I recently asked a friend of mine, a deeply committed Christian who had been “read in” to the Legacy Program and the alien presence, how he reconciled the existence of nonhuman biological life with his theological worldview. He considered the question for a moment before answering with a single word: “Contemporaries.” I asked whether he meant contemporaries of mankind here on Earth or contemporaries in the broader universe. “The universe,” he replied. I find this to be a refreshingly simple answer, unencumbered by theological baggage or speculative assumptions.

The appeal to data claiming that more than 400 abductees have successfully halted an abduction episode by invoking the name of Jesus is, in my opinion, based on a fundamental misinterpretation of the phenomenon. Most abductees remember only the beginning and/or the end of an abduction experience—that is, the moment the beings appear to take them and the moment they are returned to their bed. The aliens depart because they have concluded the abduction, not necessarily because you rebuked them.