Jesus in a Saucer: More Memes from Chronic Skepticism

I recently wrote about a new “meme” pursued and disseminated with persistence by chronic skeptics; the idea that the term UFO really means aliens from outer space. (”A New Meme: We All Know UFO Really Means Aliens From Outer Space.”)

I’ve noticed another meme that is eagerly transmitted by anti-UFOists (and a few supposedly pro-UFO people) and that is ‘UFOs are/as a religion.’

While many of us UFO people are trying our best to put on end to the question (and all its variants) “Do you believe in UFOs?” the chronic skeptics continue to use the word “belief” as either a prefix or a suffix to UFO. Having done that, they move on to “UFOs” as a “religion.”

Which makes it all the easier to not take any of it seriously, since UFOs are a religion, and who takes religion seriously? Only the superstitious, the fanatics, the deluded. At best, religious people are faith based, and so, no sense in “arguing” with them, since their “beliefs” are based on faith. At least, that’s what the chronic skeptics will tell you on any skeptic forum. And at its worst, religious people are fanatics, zealots, ignorant, tyrants and fascists, so we get to pick on them. Since UFO “believers” are really only a new type of “religious” person, they’re fair game.

This new framing allows skeptics to either ignore UFO “believers,” for those who “believe” in UFOs are poor dears who have only faith to cling to, or it allow the skeptics to be willfully ignorant and disingenuous when it comes to UFOlogy, for UFO “believers” are religious nuts. Both allow the chronic skeptic to behave very badly, as well as remain forever stuck in their own persistent defiance against the fact that there really is something -- a hell of a lot in fact -- to UFOs.

The fact that there are some who “believe” in various UFO and ET systems does not justify this meme. No one denies this aspect of UFOlgy; in fact, many UFO researchers have written on the religious or spiritual directions some individuals and UFO inspired organizations have taken. It’s no secret. The Raelians, the Contactees, many who’ve interpreted their experiences within a religious context, (usually Christian) or come up with a New Age religion, -- where the wiser, kinder, supernatural being comes to save us -- are nothing new and not a surprise to anyone studying the UFO phenomena. However, to insist that this is representative of UFOlogy, as this chronic sketpic meme does, is inaccuate, even dishonest.

A twist on this meme is to say that even those without a religious interpretation or take on UFOs are still “believers” and still “religious” for the very fact they’re involved in studying UFOs at all. Accusations fly from the blogs, websites, books, and forums of the chronic skeptic, that anyone seriously studying and writing about UFOs are desperately seeking a religion. They use religious similes and metaphors to bolster their belief that we are “believers.”

I don’t “believe” in UFOs. As I’ve written before, you can’t believe in a UFO, anymore than you can a toaster. (And as we’ve seen, the chronic, cranky skeptic will argue that “we know what a toaster looks like . . .”) I am of the firm opinion, knowing that I could be wrong, that aliens are here, and have been for a very long time. I think that based on research; but it’s not “faith” since I fall back on research and thought, not a book someone told me was “the truth.” I don’t pray to ET, or perform rites in order to rack up points for some sort of spacey reward. And if they are here (or anywhere) I don’t put much trust or faith in them and in fact, am suspect of their motives. They aren’t here to save our sorry warring greedy asses, that’s for sure.

Not all UFOs are extraterrestrial; they might be of this earth. Here’s something to make a chronic skeptic sputter: they might be of earth, but not man made. Meaning, some other entities, not extraterrestrial, but “ultra - terrestrial” or “crypto” terrestrial.” (For the record, I don’t “believe” in them either; if they do exist, they aren’t here to do us any favors. ) UFOs are many things: ETs, and/or “other,” man made objects of fairly prosaic nature, classified covert op type of stuff, misidentifications of natural phenomeana, hoaxes, etc. No where in those possibilites lives a god like being who is coming to save me and give me eternal life.

Whatever it is up there, it isn’t Jesus in a saucer.