bedrooms of (mostly) women and "violated them" - sometimes even taking these women with them to their demonic realms, for further sexual torment. They were the creatures of the night - to be feared. It is remarkable that the abduction stories of Betty Andreasson Luca, documented in a series of books by Raymond Fowler, have not been used for drawing religious conclusions. Andreasson Luca is a devout Christian and though Fowler's books do not endorse a specific religious message, details from her hypnotic sessions could easily provide the foundation to place her experiences within a religious context. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before someone does so.

Today, it is not so much aliens, but the UFO phenomenon itself that is placed on ice. In 2002, the British magazine "Fortean Times" wondered whether UFOlogy was dead. Five years onwards, the jury is still out. Compared to the 1990s, the phenomenon is definitely less alive, in a coma, or perhaps merely hibernating. If it ever were to recover from its slumber, it is to be expected that ten years post the heydays of the phenomenon, few will continue where they left off.
If anything, the UFO hibernation of today is the result of the fact that the hope of 1997 never materialised. For the UFO phenomenon to regain any vitality, a paradigm shift within the phenomenon itself will have to occur. Dare one predict that the new paradigm might be a religious framework?

If that were the case, the new debate will focus on whether these are the forces of evil or good. But unlike the 1990s, the new paradigm will pose a genuine fear. For the first five decades of this phenomenon, the foundation of the UFO phenomenon was whether or not UFOs were extraterrestrial. It preached to a niche market, as it was seen as the logical next step of the science fiction evolution, and largely part of that interest group. Pick any UFO researcher, and you will find that he is also an expert in obscure sci-fi collections, ranging from rare cartoons to hard-to-find sci-fi DVDs, or superhero toys.
If the UFO phenomenon ever were to become redefined within a religious framework, it will have left this niche, and will become integrated within society as a whole: it will become part of religious debates. If the future of the UFO phenomenon were ever to become as such, that is where real dangers lie. Already, the 1990s saw several warnings, in the collective suicides that occurred both in Europe and the US, whereby the talk of riding on flying saucers was listed, for whatever reason, as the primary reason behind the suicides.
UFOs within a religious framework will also put the question of physical evidence on the backburner; in the case of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, physical evidence is secondary; belief is primary, and the message of the Virgin is more important than the physical examination of the soil on which she stood, which will be treated not as material to be studied, but to be treated as a holy relic.
Secondly, the sociological and psychological impact on experiencers, specifically those labelled UFO abductees, will become a cause for concern. As in medieval times, they might be seen as witches, which will single them out for persecution, as they are possessed by demons, or identified as in need of "our help", to bring an end to such demonic possession.
If the above scenarios ever were to occur, it is fair to argue that the UFO researchers haven't seen anything yet.

> Excerpted from the REAL NEWSpaper, June 17, 2007 edition. For a subscription, click on Subscription, from the Main Menu.