Are UFOs Demons?

Today’s article is from guest contributor, Dr. Matthew L. Halsted. Matthew L. Halsted, PhD, is an Anglican Priest and Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Eternity Bible College. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Sightings and Secrets: UFOs, Eyewitness Testimonies, and How Christians Can Make Sense of the Unknown

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(Zondervan Reflective/HarperCollins).
Recently The New York Times published an interesting article on how some Christians are reacting to the government’s release of records about unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The piece highlights how for some in the church the very thought of extraterrestrial existence poses “unsettling theological implications,” adding further how these believers “worry that it undercuts the Bible’s account of the Earth and humanity as the centerpiece of God’s plan for the universe.”^[1]

A comment from one pastor quoted in the article struck me as particularly interesting:

“This is going to force people to decide, either God is real and Christianity is real and the supernatural is real, or this alien thing is real.”

This is a sweeping claim.

I understand why Christians would have questions, but I must confess that I disagree with this pastor’s assessment.

Why must a person choose between theism (the belief in God) and the existence of aliens? These two ideas are by no means mutually exclusive. There’s certainly no logical problem with combining the proposition that God exists with the proposition that aliens exist. If humans can exist as part of the created order, there’s no reason to deny the same privilege to non-human intelligences (NHI).

To believe in the existence of NHI would no more undermine theism than, say, the existence of squid and other non-human creatures. God, after all, is the creator of all things (Gen. 1; Rev. 4:11). Indeed, God is the ground of being—that is to say, he is the self-existent one, the First Cause, the one in whom all things (whether human or non-human) live, move, and have their being (Ex. 3:14; Acts 17:28).

“Nothing can exist,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “that does not have existence in the Existing One.”^[2]

And so if the cosmos contains several types of intelligent beings, it would not—indeed, could not—undermine the foundational belief that there must be One in whom all things exist.

There’s also nothing about alien existence that would undermine any core Christian doctrine. Several Christian thinkers have demonstrated this fact quite convincingly—among them, not least, was my good friend, the late Catholic theologian Dr. Paul Thigpen. While it’s true that fresh and important questions would emerge if NHI existence were ever proved, none of the answers to those questions would be defeaters for Christianity.

So, why are some Christians so concerned about UFOs and aliens?

One fear is that UFOs are part of a grand plot to deceive people. According to this theory, UFOs are not aliens at all but, rather, demons. They are only posing as aliens in order to draw people away from the Christian faith. Curiously, this concern is gaining a lot of momentum among some faith communities.

But the whole thing strikes me as odd. If there were a demonic plan to fool humanity into thinking that aliens are real for the sole purpose of undermining the Christian faith, then the devils have chosen a rather unconvincing strategy. As I said earlier, the existence of non-humans would pose no threat to theism—Christian or otherwise.

Now, I suppose that if aliens showed up, grabbed a microphone, and publicly declared themselves to be gods, then that would pose problems. But such claims are far from doctrinal or theological defeaters; neither would this necessarily imply that the “aliens” are demons. After all, we already have humans who have deluded themselves (and others) into thinking they were divine and worthy of worship. If humans can manufacture cults, aliens likely could as well. Perhaps aliens are morally depraved, too.

Admittedly, this is not an unreasonable assertion. In the course of writing my book, Sightings and Secrets, I have read and listened to a lot of testimony from credible people who have had incredibly strange UFO experiences. Some cases, in fact, are quite traumatic and disturbing (such as abduction cases). This leads many to think UFOs have nothing to do with peace-loving, intergalactic, space-faring aliens but represent some sort of morally compromised creature.

What’s also interesting about modern-day alien stories is that they invite comparison with the fairy stories of the past (as Jaques Vallée has observed). Many interesting eyewitness reports have been preserved in the writings of Reverend Robert Kirk (The Secret Commonwealth: Of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies) and W.Y. Evans-Wentz (The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries). These older stories depict close encounters with strange creatures, who lived in a mysterious secret realm that lies behind a thin, but formidable, cloak of invisibility just beyond the reach of humans. It is clear that, for centuries, many people have wondered whether the space between heaven and earth was more expansive and populated than what ordinary sight would reckon.

The faerie-folk (or the “good people,” as they were sometimes called) were known to happily dance and sing with anyone who happened to cross their path. But they also had a reputation for trickery—and, interestingly, for abducting humans. The well-known Catholic writer J.R.R. Tolkien captured perfectly the way people of the past thought about fairies and their realm.

“Faërie is a perilous land,” he once wrote, “and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold.”^[3]

The similarities between stories about encounters with aliens and tales of run-ins with the faerie-folk are, at times, uncanny. But do people actually experience these sorts of things? In the course of my research for Sightings and Secrets, I’ve come to the conclusion that people do, in fact, have very odd experiences. It’s true that highly credible people from all different walks of life report seeing anomalous craft, strange beings, and other anomalies.

But what are they?

I’m certainly open to the demon hypothesis, and in some cases I think it may be the best explanation. But I’m extremely hesitant to put the “demon label” on the entire phenomena. It would be hasty (not to mention pastorally irresponsible) to make such general claims, as each person’s experience needs to be carefully assessed on a case-by-case basis.

In this vein, I can’t help but wonder if the demon hypothesis is in large part motivated by ways of reading the Bible that actually limit a faithful imagination.

Some Christians, for example, are suspicious of the idea that there are NHI because the Bible doesn’t say anything about them. And that is quite true. The Bible, so far as I can tell, says nothing about non-spiritual NHI—such as fairies, fauns, elves, or aliens. There are, of course, many different types of non-humans mentioned throughout Scripture: cherubim, seraphim, angels, demons, animals, and the like. But it doesn’t mention any other types of creatures.

Because of this, some Christians don’t think they are allowed to believe in extraterrestrials or other forms of NHI. But this is based on the mistaken assumption that it is only permissible to believe something if it is explicitly taught in the Bible, which is a rather strange interpretive rule—stranger, in fact, than UFOs.

The problem with the rule that “we are not allowed to believe anything except what is explicitly taught in the Bible” is that it fails its own test: Nowhere in the Bible does that rule appear. Ironically, to follow the rule is to break it.

The truth is that it’s okay for Christians to believe in anything they want—provided that it doesn’t contradict Scripture, is amenable to reason, and doesn’t run against the grain of the church’s historic interpretive consensus. So far as I can tell, the existence of NHI falls well within these constraints. Therefore, it’s fine to believe such creatures might exist.

Esteemed Christian thinkers like C.S. Lewis seemed to agree. Lewis’ Space Trilogy books, along with his essays “Religion and Rocketry” and “The Seeing Eye,” demonstrate this quite clearly. Of course, there is no definitive proof that any (or all) UFOs are aliens. And until such proof is made available for public review and scientific analysis, everyone must admit that the “alien/NHI hypothesis” is just that: a hypothesis.

Personally, I would be unsurprised to learn that other intelligent creatures exist. Many high-ranking government officials and scientists seem to think it’s all true—namely, that UFOs are NHI. I’m reminded of something former CIA Director John Brennan said when asked about UFOs: “I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.”

I don’t know if Brennan is correct, but if God did create other intelligent creatures, who am I to balk? It’s not crazy to think God is capable of doing things that exceed the human imagination. Indeed, at the heart of the Christian faith is the notion that God is sovereign and, as such, he doesn’t have to get humanity’s permission to do stuff.

It’s true that God cares deeply for humanity and is concerned about what we think and feel. But it would be arrogant for us—mere mortals that we are—to rise up and give the Almighty a lecture about what he is, and is not, allowed to do. Humans are permitted to do many things, but placing God in a box is not one of them. To the contrary, he is Lord of humanity. In fact, he is Lord of all reality.

While I have many questions about UFOs, I’m not at all worried about the issue from a theological standpoint. If UFOs are demons-posing-as-aliens, the Church will be fine. We would not flinch an inch, for we have been given the means and authority to handle any and all unclean spirits (our exorcists have 2,000 years of successful experience dealing with them).

And if UFOs are aliens (or, more more broadly speaking, NHI), the church can handle that news, too. The existence of NHI would not pose any “unsettling theological implications.” To the contrary, in the event of disclosure, the Church would have all the more reason to declare the glories of God’s infinite wisdom and manifold creativity (Ps. 147:4-5; Rom 11:33-36; Col. 1:15-20).

If we ever were to discover that UFOs are NHI, I reckon it would be Lewis who would smile the most. No doubt, we’d also get a wink from Tolkien. His Middle-earth has always been home to an assortment of creatures—some of them humble and kind, others proud and dangerous. If NHI are real, then Tolkien’s words, penned so long ago, would prophetically ring all the more true:

“God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves.”^[4]

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^[1] Ruth Graham, “In U.F.O. Files, Some Christians See Vexing Questions — and Demons,” The New York Times, May 31, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/us/ufo-files-pentagon.html.

^[2] St. Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse: A Handbook for Catechists (PPS; trans., Ignatius Green; St Vladimir’’s Seminary Press, 2019), 117.

^[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” in Tree and Leaf (HarperCollins, 2025), 11.

^[4] Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” in Tree and Leaf, 79.