There are two types of aliens in Hollywood today. The first is terrifying in its capacity:
“You set down on LV-426 and found something never recorded once in any of the 300 surveyed worlds. ‘A creature that gestates inside a living human host’ —these are your words—‘and has concentrated acid for blood.’”
So says a sceptical executive interviewing Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in the movie Aliens. The second type of alien, though, is as different as day from stygian night:
“He won’t hurt you, Gertie. He’s not gonna hurt you . . . We could grow up together, E.T. . . . I’ll believe in you all my life, every day. E.T. . . . I love you.”
This is how Elliot Taylor (Henry Thomas), describes his off-world visitor in E.T.. The question is, if humanity were to encounter an alien species, which would it be like? Would it be a menace or a mentor? And, in particular, what could it tell us about God? The crew of Ellen Ripley’s spacecraft had much to fear from such an encounter, but do Christians?
The revalatory 2026 film Disclosure Day lands on the second type of alien. That’s no surprise, given it is directed by Steven Spielberg, the creator of E.T. and other friendly visitor franchises like Close Encounters and Artificial Intelligence. Spielberg doggedly insists that when humanity encounters interstellar civilisations, it will discover them to be highly evolved, enlightened and the earth’s spiritual saviours.
In Disclosure Day, Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt play two people caught up in a conspiracy to suppress the knowledge that aliens have been visiting our planet since the 1950s. However, the time for more direct contact is rapidly approaching. O’Connor’s character is in favour of full exposure: “It’s everyone’s truth and no-one has a right to own it or suppress it.” But the covert organisation behind the alien coverup is convinced humanity isn’t ready for the revelation. It will tip the world into chaos as people respond in fear or adoration. Faced with the disturbing prospect of being worshipped, Blunt’s transformed character responds, “I won’t become someone’s religion.” But if Spielberg’s aliens were to share their wisdom, would we understand them? Thank goodness for mathematics.
the universal language?
The very subject that many of us hated so much in high school is predicted to be the foundation of understanding between earth and extra-terrestrials. Mathematics is considered by many to be a universal language. Were aliens to develop spacecraft they would have to at least understand the fundamentals of Euclidean geometry and that alone could form the basis for communication. Carl Sagan proposed as much in his novel-cum-film Contact. He then went on to become a founding member of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a multidisciplinary scientific endeavour that uses telescopes and advanced data analysis to scan the universe for intentional signs of technology. Far from being a fringe theory, NASA included in Voyager One a golden disc inscribed with mathematical formula and geometric symbols that aliens might use to both understand and locate earth.
However, in Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, maths holds the key to more than just technological revelations. In this, world experts also agree. Dr Satyan Devados, the Fletcher Jones professor of applied mathematics at the University of San Diego points to the curious way pure maths corresponds to our perceived reality:
“This connection between the real world and the mathematical world is fascinatingly close. That’s something interesting that moves me to say that something else is going on.”
Others, like John Lennox, Emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, point to the elegant patterns inherent in maths, suggesting they hint at the existence of a “Patterner”. So, maths might in fact be a prime basis for communication for both scientific and spiritual truths. But a meeting of minds is far more complex. We might be able to communicate but the question remains, would we believe what we heard?
CS Lewis, one of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers, suggested that if aliens turned up, the world would be turned upside down, but not in the way we think. In his otherworld adventure Out of the Silent Planet he writes about earthlings meeting aliens, only to discover that the rest of the universe believes in both the heavenly Son and eternal Father that most humans reject. They are superior beings, like Spielberg suggests, but their superiority lies in recognising the spiritual realities of the universe:
“The weakest of my people does not fear death. It is the [Devil], the lord of your world, who wastes your lives and befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end. If you were subjects of [the Son] you would have peace.”
Scientists in Disclosure Day say that its aliens see empathy as an evolutionary advantage. Listening is the key to the most evolved relationships. “Listen” is in fact both the appeal and the command of a rather evangelistic film.
arrival
If aliens did come down to earth, though, what would we do?
In fact, we don’t have to wonder, as an alien had already landed on earth. When God bridged the divide between the spiritual and physical universes by entering our world as a baby, He inaugurated the supreme close encounter. Jesus crossed the most fundamental physical and spiritual divides. “Listen” was the cornerstone of His ministry. He instructed his disciples who were in danger of being caught up in the miraculous, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (Mark 1:38). “Listen” was the appeal He made to a world in danger: “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). Spielberg and others are convinced aliens have something valuable to say because they equate technological advancement with moral superiority. It’s a dubious conclusion. But “listen” was the command Jesus gave, after earning the right to be heard not by his mode of travel, but by a consistent display of humility and self-sacrifice:
“The most important [commandment],” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:29-31).
Jesus’ message was not an all-embracing philosophy such as what Hollywood’s peaceful aliens preach. Neither is it one to be superseded by civilisations who pass by demonstrating the equivalent of better iPhones. Rather than visit, Jesus was an alien who made his home amongst us. And his message does not hint at salvation; it reveals Himself to be that salvation. His message has evaded any censorship Disclosure Day could dream up, and it offers the sort of universal peace that Spielberg can only dream of. But would he want to hear it?
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