For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Is There Life On Other Planets?

The news recently rekindled an age-old question of flying saucers, UFOs, and the quest to find life on other planets. Presently, NASA’s Perseverance rover is on the planet Mars to collect samples and find evidence of ancient life. Missions to Mars have taken place since 1965, with plans to launch manned flights to the lunar south pole by 2024 as proving ground for strategies to reach Mars. Neil Armstrong found when he first stepped foot on the Moon the same thing when vehicles landed on Mars – no extraterrestrial beings live there. Scientists believe they will find evidence of life on the planets to understand the origins of the Earth, which is contrary since the only life to be seen is on Earth.

When Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon’s surface, it was a remarkable feat of human engineering. Since 1969, other men have walked on the Moon with Gene Cernan, the last man to stand on the lunar surface in 1972. Mars is the next closest planet to land vehicles upon but requires nearly seven months to arrive on the surface when Mars and Earth align, allowing for a quicker and more efficient journey (occurring every 26 months). While the pictures coming back from the surface of Mars are outstanding, there are no primitive buildings, smiling Martians, and evidence of life. It is a barren, frigid, inhospitable world half the size of Earth.

Is there life on other planets? Will the day come when, like early explorers, new lands and new peoples are found dotting the landscape of the vast tapestry of the star-filled heavens? Long before the advent of Flash Gordon’s Hollywood productions, My Favorite Martian, Star Wars, and Star Trek, men have imagined aliens from the heavens landing on Earth. In 1938, Orson Welles scared the world with his rendition of the War of the Worlds, suggesting Martians had landed on Earth terrorizing the world. Sightings of unidentified flying objects find their way into the news, fueling speculation the government is hiding a covert program of extraterrestrial beings used for science studies. Many believe the day will come that space travel will be as common as going to the store for milk.

The Bible is a book that answers many questions, and it addresses the question of whether there is life on other planets. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. Whatever is seen in the sky was made by the hand of the Divine. The Moon and Mars did not take billions of years to form. They were created at the instant the Creator spoke. Moses reveals that when creation was finished, God formed man from the dust of the ground (Earth) and then took a rib from the first man and created the woman. Adam’s name means “red earth.” Paul will later tell the saints in Corinth that Adam was the “first man” and that he was “of the earth, made of dust.” Whatever beings are in the universe were created by God.  Since Adam was the first, all beings are human or in Adam’s image. The first time a human left the bounds of Earth to travel into space was in 1961 when Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, entered the void above the circle of the Earth. He was not a Martian or a being from another planet. The search for life on other planets is an exercise in futility because God created Adam as the first and all other creatures follow in his similitude.

A final reason there are no extraterrestrial beings running around the universe is found in the words of Jesus. He told Nicodemus that God so loved the world – limiting the geography of God’s grace. Jesus came to Earth to become a man and die for the sins of the world, not for Moon-people, Martians, or Klingons. If God created all that is in the universe and Jesus only came to Earth to die for humankind, there are no other civilizations on planets spread throughout the universe. UFOs do exist, but only in the context; they are flying objects that are not identified. It may do well to consider governments’ secrets creating machines that are unknown to the public (stealth technology, for example). One thing is sure about UFOs – they do not have little green creatures that look like an octopus on steroids flying them. The suspicion is they are human-made, earthy, and secret. Look to God. He is real.