Alien Claims and the Media

Every time some unusual signal from space is discovered, we see headlines in newspapers about aliens being the source of the signal. In August of 2016, reports came out of a radio telescope in Russia known as the RATAN-600 that had picked up a strong signal in the 11 gigahertz band. This was coming from a star known as HD 164595 and was first detected in 2013. Since that time the RATAN telescope and SETI have listened for repeat signals, but none have been detected. Headlines in the media have been things like “Baffling Alien Signal Detected.” Dr. Eric Korpela who works with SETI says, “There’s always the problem that scientific vocabulary is different from the public vocabulary. Detection, to me, means something was detected. To the public, it may translate as ‘We found aliens.’” It turns out that the signals have several possible natural explanations, none of which involve aliens.

The question remains as to why the public is so obsessed with the theme of aliens. We have pointed out repeatedly that finding life in space doesn’t have anything to do with the existence of God. If God chose to create life in other places for reasons we don’t fully understand, that is no issue. The Bible deals with humans and our existence on Earth. It is becoming obvious that there are no higher forms of life anywhere close to us, so the question is moot. This is not a question that has implications for the existence of God or the credibility of the Bible.

I have had atheists respond to me by saying that if life exists elsewhere, it proves that life can come about by chance. That assumes that God exists only on our planet, which is a misunderstanding of what God is. The fact remains that having a story about aliens sells, and video games and sci-fi movies will continue to propagate the idea. I have often told the story of doing a radio debate with an atheist on the Larry King talk show in Washington D.C. before he became famous. A listener called in and asked the atheist what he would do if a spaceship landed on the White House lawn, and a little green man jumped out with a Bible in his hand and said: “Has Jesus been here yet?” My atheist friend responded “punt,” and maybe that’s what we should all do on this issue until we have more facts. Source of Information: Astronomy magazine December 2016, page 9.
–John N. Clayton © 2017