Are ETs Demonic? A review of: "The First and Last Deception: Aliens, UFOs, AI, and the Return of Eden’s Demise"

Michael E. Zimmerman

                  Dennis O’Connor’s book, The First and Last Deception: Aliens, UFOs, AI, and the Return of Eden’s Demise, is a noteworthy intervention in UFO literature. Indeed, it should be required reading for anyone wanting to know why some Christians regard ETs not as creatures from other planets, but instead as supernatural  diabolical entities seeking human ruin. What follows is not a full review of O’Connor’s lengthy book but only comments on some particular themes in it.

                  O’Connor is described as an adjunct professor of philosophy and religion at a SUNY community college, and as someone with technical/scientific training in his background. He has read deeply and widely in discourses about UFOs, alien abduction, and AI. A conservative Catholic well-versed  in the Bible, he cautions those who see ETs as possible saviors for a misguided humankind, saviors who somehow parallel or even displace Jesus Christ.  O’Connor criticizes the likes of Steven Greer, Jeff Kripal, Whitley Strieber, Jacques Vallée, Diane Pasulka, Timothy Morton, James Madden, Teilhard de Chardin, and  Carl Sagan for allegedly promoting variations of this theme. The late Catholic monsignor Corrado Balducci comes in for a special scolding for having promoted the idea that ETs might exist. Balducci’s views were never censored by the Vatican, however, which does not regard them as incompatible with Christian theology. The Catholic Church is a big tent that includes different and often competing interpretations of Christian doctrines. (Full disclosure: I am Catholic.)

                  In O’Connor’s reading of Genesis, God created only one kind of being with free will: the human being. That is, ETs cannot exist because the Bible makes no mention of them and offers no means for their salvation. Many conservative Christians resist the ET hypothesis for another reason as well. If ETs turn out to be real, this will confirm the hypothesis that under the right conditions intelligent life might evolve on other planets. Such a confirmation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, however, would undermine the claim of Genesis that human beings result from a special  (one time only) act of Divine creation.[1] From O’Connor’s viewpoint, Satan is ultimately responsible for cleverly designed UFO illusions that deceive us into thinking that natural processes, not God, was responsible for human origins.

                   To support his claim that humankind is the only creature with free will, O’Connor looks beyondthe Bible to the “rare Earth” hypothesis,  according to which our planet is likely to be the only one in the universe that harbors life, especially intelligent life. He does not delve into the “young Earth” notion that Creation is fewer than 10,000 years old.) Supporters of the rare Earth hypothesis cite the many different factors that had to coalesce over eons for life (and eventually intelligent life) to emerge on Earth. The odds against such an arrangement showing up again are unimaginably vast, O’Connor maintains, many orders of magnitude larger than the number of stars in the universe. Hence, he concludes, it is misguided to think that the sheer quantity of stars and planets means that life must exist somewhere other than on Earth. Terrestrial radio and TV waves have been propagating through our wing of the Milky Way for over a century, however, without anyone nearby seeming to notice.[2]

                  Despite O’Connor’s reservations, a 2021 PEW poll reveals that a substantial majority of today’s mainstream Christians (65%) affirm that their “best guess” is that there is life on other planets.  Among white evangelicals, however, only 40% agreed.  85% of atheists and agnostics, in contrast, said that their best guess was that intelligent life exists elsewhere.[3] Some Christians, such as sixth century AD Christian theologian John Philoponus, that God could have chosen to create more than one world.  Influential thirteenth-century theologian John Buridan came to a similar conclusion. Dominican priest Giordano Bruno claimed that the universe is infinite and contains multiple inhabitable worlds. In 1600, during the peak of the dreadful European witchcraft trials, Bruno was burnt at the stake not so much because of his ET claims but rather for truly heretical assertions, such as denying Christ’s divinity. Decades later, in 1633, Galileo was merely sentenced to house arrest (already bad enough from today’s point of view) for his revolutionary telescope, which showed irregularities on the Moon’s surface and revealed that Jupiter has moons. Galileo’s views were presaged by the heliocentric theory proposed a century earlier by Copernicus, who escaped censure (or worse) by publishing his book on this topic posthumously.

                   Perhaps the most important scientist ever, Galileo also originated mathematical physics thus paving the for Newton and others who changed our understanding of our solar system, gravity and so much else. Galileo and those who followed him emphasized the importance of experience/experimentation in efforts to explain how the natural world works. Christianity, as many of its followers gradually realized, had erred by wedding Christian theology to ancient Greek metaphysics. By the early eighteenth century some scientists were becoming skeptical about the usefulness of either Scripture or Aristotle for explaining the natural world.

                  According to O’Connor, eighteenth thinkers like Voltaire (arch enemy of Catholicism and Judaism) was both a friend of modern science the and a promoter of the many (inhabited) worlds hypothesis, thereby initiating a “grooming” process that continues to encourage people to believe more in the reality of  ETs than in the existence of God. O’Connor argues that the entertainment world seeks to persuade the public that ETs exist and that they are probably benevolent. Consider films such as The Day the World Stood Still, 2001, Close Encounters,  E.T. the Extraterrestrial, and Contact, which was based on Carl Sagan’s eponymous novel. Recently,  I re-watched Close Encounters, a tour de force of filmmaking with a redemptive point. The aliens prove to be salvific beings who lead the human protagonist to abandon his family and to fly off into a bright new future aboard a gigantic space ship. During a 1982 sabbatical in Berkeley, I viewed Spielberg’s film E.T. the Extraterrestrial. After many misadventures, E.T. comes back to life and ascends into heaven on his spaceship! As the film neared its end, I could barely avoid collapsing into audible sobs. The viewpoint of this enormously successful film became part of the modern cultural imaginary. (Spielberg is not done yet. He is now working on a new UFO-themed film to be released in summer, 2026.)

                  Allegedly, the demonic view of UFOs is shared by some ranking members of the USAF, which some people say explains why this branch of the military has declined to cooperate with various Congressional oversight committees seeking information pertaining to detecting and tracking UFOs. In Final Events and the Secret Government Group on Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife, Nick Redfern examines a cabal known as the Collins Elite (CE) which may share some views ascribed to some USAF officers. CE members believe that in 1946 occultists Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons (co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Lab) opened a passage to the “other side” that let demons enter our world, coincident with waves of UFO reports starting in 1947. According to the CE, however, flying saucers and their ET pilots are not benign visitors from other planets, but instead demons posing as beneficent ETs in order to lure human beings into cooperating with them. Misguided people have unwittingly assisted this deceptive process.

                  Some theologians have criticized claims made by the CE  for several reasons. For instance,  Satan would not need two self-anointed dark sorcerers to call down upon humankind a vast force of demons posing as ETs.[4] Moreover, the CE fails adequately to ground its main claims in Biblical theology and Christian traditions, thereby taking the risk of distorting Christian theology via a fear-based, conspiracy-theory message. Most Christian theologians, however, would agree that the Devil and his minions are master deceivers, as underscored in the title of O’Connor’s book.

                  According to Catholic theology, all angels are immortal  creatures, and all demons are fallen angels, which retain their created essence.[5]  It is traditionally posited that about one third of the angelic host followed Lucifer in challenging God’s status as the supreme being. The point is that demons are very numerous. Cast down from heaven, these discarnate entities engage in deception aimed at seducing humans to sin, thereby foiling God’s plan for people choose the righteous path leading to eternal life.[6]

                   If all angels, both holy and fallen ones, lack bodies, how to explain Biblical episodes in which angels appeared to people, as in the Annunciation?  Catholic theology states that angels can generate a temporary visible form, an “apparition” body, in order to communicate with people or to intervene in their affairs.  Angels and devils alike can appear out of nowhere and suddenly vanish. An angel’s apparition body is not considered as deceptive, but as necessary for an angel’s mission. Demons can also generate apparition bodies, ranging from gruesome to glamorous, in order to  deceive, punish, or frighten people, but—an important qualification--always in accordance with limits imposed by Divine will. Perhaps demons take advantage of today’s cultural fascination with UFOs by appearing to be ETs. How can a discarnate angel generate an apparition body? I have no idea.

                  Many UFO reports claim that flying saucers, enormous triangular-shaped craft, and so on can both appear and disappear suddenly. But, how? Is someone behind the scenes in charge of such currently inexplicable events? Do UFOs intrude into our world from another dimension? Perhaps, but what precisely would this involve? If one questions Christianity’s explanation for angelic encounters (apparition bodies created by supernatural entities), ought we not as well question quasi-scientific of explanations for ET and UFO encounters (apparition bodies coming from another dimension)?  

                  O’Connor speculates that UFOs may be a sign of the end times, as described in  John’s Book of Revelations. According to John, Satan and his demonic host will engage in a cosmic struggle against God. Supposedly, two diabolic and deceitful beasts will arise. The first, often identified with the Anti-Christ, will be an evil leader or empire demanding  universal worship and persecution of believers. The second beast will appear to be a prophet, performing many signs and wonders that will deceive even the faithful.  Riding a white horse, Jesus Christ “faithful and true” will return to battle against the dark side, casting the first beast and its false prophet into a lake of fire for 1000 years (the Millennium). Afterwards, Satan is briefly released but finally destroyed. In the Final Judgment, Jesus Christ raises and judges the dead, discloses a new heaven and earth, and causes to descend from heaven a New Jerusalem where God and His people will dwell forever, free from death, sorrow, and pain.

                  Many Christians, perhaps many the same ones who are open to the possibility of other populated worlds, are puzzled by this strange, violent vision of a final cosmic struggle between good and evil. Revelations  was not accepted as a genuine book of the New Testament until the fourth century AD. For one thing, it clashes with the pastoral tone set by the Gospels. For another it invites potentially heretical interpretations that could mislead the credulous. Hence, the Catholic Church generally recommends that Revelations be read symbolically rather than literally, Modern people (including many mainstream Christians) usually regard this vision as the product of an overheated religious imagination. For many fundamentalist Christians, however, the events presaged in Revelations will inevitably come to pass because they are contained in the Bible, just as it must be the case that there can be no other inhabited worlds because they are not mentioned in the Bible. Other New Testament writers besides John, however, maintain that Satan will use deceptive tactics to forestall the return of the Redeemer at the end of the world. St. Paul writes:

Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed… The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing. 2  Thessalonians 2:3–4, 9–10 (ESV) Likewise, Timothy writes:” Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.” 1 Timothy 4:1 (ESV)

                  Over the centuries, one or another Christian has claimed that contemporary wars, calamities, evil leaders and nations were signs that the end times were upon us. Some Christian ministers persuaded their flocks to abandon their previous lives and prepare for  the end of the world. In the twentieth century, atomic warfare threatened to destroy human life. Beginning in the early 1950s, UFO “contactees” such as George Adamski reported that benevolent “space brothers” warned against producing and using nuclear weapons. Such warnings have often been made to people reporting having been abducted by aliens. Are the aliens: a) hidden denizens of planet Earth attempting to prevent humans from destroying  the biosphere? b) literal ETs who want both to preserve and to infiltrate Earth by creating human/alien hybrids who will be far less violent and self-destructive than Humanity 1.0? or c) demons, disguised in apparition bodies, who seek to persuade humankind to seek salvation not from God, but from allegedly well-intended beings from other planets?  There are other possible explanations, of course, but  because New Testament discourse about end times has influenced Western civilization for two millennia, many people tacitly or openly still hope that someone will save us from our own self-destructive behavior.  

                  Many students of the UFOs have read allegations that members of the USAF are in a quandary over how to speak about UFOs. The USAF may be in a quandary. On the one hand, if it were to portray ETs as diabolical entities paving the way for the Anti-Christ, it would instantly lose credibility on the part of non-Christians and many Christians alike. As revealed in a 2008 survey conducted by theologian Ted Peters, the great majority of Christians do not conceive of ETs as demonic.[7] On the other hand, the USAF cannot admit to UFOs being real craft piloted by ETs (or whomever) because doing so would amount to the politically destabilizing admission that America cannot control its own airspace. Of course, there is a thirdpossibility: ETs and UFOs do not “exist” at all, or at least not in ways depicted by many nuts-and-bolts UFOlogists. The frequency with which UFO encounters are reported to involve  “high strangeness” reminds us that such encounters involve consciousness-altering and perception-affecting features. What is experienced is modified by the experiencer, as well as by the narratives provided by the experiencer.[8]

                  Nevertheless, ETs might exist in some fairly robust “real” sense. O’Connor climbs out on a limb by insisting that the Bible does not allow for ETs. How  would he deal with a disclosure event that includes publicly displayed and verified alien corpses, ET spacecraft, and other physical evidence sufficient to persuade most people that aliens are here and real? Presumably he would have to say something like this: the whole collection of alleged evidence was manufactured by demons as part of their plan to deceive and thus seduce humankind at the end times. This view may be a bridge too far for the great majority of people, including many Christians.

                  The Catholic Church has no official position on the existence of ETs, a fact that clearly upsets O’Connor. Many theologians have discussed in detail the status of ETs and are open to the possibility that intelligent non-humans exist. For example, Ted Peters, a member of the Board of Advisors of the Society for UAP Studies, has published extensively on theological aspects of ET. The recently deceased Pope Francis allowed for the possibility of ETs for at least two reasons.[9]  The first has already been discussed: Empirical science has discovered undeniable aspects of the world/Creation that are not mentioned in the Bible. Refusal to countenance such empirical findings made by scientists has cost the Church its credibility in the eyes of many people.

                  The second reason is that decades before science began seriously to question the scope of Biblical knowledge, Europeans made contact with unknown people living in what turned out to be two continents that weren’t even supposed to be there. In 1492 Europeans knew of only the three realms: Europea, Africa, and Asia. Enabled by Gutenberg’s new form of printing, news quickly spread  across Europe that exotic humanoids were living far across the ocean. Europeans were shocked by the existence of “alien” humans who had constructed massive cities, developed complex societies, and worshipped gods other than the one worshipped by Europeans. Moreover, the fact that these exotic creatures  had never even heard of the Bible (supposedly universal in its reach) initiated a de-centering and self-questioning that forever changed European civilization.

                   In the sixteenth century, the human status of New World natives became a major issue, Conquistadores  proposed that natives were subhuman, lacking souls, and thus suitable for being enslaved as miners extracting gold and silver for European rulers. In contrast, Jesuits--who sent missionaries to the South America in the mid-sixteenth century--insisted that native peoples were fully human and deserving of baptism as well as protection from those who would exploit them. The late Pope Francis, born in Argentina, was well aware of the dark side of European colonization of native people, including exploitation countenanced by Christians, and also hoped that humankind would be more discerning in its appraisal of alien non-humans, should their existence be confirmed by empirical science.

                  The current director of the Vatican Observatory, Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ, holds a PhD in planetary science and has published extensively on matters relating to the relation between faith and science. Consolmagno indicates that if morally aware ETs exist, they may have their own relationship to God. If they show up on Earth, the Church would be required to discern their spiritual needs and how to address them, if possible. In 2014 Pope Francis was discussing the revelation made to St. Peter that salvation was available not only to Jews but to Gentiles, that is, to all humankind. As Time reporter Elizabeth Dias writes:

 It was a moment of internal crisis for the early church. “That was unthinkable,” Francis explained. And, to show just how unthinkable it was, he added: “If—for example—tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here…Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them…And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?”[10]

                  The Pope answered off-handedly that he would baptize the Martian aliens, just as Christians everywhere should welcome human aliens, namely, undocumented immigrants seeking a better life. Like many of his contemporaries, Pope Francis envisioned the “world “ not merely as planet Earth, but as the whole universe, which may contain ETs capable of sin and thus in need of redemption.

                  Even if ETs/aliens aren’t demons, a view shared by most people (including the present author), we should keep in mind our ignorance of their origins and intentions. Whitley Strieber, perhaps the best-known alien abduction experiencer, has long spoken ambivalently about the intentions of the Visitors, as he calls them. They want something from us, and at times they treat us like lab animals in their quest for it, but they also have something to contribute to us in exchange, perhaps including a hybrid race that avoid acting ways that generate environmental catastrophe. Optimists such as John E. Mack note that alien abductions, despite initially provoking terror and shock, usually lead to an expansion of consciousness that makes experiencers more concerned about the fate of the planet. His views are largely confirmed by an important survey, according to which about 75% of alien abduction experiencers indicate such an expansion of consciousness, as if they had participated in a kind of initiation ritual.[11] Pessimists, on the other hand, including Budd Hopkins who helped Mack to connect with experiencers, and David Jacobs depict aliens and their intentions in a darker way, for instance, as engineering a hybrid species that will take control of the planet. From a Christian perspective, as well as from a number of other perspectives forced creation of such hybrids would be an abomination.

                  If such a hybrid program were really occurring, however, it might be an important objection to claims that aliens are diabolical. Christian theologians maintain that neither Satan nor his minions are free to do whatever they want in the fallen world. Instead, God puts a limit to what they can get away with. Allowing the human genome to be transformed by demons would clearly defeat of God’s plan for human salvation. Even if aliens are not supernatural demons, however, would God permit ETs from other worlds/dimensions to alter the essential form of humankind? The terrible events of the 20th century, perhaps above all the murder by Nazis of six million Jews, provoked a crisis of faith on the part of many Jews, as well as Christians, who ask how God could possibly have tolerated the effort to exterminate His chosen people.

                  When trying to make sense of creatures like alien greys who both resemble and differ from us, and who are allegedly trying to redesign the human genome, many people may understandably entertain—even if only briefly—the idea that the greys are diabolical. O’Connor’s mind is made up about the matter.  In truth, however, no one really knows who the greys are, and what they have in mind for humankind and planet Earth. Strieber notes that they are probably not supernatural, given that they exhibit fear at times. (To be sure, O’Connor might reply, demons could easily deceive us into thinking they are frightened.) Rather than projecting upon ETs or aliens either salvific or diabolic intentions, however, perhaps we should retract such projections so that they might show up more accurately from their own side. We all know that this is far easier said than done.

                  Meantime, at this moment, transhumanists in Silicon Valley are devising a human hybrid program of their own, namely, the AI-enhanced superhuman described almost twenty years ago in Ray Kurzweil’s Promethean book, The Singularity Is Near.[12] Like Kurzweil, many AI developers envision two-stage process that will allow them to develop a version of Nietzsche’s Overman who will justify human existence, thereby overcoming the nihilism arising from the “death of God.” The first stage, transhumanism, involves creating technologically-enhanced humans who meld the organic human with exponentially improving AI. Such superhumans (which have little or nothing in common with what Nietzsche meant by the Overman) will have greatly increased lifespans and enormous computer-enhanced intellectual, aesthetic, and practical capacities. Brain-computer interface methods required for all this are well are being developed by Elon Musk’s Neuralink and other corporations. A number of people argue that ETs/aliens are downloading to humans the information necessary for attaining this technological transformation of the human.

                  Superhumans, however, are merely a transitional moment leading to AGI  (artificial general intelligence). As AGI rapidly improves itself,  the post-human era will begin, presumably leaving organic humankind far, far behind. When asked if God exists, Kurzweil once replied: “Not yet.” In his view, AGI will eventually become a God-like power that will eventually reshape the entire universe for the better. (I am not making this up.) For many denizens of Silicon Valley, being progenitors of such an ersatz God is even more important than making zillions of dollars. The existential risks involved in the God-project are not trivial, according to people such as Geoffrey Hinton who was awarded a Nobel Prize last year for his contributions to modern digital computation.

                  After Prometheus gave fire (symbol of technology) to humankind, Zeus punished him by chaining him to a rock where an eagle would devour his liver every night, only to have it regrow by morning. Zeus justified such dreadful punishment because a technology-equipped, hubristic humans would eventually try to storm the gates of heaven. It is worth noting that a  Biblical version of this story concerns the Tower of Babel. Various readings of Christianity have played an important role in the rise of modern technology, which is poised to replace humankind with far-superior AGI.

                   The fourth century theologian, Athanasius, wrote that God became man so that man could become God, that is, God’s grace allows us to become his brothers and sisters. Martin Luther emphasized a version of this idea, which was later re-interpreted in modern terms by G.W.F. Hegel.  who regarded himself as an orthodox Lutheran. According to Hegel, the Incarnation means that God emptied Himself into human history, whereby abstract Divinity eventually attains concrete self-consciousness. The concept of an eternal transcendent God is thereby transformed into immanent historical process, one that leads not to redemption at the Second Coming, but rather to attainment of ever greater techno-scientific knowledge and attendant power. Today, everything seemingly reveals itself as raw material useful for enhancing the ceaseless Will to Power, as philosopher Martin Heidegger maintained.

                  Although I have reservations about several aspects of O’Connor’s book, I nevertheless regard it as a well-researched and forceful defense of his claim that ETs (not to mention the quest for AGI) may be diabolical.[13] His book's intended audience are conservative Christians who affirm a literal reading of the Bible. One does not need to be a Christian or even interested in religion to learn from what O’Connor has to say. It is important for us to think about ET, aliens, and UFOs from multiple perspectives, religious, folkloric, and humanistic, as well as scientific.

                  This review essay is a work in progress. Critical feedback is welcome!

                  [1] Ted Peters, personal communication. Thanks to Ted and to Kimberly Engels for helpful suggestions that improved this essay. Remaining shortcomings are my own.

                  [2] The unlikelihood of life accidentally showing up (rather than being created, as in theism)  is underscored by the astonishing complexity of DNA, as well as the extraordinarily structure of organic cells, each of which involves so many interconnected complex processes that they are like small cities. How such cells could have “evolved” remains a stumbling block for those who rely solely on chance beneficial mutations to do the job. Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) concluded that the chance of DNA evolving spontaneously on Earth is so slim, that he devised the Panspermia hypothesis to account for the emergence of terrestrial life.  Crick suggests that Earth was “seeded”  with DNA either by accident or intentionally by ETs. This gambit, however, leaves unexplained the original source of DNA. Of course, it would take only oneinstance of confirmed life elsewhere (especially outside of our solar system) to show the limits of the rare Earth hypothesis.

                  [3] Pew Research Center, “Religious Americans less likely to believe intelligent life exists on other planets." July 28 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/28/religious-americans-less-likely-to-believe-intelligent-life-exists-on-other-planets/ Download: bestGuess420px

                  [4] See the late theologian Michael Hauser’s 2010 review of Final Events: https://drmsh.com/review-of-nick-redferns-final-events/

                  [5] See Fr Chad Ripperger, PhD,  Dominion: The Nature of Diabolic Warfare. Keenesburg, CO:Sensus Traditionis Press, 2022.

                  [6] Demons can also take possession of a human body by invading it and occupying it in a parasitic manner, but such “possession” is always held to be temporary.  

                  [7] See Ted Peters, “ETI Religious Crisis Survey” (2008),  https://counterbalance.org/etsurv/index-frame.html

                  [8] In this connection, see Johsua Cutchin’s new book. Fourth Wall Phantoms: Reflections on the Paranormal, Narrrative, and Fictions Becoming Fact. Cutchin’s contention that human imagination (far more potent than assumed in today’s STEM era) co-creates the world, including paranormal phenomena that lurk within it—and us.  Cutchin’s book has been influenced by Jacques Vallée, who in Passport to Magoniaargues that UFO technology is always slightly ahead of our own; Bertrand Méheust, whose book Science Fiction et Soucoupes Volantes (Science Fiction and Flying Saucers) reveals that 1920s-1940s comic books and pulp fiction anticipated everything from flying saucers to alien abduction; and Jeffrey Kripal, whose Mutants and Mystics argues that sci-fi and comic books entwine with paranormal and mystical experience that reveals a world far stranger than we think (or even can think). Cutchin reminds us of the importance of the humanities (including narrative theory) in making sense of the UFOs.

                  [9] For a brief overview of these issues, see Claire Giangravè, “Could Catholicism handle the discovery of extraterrestrial life?” in Crux: Taking the Catholic Pulse, February 24 2017. https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/02/catholicism-handle-discovery-extraterrestrial-life

                  [10] Elizabeth Dias, ”For Pope Francis, It’s About More than Martians,” May 14, 2024.  https://time.com/99616/for-pope-francis-its-about-more-than-martians/

                  [11] See Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness and Contact with Non Human Intelligence, Volume 1. Edited by Rey Hernandez Jon Klimo, and. Rudy Schild. Published by the Dr. Edgar Mitchell Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiences (FREE), 2018.

[12] See my essay, “The Singularity: A Crucial Phase in Divine Self-Actualization?” Cosmos and History. Volume 4, No. 2 (2008), 347-370. http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/107/213

                  [13] For another view of ETs from a perspective similar to O’Connor’s, see Hugh Ross, Kenneth R. Samples, and Mark Clark, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men, Covina, CA:  Reasons to Believe Publisher, 2024.