O You of Little Faith!

A while ago I read an article by an atheist who was claiming that he had a definitive explanation for what Catholics believe are the apparitions of angels, demons, and the Saints. He said that it was all actually aliens. His claim was that aliens are all but proven to exist (!) and that it was people of Christian belief who were too stubborn to recognize it. He also said that every time a Catholic said he saw either an angel, a demon, or the Blessed Virgin, that it was actually an alien whom he misinterpreted.

What if he is correct, but has it backwards? What I mean is: what if all these experiences of aliens, were actually either angels or demons? Scripture does tell us that people can encounter angels and think that they are merely a human, why not mistake them for something alien when they do things that are miraculous? What about all these stories of "alien abductions" and people being tortured on space ships? What if they are merely a misinterpreted experience of the spiritual realm?

I am not saying that I actually believe this to be the case (though it is certainly possible, at least some of the time). I am merely pointing out that to discredit the experiences of the angelic or demonic (and there are more claims to this than I can count) is unwise. Modern "enlightened" Americans are quick to reject the supernatural realm as the Catholic Church explains it, but they seem to be just as quick to accept ideas that are more the substance of sci-fi stories.

We cannot answer the question posited above. We do not yet have all the information necessary to determine what all those "alien" and "ufo" sightings actually are. We can, however be certain that we are not really smarter than our forebears; they saw angels and demons and did not doubt it or re-explain it. There is a realm of mystery in our lives, and it certainly involves the activities of the angelic, and, yes, the demonic.