Close Encounters of the Theological Kind

UAP Disclosure, State Secrets, and Christianity

I should’ve known this article was inevitable. As a researcher of conspiracy theory, I keep tabs on communities where conspiracy theories are concentrated. One of those is the UFO/UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) community. This community plays host (sometimes intentionally other times incidentally) to one of the “legacy” conspiracy theories in American culture: of non-human intelligent life, government coverups, etc.

Recently, there have been a surge in UAP disclosures in official contexts. Beyond official channels, there’s a long history of conspiratorial narratives involving State secrets of downed extraterrestrial craft is so common it hardly bears mentioning. It’s been featured in Indiana Jones, Independence Day, a fixture of the collective American psyche. It has staying power because it involves questions that transcends politics and reflect human existence.

The idea that intelligent life exists beyond our categories, either in the wider cosmos or in novel earth-bound forms is an existential question. Yet conspiracy theories about coverups are often packed together with these scientific and theological questions. The question of life is more than the the conspiracy theories like Q-Anon which shape our social and political worlds. Even if they often hang together. I’d like to unpack this a bit in light of some news.

Yesterday, a report was dropped that I think merits some conversation. But before I do...I know even repeating these claims can function as disinformation. I'm aware how frequent claims of government psyops and secrecy can be used to interpret events in a confirmation bias, sow real world chaos, and sap political will for common good. I believe public reflection and engagement can be helpful in staying off these corrosive trends, and diffusing the fear that makes it preferable to falling back on idealogical assumptions or conspiratorial pathologising. So I want to say that I'm discussing this as an observer, a doctoral researcher of conspiracy theory, for discussion rather than advocating for the assertion of these claims.

Yesterday, an investigative report from former NYT journalists Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal made waves. It details the whistleblowing claims of a former intelligence official from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and Air Force, David Charles Grusch. What makes Grusch an interesting (though I can't say credible) figure, among so many who have proven less than credible, is his background: supported by notable colleagues, his very recent access and contribution to particular intelligence communities, and the path he’s chosen to substantiate his claims.

Grusch recently filed a whistleblower report with the Inspector General. He maintains that key classified information is being withheld by elements in the State from Congressionally mandated investigations into UAP.  Grusch’s claims regarding the nature of this classified information are sensational. But his chief path is political, as a whistleblower.

In the article, as well in a follow up interview with award-winning journalist Ross Coulthart (formerly of 60 Minutes) Grusch claims the US Government is in possession of craft which are of “non-human origin”. Grusch maintains these craft are in the possession of “legacy programs”—long running government initiatives—spread across, and hidden within, various other classified initiatives. Together, these programs are working to reverse engineer this technology.

Grusch’s claims go beyond the State’s possession of non-human craft and, yes, physical remains of bodies. He maintains that there is a global “arms race” to recover these non-human materials. This race is veiled by a systematic campaign of disinformation to mislead the general public. This broader claim is supported by one of Grusch’s former colleagues, Ret. Colonel Karl Neil, who went on record to vouch for Grusch’s character and claims: 

“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence”

Ret. Colonel Karl Neil

There are a few things I want to unpack here.

This Is A Political Challenge Of The State

Grusch’s whistleblowing is first and foremost a claim of political corruption. He’s nowhere near the first to make claims of recovered craft. But it’s unique that he’s chosen to subordinate these claims to bureaucratic channels and the political process. Yes, he’s spoken with the media. But there is also a political process here. As much as we might want to focus on what he’s claiming, which has the potential to be significant, his whistleblowing action is limited by and subordinate to the political process right now.

Grusch is, like many whistleblowers, challenging the State’s existence. He’s questioning its claim to authority expressed by practices of secrecy. By filing a complaint with the Inspector General, Grusch is confining this challenge to the political arena. Here, he is generally claiming elements of the State are obstructing Congress in service of the American people, particularly in the UAP investigative committee.

There is a historical track record for this sort of action in the immediate past: think WMD’s in the Iraq War, Vietnam, Watergate, the tobacco industry, etc. Not to mention the clandestine actions of intelligence communities in the Cold War up to the present, particular the torture practices of the War on Terror.

In our digital age, with a flurry of information to sort and with hostile or chaotic actors ready to exploit this reality, we often pathologise conspiracy theory. But without a doubt, this history of State secrecy is potent. In is also latent in many subcultures and their requisite anxieties. Today, it is actively being hijacked and harnessed to foment political chaos, i.e. Donald Trump’s Stop The Steal.

But Grusch’s claims of recovered craft are, in this sense, functionally secondary, even though on an existential level they are fundamentally primary. What the State hid and how takes a backseat to the process of establishing that it did in fact hide something.

Hidden Knowledge: State Secrets and UAP Cover-ups

This brings up questions of secrecy. Most of us assume “State secrets” exist the way KFC keeps their fried chicken recipe on lock. But talking about secrecy as a tool of Statecraft tends to provoke a critical suspicion that usually devolves into paranoid delusion. I know this well from my research into American evangelicalism.

We stand here in a void of uncertainty. We are historically aware of practices of power which shapes our world often demand secrecy beyond scrutiny. We are provisionally aware of these practices in the present through whistleblowers and other forms of exposure. Christianity holds that while these powers may shape our world, this shaping is fragmentary and ultimately a failure. Christian faith bears witness to the ultimate determination of the world by Christ. I think this realization can actually diffuse paranoia for Christians.

But in a provisional sense (what Bonhoeffer called the penultimate) sense, the political conception of liberty mounts a critical challenge to State's claim. But there’s a tension, since the security the State attempts to provide can itself legitimatize practices of secrecy. Like, for example, the Allied invasion of Normandy, which occurred 79 years ago, today.

At this intersection of liberty and security, a host of possibilities confront us as citizens. We’re reminded here of our creatureliness, necessarily limited and provisional. In this condition, we can vacillate between plausibility and paranoia trying to interpret our world.

In this case, we can think of many reasons for this story. We might think maybe the State prefers non-human intelligence narratives to conceal their own technological advancements to gain a leg up in conflict. Maybe it’s a face-saving operation, preferring UFO narratives to admitting failure in an arms race. Maybe Grusch is telling the truth. Either way, we have to account for the State, its authority, power and practices of secrecy. It’s a haunting and unsettling question that there might be things which are being kept from us. The Scriptures narrate this fear, not between the State and citizens, but between God and humanity in Genesis.

The Biblical typology of the State as a dragon, or as a Leviathan, which Hobbes drew from the book of Job, is used to name this totalizing/absolutizing trend of the State and its power. Conspiracy theory attempts to narrate this relationship and the broader social and political world by penetrating the veil of secrecy. Here, it attempts to expose and name how the State operates as a totalizing power.

We tend to witness conspiracy theory falter as people act out its moral implications. Think of the 5G pandemic conspiracies, and the vandalism of cell towers. And so we come to think conspiracy theory falters because what it claims is irrational. There’s a sense in which this is true, especially with the claims of Q-Anon. 

But a theological account of conspiracy theory forces us to concede a few things. By this I mean that seeing reality determined by and through faith in Christ changes how we see reality. This isn’t a key to omniscience but towards a different way of naming. First, theologically we can see the reality of evil exists in a form of absurdity. It’s absurdity that borders on the irrational because of its irreducible chaos and complexity, even in the midst of ordered systems. The efficiency of the Holocaust is a testament to this brutal truth. Bound up in all this is our own limited capacity to narrate its manifestations, especially when plausible deniability comes into play. One of my favorite theologians, Karl Barth, calls this chaotic existence, “nothingness”. Evil is absurd, as is the use of secrecy in politics and forms of power. It often exists and manifests beyond our ability to name or narrate.

Exploring Theological Implications of UAP Sightings

Conspiracy theory fails when its narratives are too simple. Its claims inevitably collapse as categories to interpret the complex, irreducible nature of reality. As a whole, conspiracism betrays in several ways the absurd nature of secrecy, deception, and evil as they converge and manifest in the world. These manifestations are often beyond our ability to narrate and interpret in the present. And immediate suspicion is not a stable grounds to base political or moral decisions. 

There’s a massive difference in the political process, i.e. in challenging the State’s supremacy, and the scientific testing of these sensational claims of non-human intelligence.  Harvard Scientist Avi Loab has staked his career on advocating for scientific study into UAP to concede the possibility of non-human and extraterrestrial intelligence in interpreting data. Speaking of these claims, this is his point as well. 

Allowing scientists access to the data/evidence, and to test Grusch’s claims is fundamentally different than Grusch’s challenge made thru political channels to allege corruption and obstruction. That is a process that will be worked out politically.

Meanwhile, scientists and—I might add — theologians can only offer cursory and provisional reflections on their plausibility and possibility. These reflections are built on hosts of unverifiable assumptions. Yet I think some cursory sketches are possible. I just don’t have the time to unpack them all here.

I can offer a few cursory and provisional claims. I don’t have time to tease these out, so I apologize that they are somewhat clunky and academic. There are a host of supporting claims at work here that need to be named and substantiated in their own right. Again, this is all theological—and so its working within the logic proper to Christian faith.

First, some might object that the Scripture rules out the existence of non-human intelligence. But nothing in the witness of the Scriptures would rule out non-human intelligence in the wider cosmos. This is also true terrestrially, as in—previously unknown forms of intelligence here on earth. The Bible doesn’t advocate for a particular natural cosmology, but makes provisional use of ancient cosmologies to reveal God and his action in history. This means we come to understand not just the cosmos in this light (that is its meaning) but also our own selves.

You often hear people talking about the advent of novel forms of life as a challenge to humanity’s place in the universe. And for a vast amount of Christian history, our theological anthropocentrism has fed this assumption as it appealed to physical characteristics to justify our place at the center of the universe, with causes of dominionism. But theologically understood, anthropology is ultimately determined by God’s electing love of humanity, not in any innate characteristics of superiority or strength. It may be startling to consider that humans are not on the "top of the food chain" but this anthropology we are dealing with is ultimately predicated on strength and violence, not on electing love. What if we are to bear witness up the food chain, so to speak? All this while challenging the concept of a food chain as the way to orient creaturely encounters in God’s economy.

The implications of new forms of intelligent life would raise questions less about the place of humanity in the universe (discourse of domination, strength, and violence usually creep in here) and more about the scope of our purpose theologically.

If the cosmos, that is creation, is the stage for God’s story, the central part of which is his covenant with humanity climactically fulfilled through Jesus, then humanity exists as witnesses to the logic and meaning of the universe. This is Barth’s contention in his Doctrine of Creation. The extent to which death, sin, and evil exist and manifest in Creation is always subject to expansion upon reflection. But this general purpose of humanity as covenant partners and witnesses isn’t in question. The advent of other forms of life would widen its scope in unparalleled trajectories.

Let’s touch some grass. Hypothetically and thus also practically, if we want to understand the implications of the discovery of intelligent non-human life, we should look to the sorts of theology and Christian ethics that is, right now, helping us reclaim awareness and responsible care for animals and creaturely life. Theologies of ecology and creaturely non-human life are being worked out right now. We might turn to these theologies for new ways of thinking in the here and now with an eye towards the possibility that our categories of life in the universe will need to be revised, while our theological responsibility will need to be expanded.

Non-human intelligence, especially a kind capable of constructing the crafts of Grusch’s claims would, in this hypothetical understanding, simply constitute new categories of creaturely life which humanity, as convenant partners with God through Christ, are responsible to as recipients and witnesses of the love and grace of God.

The advent of life in a surprising form would not necessarily strip Christian faith of its claims, but it would fundamentally both broaden our awareness of the mystery, the love of God. It would also deepen our responsibility to creaturely life in forms we have previously not considered or encountered.