Losing Your Religion (or Trading it for Something Else)

As familiar and/or still less than spectacular UFO files are slowly seeing release from the U.S. government, the subject of extraterrestrial life has once again graced the aisles of religious houses of worship around the country.  This is not surprising, for there hovers a lot on the line for the world's established religions.

A more or less official public recognition of UAP/UFO existence cannot help but cause the religious to question or re-address their beliefs in a deity -- and all the steps it took historically to reach the point where congregations accepted the mind food fed to them.

Attempting to reconcile evidence of strange things in the sky, if not occasionally on the ground, with both ancient and contemporary teachings, wizards of The Faithful must be hard at work currently with the spiritual meat grinder.  Some will insist UFOs represent harbingers of miracles to come, while others see flying demons intent upon doing harm.  A significant number among the clergy would certainly interpret visions of airborne enigmas as angels.  Will reports of religious icons seemingly dripping tears or blood be replaced with sculptures of space aliens?  Let the lack of either identity or purpose serve no part among various religions in determining one's impression of the unknown.

One thing is for certain:  No matter your brand of faith, its proponents are doing everything possible as you sleep to merge doctrine in some way with whatever explanations ultimately may arise from all of this UFO talk.  Nobody wants to be left behind, and absolutely nobody wants to become as irrelevant and unappetizing as old cheese in a rat trap.

The collision of UFOs with religious beliefs is not new, of course.  As a teenager of the fifties and sixties I regularly invested (if that's the word) in books about UFOs, and among the most noteworthy on the religious side was The Bible and Flying Saucers, a thoughtful and daring book written by the Rev. Barry Downing.  Then again, if you wanted to fall off the cliff of rational thinking to clutch your faith with no holds barred, I barely recall Laura Mundo's Flying Saucers and the Father's Plan (if you embraced George Adamski and gobbled up everything printed by Saucerian Publications, this one's for you).  Oh boy.  The fact that so many books of that era relied upon the term, flying saucers, rather than UFOs hardly aided in promoting the phenomenon's public credibility, and the proliferation of generally unhinged "contactees" applied a certain kiss of death upon the topic.

As we await "the good stuff" from government files (personally, I am not optimistic about the best evidence coming forth), we can be sure that people shall continue with the need to "believe in" something, be it God, Jesus, Mohammad, Nefertiti's reincarnation, their cat or a loaf of moldy bread.  But don't "believe in" UFOs when you should instead believe solely in the evidence, the proof, however and wherever it exists.

Bits and Pieces for May 2026

A story behind the story?  I don't know, but the Internet press seems to have found a tidbit about the hero security person who died at the Los Angeles mosque while protecting children and adults.  The claim for starters is that he was allegedly grateful that Hitler killed the Jews.  Oh boy, here we go. If true, maybe the hero thing comes off a bit tarnished.

Me, knowing how Islamists make no bones about proclaiming that everybody (in the USA also) will become Muslim or perish, my next question about that particular mosque and, frankly, all of them is:  What do they actually teach those children day in and day out in the schools?

Islam and Sharia Law have been and will continue to be a threat to American values and, as we're all tired of hearing by now, incompatible with the Constitution of the United States.

Yet, the mosques continue sprouting like yellow jacket nests throughout the nation under the guise of religious freedom.  Nice -- Islamists demand religious freedom for themselves, but not for you or me if we don't happen to subscribe to their throwback dogma.  They will kill us, and we know this because they have already engaged in a killing spree all over the world in the name of Aha, Blah-Blah or some weird-ass god in which they believe.  I guess if one can love and embrace history's infamous allegedly child-molesting prophet Mohammad, anything is possible.  If one really believes that death of the faithful males will be rewarded with virgins in the afterlife, we can only imagine these would be virgin farm animals or something alien.

Trump loses in the polls:  The President is trying his best to secure the Western Hemisphere to make life safe for all, but obstacles in Iran and within his own party aren't helping.  Yes, gas and food are high and few of us are wealthy enough not to notice -- but if one thinks back to WWII when families sacrificed everything and suffered greatly while still supporting the war effort, there might just be a glimpse of what wussies we have become as a society.  Yes, war hurts and kills and inconveniences everybody -- and yes, the war proponents and weapons producers can become quite wealthy as a result, but crazy is crazy and nuts is nuts.  Is there a better solution for ridding the world of a religiously fanatical country's nuke capabilities?  Do you get all aroused at the mere thought of returning Democrats to the White House?  Think hard about that.

We humans. . .we play and we kill, two categories encompassing everything we do. Is that all we are?

Letting the chips fall where they may:  Hint -- they're falling on our heads.  The more digital chip factories we build, the more chips we can make to feed AI and rid ourselves of jobs and reasons to exist.  When the day comes and some robot wheels itself into your cubicle and with a human-sounding voice announces that you're fired -- and then actually kills and fries you instantly with a corporate death ray -- you'll know you've un-arrived.

The Media's Little Green Men Syndrome

I'm a media guy, not a scientist.  In fact, had I listened to a high school English teacher who didn't want me working on the school newspaper because, in her opinion, my writing would never amount to anything, who knows?  If eventually writing about UFOs and seeing my articles published in newspapers and national magazines was an indication that my writing was nevertheless abhorrent, hmm, maybe she had a point.

Despite the questionable inadequacies preventing me from gracing the pages of my former high school newspaper way back in the sixties, I have a tendency to compare modern media with the old-timie journalism of my youth, and the comparison isn't pretty.  The well-aired fact that so many local TV stations -- and TV networks -- can't even spell or punctuate correctly the words they put up on screen during newscasts now is a definite minus for me.  If they can't get words right, why should I believe what may be churning out of a sloppy newsroom operation?

I was watching a few minutes or so of TV reports on the U.S. government's initial release of some previously unavailable UFO (aka UAP, if you must. . .sigh. . .) files and videos, but didn't spend too much time on these.  By the way, David Muir, Juju Chang, the late Peter Jennings and others at ABC-TV -- you may have a little to account for regarding rather negative UFO "documentaries" from years past, but that's for another day.

Yesterday, radio broadcasts were my thing, as I jumped from channel to channel around the country while many were at least momentarily consumed by reports of The Big Government Release of Anomalous Anomalies.  We really should appreciate what will be an ongoing project to bring truth to public view --IF some gov operative doesn't find a way to throw national security kitty litter on the whole damned thing before Trump's orders to declassify all fully succeed.

But. . .ah yes, our radio talk show friends.  I won't be specific, but the syndrome among many is obvious:  You mention UFOs, and they swing back with why haven't we seen little green men?  Trust me, most of these folks, whilst expert in their knowledge of government and sometimes science itself, don't know ANYTHING about UFO history, the evidence, the technology detecting the presence of seemingly solid objects, or witness profiles.  Among these people their UFO disclaimer talk hasn't advanced one inch since the 1950s when flying saucer banter remained the stuff of jokes.

Like fingernails on a blackboard yesterday, over and over again I heard the radio folks ask, "Do you BELIEVE in UFOs?" And as if to assure themselves that there's nothing for them to observe personally but a Nothingburger some assured curious listeners, "I don't BELIEVE in UFOs."  Are we talking Santa Claus here, or something akin to the Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny whom little kids "believe in?"  Sounds like a little religion tossed in when they use the word, believe.  I guess somebody on the airwaves might suggest that they BELIEVE Jesus is returning tomorrow night in a UFO, and then everything would be okay because a religious connotation was inserted.

So, some huffy media folk in the know don't believe in UFOs and since they haven't actually witnessed a parade of little green men their minds are made up and few will ever bother diving into the vast -- and I mean vast -- amount of UFO documentation that bright and self-sacrificing researchers and investigators have accumulated over several decades.  I guess it makes good radio to simply blurt out something about little green men and then remain blissfully ignorant about a subject so readily dismissed or ridiculed.

Fortunately, there exist people on radio (and podcasts) who take the subject seriously and actually know the facts of which they speak.  For instance, I recently encountered Mike Ryan's "UFO Talker" podcast out of Canada, and his weekly broadcasts actually remind one of (gasp!) journalism.

In the meantime, until the next batch of government UFO files appears, a disturbing number of radio folk are already reloading their broadcast shotguns with #1 Little Green Men ammo, ready and willing to fire off a volley of whatever amount necessary to get a laugh while simultaneously remaining hopelessly ignorant.  

May I ask -- don't you members of the broadcast airwaves have a responsibility by now to address such matters as the UFO by telling the people the truth?  The days of ridicule in both the media and among the scientific community deserve a hasty and final exit. We anticipate that this option shall become clear as more files are released (um, assuming that nothing substantial is excluded by those pesky Unseen Determinants).