A new book by D.W. Pasulka, department chair of philosophy and religion at the University of North Carolina, is titled American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology. In it she explores how belief and fascination with UFOs and aliens could be evolving into a sizable world religion. At least 35% of Americans believe extraterrestrial beings have visited us in the past, and 26% believe it is continuing today.

Pasulka has observed that:

UFO beliefs display other classic indicators of religion: sacred sites, sacred revelations, and testimony by credible witnesses to miraculous events. Alien belief allows for a crowded, living cosmos filled with the wild supernatural. It provides a language of longing for something—an angelic visitor, the complete fulfillment of our own technological potential, revelation about the nature of the universe.

… there are signs that alien belief is poised to become one of the world’s ethical religions. Alien beliefs often implicate the world in wickedness and call for repentance. Many accounts of alien contacts include calls for an end to war and an increase in peaceful human cooperation. A recent New York Times op-ed used an alien invasion as a model for thinking about climate change.

Source: Clare Coffey, “Belief in aliens could be America’s next religion,” The Outline, (3-18-19)