Alien Intrusion:
A Biblically Sound Investigation into the UFO Phenomenon
A CCRR Book Review by K.G. Powderly Jr.

     Gary Bates’ book Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection is an intelligent expose on the mechanics of how an evolutionary worldview (with a little demonic help) has produced its own mythology, which is now spawning formal UFO-based religions like the Raelian Cult and Heaven’s Gate. When Bates uses the word mythology he does not mean to imply that some real people are not experiencing unusual phenomena; only that what they experience has been pre-defined for them by science fiction-driven, Space Age, Postmodern ideas and imagery. A few strange events involving lights in the sky and disturbing, dream-like encounters with unknown beings, which may or may not have material explanations, become the stuff of legends. Legend turns into myth when meaning and purpose are assigned to the “alien” encounters. Once there is a well-established culture surrounding the growing body of myth, formal religions begin to solidify like orbiting planets (if you’ll excuse the pun).

 
     Bates clearly and convincingly demonstrates that this process is the same fragmented history-to-legend-to-myth cycle that went on in the formation of ancient mythologies from Sumer, to Greece and Egypt, and to India, and Meso-America. Only now it is happening on a global scale, at a time when vast imaging technology can bring the myth to life in our living rooms.  It raises the question of whether art imitates life or life imitates art. The answer to both questions is, yes.

     As a science fiction author who writes to expose the nature of this new mythology, I am impressed by the documentation Alien Invasion provides for how interested the “space brothers” seem to be in redefining the traditional view of Jesus Christ. Why would ETs care about that if they were mere beings from another planet in another solar system? Why do so many of the “alien encounters” focus on sexual and other reproductive acts? Why do mental illnesses like schizophrenia and extreme forms of depression so often show up in the wake of such encounters?

     Bates’ book thoroughly explores these and other important questions from a biblically informed worldview that takes the accounts of events seriously without giving in to sensationalism or to the ridicule of those who have had such odd experiences. Conversely, he deals squarely with those who are taking advantage of such people to build themselves new cults of followers-whether in the traditional sense, or in the sense of an informal media/convention empire.

     Just as missionaries to foreign societies must learn the culture and worldviews of those they speak to, so we must learn that our technology has not elevated us from myth-making-simply demanded that we frame our myths in pseudo-scientific terminology. Alien Intrusion is a great book for learning how that is developing under our very noses.