Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture

4 Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer?

76 4 Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer? But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. (NIV)1 —Revelation 21:8 Americans are a remarkably religious people. More than 80 percent fall within the Judeo-Christian lineage, while just over 5 percent claim a faith outside this heritage. Half attend church or temple at least once a month. Nearly another third maintain some contact with a religious group by attending at least once a year.2 Whether they attend church services or not the great majority of Americans (82%) identify as a Christian of some form or another,3 and most hold relatively traditional beliefs. Almost three-fourths of Americans (73%) believe that Jesus is the one and only son of God.4 Even more (81%) believe in an anthropomorphic God. Given the ubiquitous faith of Americans, the popularity of the paranormal in the United States may be tied to the fate of conventional religion. To the extent that the paranormal is in direct conflict with conventional religion, its growth may remain limited to the minority of Americans outside of conventional religion but still open to the supernatural. On the other hand, should conventional religion decline in popularity, its decline could open the door to a revival of interest in alternative spiritualities and paranormal topics. There is an alternative to tying the fate of the paranormal to the growth, stability, or decline of conventional religion—the possibility that religious Americans will accept paranormal beliefs as a complement to their existing Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer? 77 religious beliefs. Clearly, at least some Christians must be interested in the paranormal judging by the ubiquity and popularity of related television shows, books, and movies. Perhaps religious individuals simply do not see a conflict between believing in angels and ghosts at the same time, or simultaneously reading the Bible and UFO literature. Is there any harm in a Catholic visiting an astrologer? Throughout American history there have been sporadic movements that directly tested the boundaries of Christianity by attempting to fuse Christian ideas with paranormal concepts. One of the most audacious of these was George Adamski’s endeavor to bring Jesus to the flying saucers. Jesus on a Flying Saucer A colorful character by all accounts, George Adamski founded the Royal Order of Tibet in the 1930s to espouse his “cosmic philosophy,” and attracted a small following. He had little formal schooling but enjoyed being called “professor” by eager students. By the 1940s, Adamski was living near the Mount Palomar observatory in California, working as a shortorder cook. Fortuitously (his critics would say by design), Adamski began to claim UFO sightings just as interest in the subject was reaching new heights in the late 1940s. In October 1946 while peering at a meteor shower through his telescope, Adamski claimed that he spotted an object “similar in shape to a giant dirigible.”5 Adamski began to make frequent trips to the desert near his home, believing that “spaceships” might choose to land in less populated areas. On November 20, 1952, Adamski and six associates traveled to a barren area near Desert Center, California, spent the morning exploring, and sat down to eat lunch at about noon. At that time a plane passed low over their heads, drawing the group’s attention to a “gigantic cigar-shaped silvery ship without wings or appendages of any kind” hovering nearby.6 According to his later recounting of the events, Adamski experienced a strange “feeling” that he must move to a location close to the area. He asked his friends to drop him off there, and he then moved to a position about a mile away. Once safely alone, Adamski claims to have seen a flash in the sky, followed by the appearance of a “beautiful small craft,” which descended into a nearby cove. As he took pictures of the vicinity, he noticed a man standing near the entrance of a ravine. Upon approach, Adamski realized that he was face-to-face with an extraterrestrial: 78 Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer? Now for the first time I fully realized that I was in the presence of a man from space—a human being from another world! . . . The beauty of his form surpassed anything...