However bizarre alien-abduction accounts have become, they are much too common to be coincidence. The stories go, roughly, like this: while outside at night or from their bedrooms, people see lights from a UFO. They are then brought inside the vehicle, where nonhuman beings physically examine them. The next thing these people know, they are back where they started from, sometimes hours or days later, and often confused about how long they were gone and even about what happened to them.

Though most experts blame abduction stories on neurological malaise of one kind or another and not on aliens, much more common, and seemingly more credible, are UFO sightings themselves.

Though claims go back to antiquity, on June 24, 1947, around three o’clock in the afternoon, Kenneth Arnold, flying a small plane near Mount Rainier, claimed to have seen nine disclike vehicles looking “like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water”—the modern UFO era had begun.

Since then, endless UFO sightings have been reported worldwide. Many cases turned out to be sightings of aircraft, satellites, weather balloons, and, more recently, drones. Yet nagging unexplained incidents remain that fuel concerns.

In the past few years, the United States Congress has held two major open hearings on UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena—the new politically correct term for UFO), adding to whispers about government cover-ups of crashed UAP and of alien corpses hidden in basements of top-secret Air Force bases. In 2025, Amazon Prime Video ran a widely viewed documentary called The Age of Disclosure, in which dozens of former government insiders and military types disclose cover-ups regarding extraterrestrial presences. Of course, critics are quick to point out that the film provided no verifiable physical evidence of aliens here, either dead or alive.

What’s one to make of all this? How should Christians respond?

waste of space

For starters, let’s look at the cosmos itself. Latest estimates put it at about 93 billion light-years wide, containing approximately two trillion galaxies, with about 100 billion stars each. What, then, are the odds of us, amid all of this, being alone? (Such a waste of space, if so.)

Meanwhile, after thousands of years of recorded history, humans learned to fly about 120 years ago. And though advances in aero technology have been astonishing—a mere 78 years from Kitty Hawk to the first space shuttle launch—where have we humans actually gone, anyway? All the way to the moon and back—baby steps compared to what’s out there. And, since the Apollo moon landings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, all we have done is go in circles around the earth, basically. Plans are, by the mid-2030s, to get people to Mars (provided that they find a way, still elusive, to get them home).

Now, if aliens from a distant galaxy, or even from our own Milky Way, had the technological prowess (way beyond ours) to reach earth—traversing millions, billions, or even light years of space (one light year is 5,878,625,373,183.6 miles)—would they not have also had the technology to have contacted us as well, even with just a little Hey, we’re here! or the like? Instead, despite claims, counterclaims, and ever-brewing conspiracy theories, outside of science fiction and Hollywood films, evidence of alien contact has never been verified.

the age of deception

Or has it? According to Scripture, intelligent life from the distant cosmos has been in contact with us for millennia now. The first example of this is recorded in the biblical narrative—in the Garden of Eden itself. And this contact was, unfortunately, evil. Though appearing as a serpent, as one of the creatures “which the LORD God had made” (Genesis 3:1¹), this alien was, really, a powerful, hostile, and deceptive extraterrestrial. Centuries later, the book of Revelation tells us that this being, symbolically depicted as a dragon, was thrown out of heaven. “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:9).

The Bible makes it clear that Satan and his angels (also known as demons) are powerful enough to deceive the whole world! Think about all of the different belief systems, all of the different religions throughout history and even to now—belief systems and religions that outrageously contradict each other, that teach what cannot possibly be true if the others are.

Among Christians themselves, contradictory beliefs, including on fundamentals, batter the faith. So, even if somewhere out there the Lord would have the truth being taught (which He surely would), the vast majority of the world is, however, obviously deceived, just as Revelation 12:9 has warned.

And not only the book of Revelation. Jesus Himself called Satan “a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44). The Bible also says that “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19). Scripture shows, too, that Satan and demons (fallen angels) can greatly influence human thinking. For example, it says, “Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot” (Luke 22:3). And one Bible writer wrote, “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).

Meanwhile, if ever a generation should believe in the potential of unseen realities to impact humanity, it should be ours, which knows about cosmic rays, man-made radiation, infrared, microwaves, X-rays, radio waves, and more—realities unknown to most of human history. How many cell phone calls, text messages, and Facebook pages are in your face, right now, that, unaided by electronic devices, you cannot see or hear, even if they are as real as the supernatural forces that surround us? “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

the alien delusion

What, though, does this have to do with UFO/UAP sightings? Why should anyone, including Christians, be concerned? The basic answer is that, however much this phenomenon is presented as science and technology, this movement began not with astronomy, not with aerospace research, and not with SETI—the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, which uses advanced radio telescopes to hunt for evidence of alien life (so far, finding zilch). Instead, supernatural spectacles were stoked by nineteenth-century occultism and spiritualism, which included séances, channeling, and communication with “higher beings,” “spiritual guides,” and the like.

By the 1950s, as the UFO craze started in earnest, one of the first to claim contact with aliens, George Adamski (1891–1965), said that he had not only seen UFOs but also communicated with an alien from Venus, named Ortho, whom he described as long-haired, blond, and Nordic-looking. This being gave him spiritual and moralistic warnings that sounded (of course) like the “spiritual guides” or the “ascended masters” of occultists and New Agers. Before his claims to have met the Venusian Ortho, Adamski had in fact already been steeped in New Age beliefs and practices, as was Desmond Leslie, with whom he wrote Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953). Though depicting his encounters with extraterrestrials, the book had also converted occult and New Age metaphysics into language more in tune with modern times, as UFO and alien-contact literature often does.

After all, “spiritual guides” do not carry the theological baggage that “demons” or “spirits” do! Also, instead of messages from the virgin Mary, these guides, deemed higher life-forms, come with reassuring memes about peace, goodwill, and the dangers of nuclear arms, a form of spirituality and transcendence without any Christian theological baggage, such as sin, repentance, and impending judgment.

lying wonders

As touched on earlier, the Bible cautions the faithful to beware of the deceptions, in any form, that are sweeping “the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). Jesus warned about those “who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). The Bible is also clear that, in the last days, deceptions will increase, with Jesus saying that there will be “signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect”(Mark 13:22). The Bible also warns about “the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception” (2 Thessalonians 2:9, 10).

Lying wonders and unrighteous deception? Including UFO/UAP beliefs? Of course. Immersed in a materialist and scientific worldview, which denies the supernatural, many people are not inclined to believe in “demons” or “evil spirits,” which makes them vulnerable to “spiritual guides” or “extraterrestrials” like Ortho.

trust in Jesus

With the likelihood of us on earth not being alone in the cosmos (we’re not), and with documentaries such as The Age of Disclosure, which had a record-breaking number of people watching—and which makes a “compelling” case for alien life here—it’s not hard to see how the UFO/UAP phenomena places us squarely in the age of deception that Scripture warns about.

Our only safety is in the Word of God and Jesus, who not only “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) but als “died for us” (Romans 5:8). This truth, and this truth alone, protects those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The Age of Deception by Clifford Goldstein	From the June 2026 Signs