We’re not shooting down aliens.

Somehow, people got it in their heads that we’re firing missiles and destroying alien aircraft. As Reuters posted, one military general isn’t ruling out the idea that we’ve been shooting down aliens over military airspace:

The U.S. Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said on Sunday after a series of shoot-downs of unidentified objects that he would not rule out aliens or any other explanation yet, deferring to U.S. intelligence experts.

Asked whether he had ruled out an extraterrestrial origin for three airborne objects shot down by U.S. warplanes in as many days, General Glen VanHerck said: “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything.”

Let’s think about this logically for just a moment.

If an alien race is visiting us from beyond our own system, it’s likely capable of some incredibly mind-blowing technological feats. They may have somehow discovered safe faster-than-light travel, or more likely, how to create the Einstein-theorized wormholes. Their aircraft’s capabilities would be the stuff of science fiction, capable of maneuvering with gravity-defying agility and speeds that would have physicists scratching their heads. It’s likely going to have defensive capabilities that allow it to withstand the hazards of space, including high-speed flying debris that could come out of nowhere and tear through metal like it was paper.

And you’re telling me that we shot some of the down using Earthbound aircraft to fire off an exploding stick propelled by burning chemicals?

That’s like saying little Timmy stopped an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank by loading up a rock into his slingshot and letting her rip. A technologically advanced species like that would look at our efforts to do damage to them with a response akin to “aww, cute.”

Now, does that mean I think aliens aren’t here? Absolutely not.

I’m pretty sure extraterrestrial life exists and my views on it are probably a bit unorthodox and it stems from my Christianity. Many Christians I’ve met believe that God created one race of beings that were “in his image.” A half-ethereal, half-animal hybrid that walks and works within the universal laws of time and space.

However, I would posit that being a Christian could actually make people more open to the idea of extraterrestrial life than not. Nowhere does it definitely state in the Bible that we’re alone in the expanse. In fact, there are instances in the Bible that sound an awful lot like alien encounters such as the wheel within the wheel in Ezekiel 1:15-18. That is, of course, high speculation.

However, a man that I greatly admire and take a lot of cues from seemed to believe in alien life, or at the least, the very possibility. C.S. Lewis addressed the idea of extra-terrestrials on more than one occasion, even writing a sci-fi trilogy based around them at one point.

Lewis didn’t focus so much on whether or not they existed, but on what their spiritual state was. Logically, in a seemingly infinite universe with an untold number of galaxies containing billions of systems within it, alien life has a high chance of existing. The question is whether or not they are fallen like us.

If we’re to take it as a given that there is alien life outside our own system, then the Christian would naturally include that life in the creation that occurred when God spoke life into being. That should naturally lead the Christian to consider whether or not they are fallen like us or did their species resist the temptation of some foe. Did they even have that foe present in their world in the first place?

If not, then what business do we have interacting with them at all? This was Lewis’s perspective:

“I look forward with horror to contact with the other inhabited planets, if there are such. We would only transport to them all of our sin and our acquisitiveness, and establish a new colonialism. I can’t bear to think of it. Once we find ourselves spiritually awakened, we can go to outer space and take the good things with us. That is quite a different matter.”

But allow me to take it a bit further.

What if they aren’t fallen? What if we, in our fallen state, actually have a madness about us that we acquired after the biting of the fruit from the tree of knowledge? It’s possible that we are mentally disturbed, like occupants of a padded room, we just haven’t really thought too deeply about it since we’re all mad here.

What if this non-fallen species of alien is indeed here? What if they’re tasked by God to help look after us, like hospital workers looking after sick patients? What if we are quarantined away from the rest of the universe, unable to communicate or see the other races that exist in the expanse due to our illness? We’re overseen by non-fallen species like galactic babysitters until such a time as our madness can be removed from us.

Just some food for thought. Let me know what you think below in the comments. I’m interested to read your thoughts on the matter.