Report of a UFO Would "Destroy One's Belief in the Church?!"

Maybe you've already seen it: a news item about a man in the United Kingdom who wanted to know about the UFO his grandfather had seen during WWII.

"...According to the documents, details of the coverup emerged when the man wrote to the government in 1999 seeking to find out more about the incident. He described how his grandfather, who served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the war, was present when Churchill and U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower discussed how to deal with the UFO encounter.

"The man, who is not named in the files, said Churchill was reported to have exclaimed, 'This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic amongst the general population -- and destroy one's belief in the church.'

"The incident allegedly involved an RAF reconnaissance plane returning from a mission in France or Germany toward the end of the war. It was over or near the English coastline when it was allegedly suddenly intercepted by a strange metallic object that matched the aircraft's course and speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing...."
(FOXNews) [emphasis mine]

Do I Believe in UFOs?

That depends on what you mean by "UFO."

Yes

I believe that objects traveling through the air have on occasion been observed, but not identified. These are Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs. They're

• Objects
• Moving through the air
  • Or "flying"
• Which the observer could not identify

Mysterious only in the sense that their identity was not established. If the observer can identify what the object is, it's and IFO, or Identifiable Flying Object.

No

I do not believe that a vast government conspiracy is suppressing knowledge that space aliens have been visiting Earth on a regular basis for the last several decades. I really doubt that little green (or gray, or mauve, or whatever) men in flying saucers have been buzzing people in an effort to

• Share their advanced wisdom
• Perform pregnancy tests
• Get their faces on tabloid covers

It's not that I don't think that people who aren't human, but who are the sort of matter/spirit hybrid that we are can't exist. I simply think that there's little-to-no evidence for all the 'flying saucer' sightings, aside from photographs that have gotten less grainy as special-effects photography has come down in price.

Discovering Life Beyond Earth Will Utterly Destroy Christianity?!

I don't know how the idea got started, that seeing a space alien would banish religious belief from a person's mind, but it's fairly common among the more earnest folks. Here in America, anyway.

Me? I readily accept the idea that God's smarter than I am, and able to do things that I can't. If He wanted to create people who aren't human beings, He could.

Actually, He has. We call them angels - or demons, depending on what choice they made. (August 5, 2010)

Which still doesn't mean that God could not, if He wills it, have created people who, like us, are matter and self-willed spirit. On the whole, I rather hope He has. It would be fascinating, learning which parts of our nature are part of being people - and which are unique to the specific sort of creature we are.

But that's up to God.

And so far I haven't seen any very compelling evidence that we're not 'alone.' Or that we are.

Isn't Christianity is Against Science and Reason?

No.

I've discussed this before.

I've written about science quite a lot, actually. If you look at the label cloud, you'll find "science" between "schools" and "sex." Make of that what you will.

Do I Believe in a Cover-Up?

I think it's fairly obvious that some matters have been kept secret by various governments. Sometimes there's good reason for the secrecy, sometimes not. When the documents are declassified, they're sometimes worth a news story or two.

About Churchill, Eisenhower, the UFO, and what some anonymous guy says he heard some other guy say that Churchill said? Maybe Churchill really did say that: although it seems a bit far-fetched.

Not that Churchill, in wartime Britain, would have chosen to withhold information about an unknown aircraft flying over England, which could outperform British aircraft. That's plausible enough, given the sort of jitters that WWII induced.

I have a bit more difficulty imaging that cigar-chomping Churchill would have bought into the quaint notion that religious belief would be shattered by a UFO.

So:

• I think
  • Documents pertaining to this UFO were classified "secret" during WWII
  • Those documents have now been declassified
  • News articles have been written about the documents
• I do not assume that
  • Space aliens buzzed an RAF airplane during WWII
  • Winston Churchill
    • Covered up The Truth to save the Church of England
    • Was really a shape-shifting space-alien lizard man

I think it'd be really cool if space aliens have already been here, and that there's some sort of vast conspiracy to keep that secret. It's the sort of thing that engaging stories are made of: like "Independence Day," and "Men in Black."

But thinking that something makes a good story, and assuming that it's true, are two quite different things.

Related posts:

• "The Catholic Church: Universal. Really"
  (April 19, 2010)
• "Gods, Demons, and Used Spaceship Dealers"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (February 13, 2010)
• " 'God Created Man in His Image' wasn't Written by An American"
  (January 25, 2010)
• "Astrobiology, the Vatican, and the Meaning of Our Existence"
  (November 12, 2009)
• "Really Old Dust Grains, a Galactic Collision, and a Lively Interest in God's Creation"
  (August 10, 2009)
• "Vatican Says: 'Belief in Aliens Doesn't Contractict Faith' "
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (May 14, 2008)

In the news:

• "Churchill Ordered UFO Coverup, Documents Suggest"
  FOXNews (August 5, 2010)

Background:

• "Vatican says aliens could exist"
  BBC (May 13, 2008)

---

Extended excerpt:

"Churchill Ordered UFO Coverup, Documents Suggest"
FOXNews (August 5, 2010)

"In order to prevent a mass panic, Winston Churchill kept top secret a close encounter between a World War II pilot and an unexplained flying object, newly unclassified documents reveal.

"The British prime minister said the unexplained incident should be kept secret for 50 years, fearing it would provoke a 'mass panic.'

"The claim was discovered in files newly unclassified by the British Ministry of Defense. It came from a scientist who said his grandfather was one of Churchill's bodyguards.

"According to the documents, details of the coverup emerged when the man wrote to the government in 1999 seeking to find out more about the incident. He described how his grandfather, who served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the war, was present when Churchill and U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower discussed how to deal with the UFO encounter.

"The man, who is not named in the files, said Churchill was reported to have exclaimed, 'This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic amongst the general population -- and destroy one's belief in the church.'

"The incident allegedly involved an RAF reconnaissance plane returning from a mission in France or Germany toward the end of the war. It was over or near the English coastline when it was allegedly suddenly intercepted by a strange metallic object that matched the aircraft's course and speed for a time before accelerating away and disappearing...."