How Should Christians Respond to US Government’s Release of Preliminary Report on UFOs? by NOLAN LEWALLEN for Charisma News
On June 25, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a preliminary report of recently declassified information it has collected on UFOs. The report focuses on reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena” that occurred between 2004 and 2021.
So what does the report conclude? (Drum roll, please.) The short answer: The ODNI doesn’t know. The long answer: Here goes.
The report says, “Our analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they will fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: (1) airborne clutter, (2) natural atmospheric phenomena, (3) USG or industry developmental programs, (4) foreign adversary systems, and (5) a catchall “other” bin.”
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After reading through the report, I would say that if these five categories were slices of a pie, 90% of the pie would be one gargantuan slice for the “catchall ‘other’ bin,” while four tiny slivers would represent the other four categories.
So how should we, the Christian community, feel about this awkward topic? We’re good at spouting off chapter and verse on topics like abortion, same-sex marriage and others. However, the Bible does not directly address UFOs. Yes, you could talk about Zechariah’s vision of the flying scroll (Zech. 5:1-4), which was larger than an average school bus, or Ezekiel’s wheels, “a wheel in the middle of a wheel” that were “lifted up” (Ezek. 1:16b-21). These may have initially been UFOs to Zechariah and Ezekiel, although Scripture records that God later explained the flying scroll to Zechariah. But I think it’s a stretch to relate them to the current discussion, since those events involved God speaking to these two individuals through visions.
Are these sightings real or imagined? And if real, what are they? I live near Stephenville, Texas, where I’ve lived most of my life. You may remember back in 2008, Stephenville became “the new Roswell.” There were numerous UFO “sightings,” drawing national attention, and there were Stephenville residents that appeared on top-ranked programs like Larry King Live. One of the individuals who went public with what he saw was a friend of mine, whom I’ve known since high school, and he’s even done a house renovation project for me. He’s not the kind of guy who would seek attention, and I absolutely believe he saw something. There were other residents, with whom I had common friends, who said they were also credible witnesses. I actually saw a UFO hovering myself while driving into Stephenville one night, although it was several years later than the 2008 sightings. Moreover, we have all seen the videos of some of these occurrences that seem to have been taken by reliable sources, some even by our military.
