September 3, 2019 Show with Kenneth R. Samples on “Lights in the Sky & Little Green Men: A Rational Christian Look at UFOs & Extraterrestrials”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform at which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this third day of September 2019.

I hope you all had a safe and joyful and blessed Labor Day weekend, and I'm glad to be back at the helm of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for our first live broadcast in September. And today, we have one of my oldest Christian friends on the program, a returning guest who I love to interview.

His name is Kenneth R. Samples, senior research scholar at Reasons to Believe, and we're going to be discussing one of his most controversial books that he has co-authored with Hugh Ross and Mary Clark, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men, a rational Christian look at UFOs and extraterrestrials.

Yes, Ezekiel's Wheel, believed by many UFO enthusiasts to be the first recorded UFO sighting in history. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my friend Ken Samples.

Reasons To Believe and the UFO Question

Hello there, Chris. It's good to be with you. Thank you for having me on.

Hey, it's great to have you on. And first, why don't you let our listeners know about Reasons to Believe, where you serve as senior research scholar.

Yeah, Reasons to Believe is a science-based think tank. We have lots of great information about issues relating to the Christian faith and science and website, reasons .org. I'm on the scholar team there.

I'm kind of the oddball in that I'm the only non-scientist trying to bring my background in philosophy and theology. So, reasons .org will open up Reasons to Believe to you.

Great. And if anybody has more questions or they'd like to explore in more detail Reasons to Believe, you can go to reasons .org, reasons .org, and hopefully we will remember to announce that website later on in the program as well.

Well, you know, I've been watching, I don't know if you ever watch Tucker Carlson, who is my favorite host on Fox News. I don't agree with everything Tucker says or does, but I agree with a lot of what he says.

And he has really been captivated by the UFO phenomenon. And I think that he's a very level-headed and reasonable guy. He's not a nutjob or a sensationalist that would want to cater to something that he thought was utterly ridiculous.

And he has been talking, basically, a lot with expert guests on the program, those that are experts in aeronautical aviation and engineering and so forth, about the UFO phenomenon, about the fact that there are unidentified flying objects that have been witnessed even by astronauts and people in the United States Air Force who are highly respected.

And so, this is an interesting thing. He believes that there is, and his guests typically believe, there is great evidence that there is a government cover-up about this, which further entices the imagination of people to run wild and come to all kinds of conclusions about that.

But what was the initial catalyst that you, Hugh Ross and Mary Clark, came to write Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men?

Yeah, Chris, I've watched the Tucker Carlson interviews as well and found it interesting, and you've had some interesting guests on. Well, my interest in the topic of UFOs and extraterrestrials probably goes back to my time working with Walter Martin, who was the original Bible Answer Man.

I worked at the Christian Research Institute from 1987 until near the end of 1993. Walter Martin was interested in UFOs. He had a lecture that he gave on the topic, and I listened to that many years ago.

When I was a researcher at CRI, people would call in or write in and inquire about UFOs. Then I was approached by a colleague from Biola University who was writing a series on various cults, and they wanted to include a book on UFO cults.

The project was not completed, but I did a lot of research for it. So when I began working at Reasons to Believe in 1997, Hugh Ross, who was an astronomer, he, of course, has long been interested in the subject and, of course, worked in the various science fields, looked through telescopes and various issues, so he was interested in the topic.

So what we decided to do is, when we worked on Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men, Hugh would present the kind of scientific data, as an astronomer. I would look at the religious and sociological, philosophical implications, and then Mark Clark is a professor that deals with basic governmental studies.

So we thought, wow, this could be good, because we can address the scientific issues, we can look at the religious issues, and we can get Mark to comment on maybe government conspiracies. And that was the result of that book.

It came out in 2002, and people still have lots of questions about extraterrestrials, about UFOs, about abduction, contactee, and I think the book has held up pretty well. I think it is fair-minded. We offer differing interpretations about how to understand the phenomenon, and then we offer an explanatory model.

Well, my deepest apologies to Mark Clark for at least twice calling him Mary.

Oh, that's okay.

I'm sure he'll forgive you. He's a very gracious guy.

Just another sign that I definitely need prescription glasses. Sorry, Mark. And perhaps this is a warning to the person who chose the typeface for the cover of the book. Well, this subject has actually fascinated me since I was a little kid.

And one thing that I have told people, and perhaps you have a different way of responding, but there are many Christians over the years who have said to me, do you believe in UFOs? And my answer has typically been, well, it's not really a matter of a fact what I believe in.

It is the question, do UFOs exist? And they do because UFO means unidentified flying object. That does not mean if I say, yes, I know that UFOs exist, that doesn't mean that I believe in intelligent life on other planets.

It doesn't mean that I believe in visitations from extraterrestrials. It just means that there are flying objects that have yet to be identified. Am I right in that?

Yeah, that's right. UFO simply means unidentified flying objects. There have been tens of thousands of reports that have come in over the last 70 years or so. The phenomenon largely began right after World War II.

But it's also true that people have reported seeing unusual things in the sky for many centuries. But most UFOs become IFOs, identified flying objects. I think it is reasonable to conclude the vast majority of UFO reports or UFO sightings are simply misidentified natural or human phenomena.

For example, we write in the book that we think anywhere from 90 to 95 percent of UFOs have some natural explanation and can become IFOs, identified flying objects. But then the question is, for that small percentage that is left over, how do we then interpret that and understand that phenomenon?

Well, I had heard even as a young boy that many UFO enthusiasts, as I said in the opening, do include or state that Ezekiel's wheel in the Bible is the first recorded sighting of a UFO. Have you heard that same report from those involved in the UFO phenomenon?

Oh yeah. Yes. Plenty of people who engage in what I would call UFO religion. There are many UFO cults, and many of these people would look to scripture to some degree or another. The Ezekiel passage is a very common one.

Unfortunately, UFO religion, whether it is contacteism, which was very, very popular in the 50s and 60s, abduction became popular in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. And then UFO cults, they are steeped in occultism.

They're steeped in things like seances. But instead of talking to spirits, they believe they're talking to UFO beings. But UFO religion is very, very popular. And yes, people appeal to the wheel in Ezekiel, and some people try to read the scriptures through the prism of kind of a UFO worldview, if you will.

Yes, and some of those, or at least one of those cults that was a UFO cult, I don't know if it still exists because most of the members, including its leader, committed suicide, the Heaven's Gate cult immediately comes to mind.

UFO Religion and Cult Movements

Yes, exactly. I write about that in a chapter in Lights in the Sky. This was a group in San Diego, California, not too far from the Reasons to Believe headquarters. And that was the time in which the Hale-Bopp comet was circling the Earth.

And I remember being up in the mountains, being able to look up and see the Hale-Bopp comet. And Marshall Applewhite, who was the leader of the Heaven's Gate group, said that there was a spacecraft behind the comet.

And they ultimately committed suicide, believing that they would join these beings. And so, you know, Chris, UFOs and the UFO phenomenon, it is weird. It's strange. It's kind of kooky. But UFO religion can be dangerous, because the ideas not only are contrary to historic Christianity, but as we have seen, it can be very cultic.

And in that case, it led to the death of quite a number of their members.

Yes, do they still exist at all, that cult?

To the best of my knowledge, it's largely... After the suicide, I think it's largely gone. But, I mean, there are other groups, the Ethereus Society, there are other UFO groups out there. And so, you know, to one degree or another, UFO religion has become popular.

In fact, I am a passionate student of history, and I love to watch the History Channel. There are a couple of them. Well, I used to say, it used to be the Hitler Channel, meaning that it was always about World War II and the Nazis.

And, you know, you could always see a good special on Hitler and the Nazis. Well, now it's become the Alien Channel, where, you know, aliens, UFOs just kind of dominate that kind of programming. And so, people are interested, and it's easy to understand why, Chris.

A lot of people, even if they don't believe in traditional religion, maybe they're not Christian, or maybe they're not Jewish, they're still looking for ultimate answers, meaning and purpose. Is the universe, are we alone in the universe, and could these beings be coming here?

So, some people believe in salvation from above, by extraterrestrial beings that have all this wisdom. And so, this is, again, kooky, strange, weird. But some people take it very, very seriously, and I thought it was worthy of trying to write in a very careful and credible way about these groups.

And fortunately, I was joined by an astronomer and by an expert in the area of...

And I don't know if you would categorize these groups that I'm about to mention as UFO cults, but they involve extraterrestrial phenomenon within their religions. You have the Mormons. A lot of people don't even realize that the Battlestar Galactica TV series and subsequent movies were originally based on Mormon theology.

In fact, the TV series, and perhaps the movies, I don't know, but the TV series was certainly written and directed and produced by Mormons, and there is replete throughout the series, hidden Mormon theology and doctrine.

You also have the Nation of Islam, where they are awaiting the mothership to take the faithful black Muslims or Nation of Islam members off this planet. And you have, of course, Scientology, that is also involving extraterrestrials and so on.

If you want to comment on any of those that you're familiar with.

Extraterrestrial Themes in Mormonism, Nation of Islam, and Scientology

Yeah, let me mention just a couple of the particular groups that I write about. The Ethereus Society, Uranus Academy of Science. I write about Heaven's Gate, the Raelian Movement, a little bit about Urantia.

All of these are kind of UFO... It's interesting, and I'm glad you mentioned it. There are other groups, such as the Latter-day Saints, that have a perspective on outer space. And you're right, that particular program had a backdrop of kind of a Mormon context.

And some of the black Muslims have also talked about these kinds of things. And so I think Christmas really is a religious phenomenon. Again, the idea of space, the idea of reaching out to beings that may be out there.

There may be other worlds. And I think this is, of course, a counterfeit religion. I think that, again, these groups have specific beliefs. Here are some of the major beliefs of UFO cults. That flying saucers are real.

They believe people are in touch with alien intelligences. And they believe that there are messages given from these aliens that are religious in nature. And so, again, the Urantia book is supposed to be a revelation come from beings from outer space.

So, yeah, very... This is, again, a religious phenomenon. But, of course, Scripture tells us, I think, that when people stop worshipping the true and living God, or cut off from God because of their sin, they don't stop worshipping.

They don't stop becoming religious. Rather, they look to find something else to worship, some other element to connect themselves to. And so this may be kind of the new techno-religions, the religions of space.

And, again, even though it's kind of a weird phenomenon, and I had some people take some shots at me about writing a book about UFOs, but I think that this is a very significant apologetic area, and we need credible people writing and critiquing this phenomenon.

Oh, yeah, definitely, because when I interact with non-believers, especially millennials, that's one of the first things they bring up. Do you believe in life on other planets? Is it possible that there's intelligent life on other planets?

Is it possible that Jesus was an alien from another planet, and the apostles, etc., etc.? There have even been suggestions or theories by UFO fanatics that have said the reason why the artwork of Christ and the saints from the medieval period and earlier typically will have halos around their heads is because those were actually some kind of apparatuses so they could breathe.

The Extraterrestrial Jesus and Conspiracy Thinking

Yeah, even in some of my other apologetic books, Chris, I've written about the so-called extraterrestrial Jesus, that Jesus was able to do miracles in the minds of UFO religions because he was from the technology of the future, and maybe he pulled off the resurrection because of that.

And so, yeah, even though this is, again, unusual and non-typical, it nonetheless has gotten a lot of street cred, if you will, by people who are interested. And, of course, people are fascinated with conspiracies, they're fascinated with the idea that the government may know a lot more about this than they're letting on, and so people, I think, are drawn to these kinds of questions.

Yes, well, I mean, one thing that you just said about the government keeping things hidden and secret, obviously this could be involving, if indeed that is true, and the government hides a lot of things from us, so, I mean, it could be involving military machinery and vessels and aircraft and all kinds of things that they don't want the public to be aware of, for obvious reasons, and also could be the discovery of that type of machinery, aircraft, weaponry, that has been discovered from the enemy and so on.

So, I mean, there's all kinds of reasons why the government might cover something like that up that does not involve invasions from outer space. But before we even, perhaps, even go further into that aspect, why don't you, before we go to our first break, go over some of the types of UFOs?

Yeah, we start to see that the UFO phenomenon really kind of comes out of the backdrop of World War II, and I simply wanted to quickly make the point that, you know, when you had a Cold War, the government was very protective about various things, but even today, you still have great competition with the Chinese, with the Russians, and so there are reasons why the government is kind of slow in many ways to kind of let some of this out.

Well, let me talk a little bit about, you know, you have, going back to the Spielberg movie, you know, close encounters. That is kind of a way of kind of explaining UFO phenomenon, and you have, you know, seeing a UFO or seeing some kind of phenomenon, close encounter of the second kind would be where that phenomenon leaves some kind of physical effects, and the close encounter of the third kind is where people actually claim to see occupants, witnesses, and then close encounters of the fourth kind, people actually, and this is rare, but it's actually some kind of dancing.

And again, you know, kind of broadly, a lot of people think, and I am one of them, that the vast majority of phenomena, I mean, there are a lot of phenomena that we could miss, Air Force Base in Southern California, foggy, I saw a plane come out of there, and it was like, whoa, what in the world was that?

So a lot of people, a lot of critics would simply say, if 95, 90 to 95 percent can be explained naturally, maybe all of it can't. But as we'll get into in the show, I think there are still some questions about that small percent.

Close Encounters and the Main UFO Hypotheses

Yeah, we're going to our first break right now, and if anybody wants to ask a question of their own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I assume that if somebody out there has seen a weird-looking flying object that they have no explanation for, they might want to remain anonymous, they might be too embarrassed to say something about it in public, especially perhaps if they're a Christian and they know that the majority of their brothers and sisters are very leery about such phenomenon.

But we could understand that you would want to remain anonymous, and we will grant your request. But other than that, if it's just a general question, please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

So we look forward to hearing from you and your questions for Ken's samples on Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men right after these messages from our sponsors, so please do not go away. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.

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Yes, Wheel in the Sky by one of my favorite hair bands from the 1980s. Journey and Wheel in the Sky, obviously, a reference to our discussion today. Life's in the Sky and Little Green Men, a Rational Christian Look at UFOs and Extraterrestrials, a book by my guest Ken Samples and also his co-authors Hugh Ross and the now masculine version of Mark Clark.

And again, I apologize to Mark about calling him Mary before. And I hope that he had never been called Mary before this or after. So, once again, my apologies. If anybody has questions, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. And as always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. And we do have a question from Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. And she asks, do you know anything about the Barney and Betty Hill account?

Do you think that these two people, this married couple, were charlatans? That they were mentally disturbed? Or if they really, at the very least, believed that they were abducted by aliens, whether or not this was actually the case.

Abduction Claims, the Occult, and the Barney and Betty Hill Case

Yeah, Susan, thanks for that. This is, again, part of the phenomenon of abduction, encounter with allegations, some physical examination, or wounds on their body. There have even been people taken out of their bodies.

You know, it's kind of hard to understand what is the best explanation of this. When I read the Hill report, things that ran through my mind, I wondered how much various ideas, defense, or... There is also other times where people make claims that can't be fully, and you're not totally sure how to explain a lot of this.

But I can tell you this, that whether you look at abducteeism, or contacteeism, or UFO religion, it almost always, almost always has some kind of occult connection. And whenever people are involved in the occult, there are weird and potentially demonic things connected with it.

But yeah, I read the Hill report. Not sure how to make of it. I don't know that I would say that they were charlatans, but I wonder if some of their ideas weren't mixed with UFO phenomena. So yeah, it's been a long time since I read it, but I remember the report.

I remember clearly watching the TV movie of this account. I was a young kid, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 or so. Actually, perhaps a little bit older than that, maybe 15. But I remember, I think it might have been the first movie I ever saw James Earl Jones in.

He and Estelle Parsons starred in that made-for-television movie. Trying to remember the name of it. Oh yeah, I think it was called The UFO Incident. And I was captivated by it. As a kid I became, that might have even been the catalyst that I became a UFO nut as a child.

Still a nut, no longer a UFO nut. But now, obviously you have been giving hints here and there throughout the beginning of this program that there is an alternative way of interpreting these things. You have, first, those things that have been explained or can be logically explained through natural means and phenomena.

You have charlatans, fakers. And you also have people who are mentally ill, perhaps. But there's also the demonic realm. How much of the unexplained UFO phenomenon, those that you are aware of that have no explanation, nobody has provided an explanation.

And at the same time, experts, at least the majority of them in certain cases, believe that these events that I'm speaking of in this category are not faked. They believe that there's some kind of real phenomenon there, but they have no explanation.

I mean, do you have any, I mean obviously this would be a guess on your part, but do you have any idea of what you think the percentage might be actually supernatural, demonic activity?

Three Explanations for UFOs: Misidentification, Extraterrestrials, and Interdimensional Activity

Yeah, Chris, let me say just first, basic summary in Betty Hill. Yeah, you've asked a really good question. Chris, having a background in philosophy and logic, I'm very interested in a form of reasoning called abductive.

Now this is not UFO abduction, this is abductive reasoning, which is contrasted with deductive and inductive. So deduction, if you do the process right, you end up with certainty. Inductive arguments, you do the process right, you end up with...

Abductive reasoning has to do with best explanation, if you will. And I think that explaining the UFO phenomenon, the extraterrestrial issue, it really does kind of come down to three broad theories. Call them hypotheses if you want.

I would say the first one is the misidentified hypothesis. I would agree that 90 to 95 of UFOs have some kind of natural explanation. You know, it could be... You could see that are natural, that you might think are something other than natural.

And we also talk about man-made phenomenon as well. So the misidentified hypothesis just simply says, look, the vast majority of UFOs become IFOs, so why not all of them are just misidentified phenomena?

A second hypothesis, or thesis, if you will, is what we call the extraterrestrial view, and that's the most popular idea. You know, that's the idea that there are beings in other parts of the universe in other galaxies, and these creatures are thought to be highly advanced in terms of science and technology, so much so that they have traveled to Earth to communicate.

So again, this would be the extraterrestrial hypothesis. This would mean we're not alone in the universe. Then there is the third hypothesis, and it's the position that we take in the book. Although, you know, again, we're very careful.

I don't think you should skip over the misidentified hypothesis too quickly. I mean, a lot of UFOs can be explained in terms of people misidentifying reality, but here's the third one. It's the interdimensional hypothesis, and it says that while the vast majority of UFOs and UFO phenomena can be explained naturally, that there are phenomena, and that this residual phenomenon does not correspond well to misidentification, because after all, Tucker Carlson was talking about naval aviators who have a lot of experience with man-made phenomena.

They're also very familiar with the sky and things of that nature.

There were some sightings, filmed sightings, that those that are experts in aeronautical aviation or aeronautical engineering and aviation, that they have said on his program, we do not have the technology to create an aircraft that can travel at that speed, stop instantly in midair, reverse its direction, and other things that these sightings have done.

So, it is quite a bizarre and fascinating phenomenon.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And in our book, we talk about people who have observed phenomena very similar to what these aviators are saying, violates the very laws of physics, and that if it were human beings in these crafts, because after all, America is kind of in a second Cold War, there's lots of competition between America and China, there is still competition, and the Russians, and so, you know, military technology is secretive.

But in these recent reports, as well as the reports that we recount in our book, that if there were a human passenger in that craft, they could not survive the aeronautical phenomena. And so, some of these reports don't seem consistent.

The regular time-space world, they seem to be extra-dimensional. And then, of course, if you begin to look at any kind of the UFO religions connected to it, there seems to be a demonic connection to these kinds of things.

And so, all of these views, the misidentified phenomena view, the extraterrestrial perspective, the interdimensional view, all of them have strengths and weaknesses. I mean, you know, in the extraterrestrial one, think of it, you'd have to have these creatures who live in some other galaxy, they would have to have this enormous investment of traversing to planet Earth.

My co-author Hugh Ross would tell you that traveling through space is never easy, it is very dangerous. And the distance, it would take multiple generations. Now, of course, the explanations, given the exotic explanations, that they go through a wormhole, or these kinds of things, but none of that, you know, all of that is still...

There is, in this residual, this small percentage, it does seem like this is a phenomena that doesn't seem physical, it doesn't seem natural, it seems spiritual, it seems to be part of another dimension, and if it's spiritual, the connection...

I'll tell you, Chris, I do not recommend that people fool around with UFO religion, or UFO phenomena, it is not good for your psychological state, it is not good for your spiritual condition, it is not, in some cases, it's not even safe for your life, and, you know, I'll tell you, and you know me, Chris, you know me pretty well, I'm not from a Pentecostal or charismatic background, I tend to be rational, but when I was researching for this book, I felt very oppressed, and I'm not someone who is quick to say that, but I had to read a lot of strange and weird things, and it wasn't something I would quickly go back to, because it's not just weird and strange, I think there is something oppressive about this phenomenon.

Spiritual Oppression and the Dangers of UFO Research

Is there a way that you can, if you feel comfortable doing so, summarize and explain in more detail what this oppression was like?

Well, I remember very distinctly writing, you know, working on the book, and I have to tell you, being an author is not an easy thing, there's a great investment, and there are pressure of deadlines and things of that nature, but I remember very clearly, I was writing about this, and my wife, who was, it was late at night, I was working on a chapter, my wife was asleep in bed, and she woke up out of bed and telling me about this strange dream that she had, like nothing I had ever experienced.

My wife is, she is very level-headed, she is a very dedicated Christian, but she began talking to me about these weird dreams that she was having, and I also felt, you know, spiritually, like there was, I was under some kind of attack.

And again, don't get me wrong, I am the last person to attribute a spiritual explanation, I'm probably more the kind of person who would be looking for, hey, maybe I just, you know, experience that I had during that time, and I've never had anything like that before or after.

And the possible explanation for that, if indeed it was demonic oppression, would be that you were prying the cesspool lid off of something in the demonic realm that the demons and Satan himself don't want you to be able to explain, I'm assuming.