Some headlines just can’t be resisted.“George Knapp: Christian Fundamentalists in the Pentagon Shut Down Government Paranormal and UFO Probes Due to Demon Fears” is one such headline.It appears on the blog of Jason Colavito, a name I recognized from the book The Cult of Alien Gods: H. P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture that I read several years back.Skeptical of many strange claims made, Colavito criticizes journalist George Knapp for some sloppy reporting.If you go all the way down the rabbit hole, you will end up in some very weird places indeed!What caught my attention here, however, is the connection between demons and UFOs.More than that, the claim that government funding was deep-sixed for fear of the Devil.(Has anyone else noticed that it’s October?)
This isn’t the first time I’ve read about this.Having grown up Fundamentalist, I often heard talk of the Devil’s wiles.One of the things he had his demons do, I was told, was fly around in UFOs to deceive people into thinking demons were aliens.If this sounds far-fetched to you, remember that God made dinosaur bones to plant in the ground to test people’s faith in Genesis 1.That’s just the kind of universe we live in.Better get used to it.The real problem, and one with which Colavito concurs, is that high ranking military officers (and other government officials) believe the Fundamentalist screed.This is a matter of documented truth—much of our government policy is dictated by the evangelical agenda. Stranger than fiction.
In 1952 there was a UFO flap in Washington DC.No matter how you choose to explain it, this is an incident on the public record, and the Air Force responded with its famous temperature inversion explanation.At the same time, some Fundamentalists were thinking that demons had improved on the bat-wings they’d been using for millennia.They now zipped around in silvery discs with the same object as they’ve always had—to dis the Almighty.As entertaining as such a story may be, it becomes scary when it might indeed be the motivation for government action.I don’t know about you, but when I look at just how much of my meager paycheck goes to the powers that be, I want to know that rational people are spending it wisely.Wait.Well, I thought some of them were rational until a couple of years ago, about this time.In any case, we do get some entertainment value for our cash, which is some comfort I suppose. Keep watching the swamp!