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This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 45, number 1 (2022).
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In 2019, two million people on Facebook said they were going to raid Area 51, a military base in Nevada, with the hopes of proving theories that extraterrestrials (ETs) and their spaceships were being stored there. In the end, only about 150 people showed up, and the “Storm Area 51” raid was a failure. But perhaps the most exciting recent occurrence regarding ETs and unidentified flying objects (UFOs) happened in early 2021 when the U.S. government released video footage of UFOs that they could not, of course, identify.1 This created a firestorm in the media, but especially among ufologists, people who believe UFOs have extraterrestrial origins. With shows like Ancient Aliens (A&E, 2009–) giving what appears to be evidence of alien life not only on other planets but inside our planet, Christians are grappling with questions about our place in the universe.2
One of the most popular promoters of ETs, space travel, and government conspiracies is self-identified whistleblower, Corey Goode. He has a wide following on social media and is the primary subject and informant for a book, Insiders Reveal: Secret Space Programs and Extraterrestrial Alliances (Exopolitics Institute, 2015). His claims read like the latest sci-fi novel: a world where benevolent ETs are trying to save humanity from the malevolent ETs. This isn’t science fiction, though — at least not to Goode and others like him who believe in a Secret Space Program that has spanned for decades and believe that ETs live among us. Intertwined with his beliefs about ETs, as often happens with this subject, are New Age beliefs like karma, reincarnation, and humans as gods.
The Secret Space Program and Extraterrestrials
Goode claims that when he was about six years of age, he was recruited into the Secret Space Program (SSP). He and other children were brought in after scoring high on standardized tests. The SSP had apparently already been keeping tabs on Goode because his grandfather, who served in World War II, had volunteered for some testing that involved viruses being injected into his DNA. As a result, Goode’s DNA was impacted.3 The SSP was particularly interested in Goode because he is an intuitive empath, someone who is highly attuned with others’ physical and emotional energies. He says that he would go to school, and a white van would arrive and take them to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas.4 Their memories would be adjusted to reflect normal, everyday school activities so that they would not share their experiences with their families.
When he was almost seventeen, he officially enlisted in the SSP. He was a member of the “20 and Back,” a program where participants spend twenty years in service to the SSP doing various things, including interviewing ETs or traveling to different military bases throughout the solar system, like on Mars and the moon. His experiences in the program were not enjoyable for him, and he describes his service as boring but also traumatic at times because ETs were often tortured for information. He also claims that there is a slave program where people from Earth are taken away from the planet to be used by ETs.5
Goode explains that while there are malevolent ETs who wish to harm humanity, there are also benevolent ETs who have good intentions and are “trying to assist us to ascend” to our highest evolution.6 In fact, he says that many of us, including him, are starseeds, people who were once ETs but chose to come down to Earth to help raise its vibration and ascend more quickly. Starseeds forget who they once were but are often able to sense that Earth is “not where we’re from.”7
After serving three rounds in the “20 and Back” (a total of 60 years of service), Goode says that he was blank-slated (something he compares to what happens in the Men in Black films when they wipe someone’s memory) and age-regressed back to almost seventeen, the age he was when his service began. So, how does he remember what happened? He explains that intuitive empaths like himself typically get their memories back because their “higher self has a virtual backup.”8 For him, his memories came back in bits and pieces, but after a visit in his living room from the Mayans (the ancient group that he says are ETs who left our planet) and a traumatic experience during eye surgery, his memories have returned.9
Since then, Goode has engaged telepathically with various ETs and claims to be in “direct physical contact with the Blue Avians” (not birds, but benevolent ETs). He also serves as “a delegate to interface with multiple ET Federations and Councils on their behalf, liaison with the SSP Alliance Council, and deliver important messages to humanity.”10
Raising the Vibration on Earth
Like his friend and associate, David Wilcock,11 Goode subscribes to the Law of One, which is a worldview that focuses on humanity’s consciousness and ascension. This climactic consciousness will happen as we raise our vibrations, which are rhythms that happen to our bodies based on our experiences and emotions. Wilcock and Goode believe that history is all leading us to an event, likely a solar flare, that will cause us to “have an understanding of the cosmos and the one infinite creator.”12 Goode refers to this as the Full Disclosure Event. Goode doesn’t give specific dates for our imminent ascension or full disclosure related to ETs because “the collective consciousness of humanity will choose to manifest how and when this plays out.”13
And what will happen at the ascension event? “This energetic change,” Goode says, “has a direct effect on not only every planet and star in the region, but also every life form below a certain vibratory level….[Negative and positive beings] will need some sort of guidance offered by beings that have been through the process so that they can make the decisions to continue to raise their vibrations to match the changing background energetic changes or chose [sic] to remain in their current state of lower vibration and self-destruct.”14 So, we’ll either rise up to a higher density or vanish.
In light of this potential future, Goode says that benevolent ETs want to communicate important information: “The message for humanity is that — and it’s the tenet of many religions — we need to become more loving, we need to become forgiving of ourselves and forgiving of others, thus stopping the Wheel of Karma.”15
New Age beliefs, like karma — when peoples’ actions, whether good or bad, come back to them — are weaved throughout ufology. Reincarnation typically goes together with karma. Goode isn’t too concerned about reincarnation, though. “A lot of us get caught up in past lives. When I talked to Blue Avians…they said, ‘We are one or we are not.’ The distortions and traumas we have in this life allow us to identify with [past lives]. We are all those past lives.”16 He recounts a common New Age refrain to explain why we don’t remember who we were before we came to Earth: “It’s because you’re all god. And if you remembered you were god, you wouldn’t be able to have this humble experience….the one infinite creator wanted to have all of these experiences, and we are doing it.”17 Although he frequently references the “one infinite creator,” he doesn’t really explain who (or what) that is. He focuses, instead, on our role in the universe.
Goode suggests that all religions can be used to improve mass consciousness on Earth. “We are the problem,” he notes, “and we are the solution to the world’s problems. We just need to make the painful inward changes and the rest will be taken care of by a fully awakened and conscious humanity.”18 Goode encourages any path, so long as it leads you to become your best self. He says, “No matter what your belief system is, you don’t need any new religions. All you have to do is apply yourself and become the best of what your religion entails.”19 Once ascension happens, religion will dissipate, and we’ll finally know the answers to our questions about our infinite creator (is it us?) and the cosmos.20
The Christian Response
Goode claims to be a whistleblower that’s helping lead the way to a full disclosure event about secret government programs and a revelation that certain conspiracies about ETs and space are, in fact, true. The recent creation of the Space Force and the recent admission by the government that military ships have recorded “unexplained aerial phenomena” (UAPs)21 appear to propel Goode’s arguments forward. There is, however, no credible evidence to support his claims. While Goode often shields himself with a common phrase — “insiders tell me” — his evidence is his personal experience or “insiders” he never identifies. Moreover, Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples, and Mark Clark observe that despite differences of opinion about ETs and space programs, “at least one point of agreement stands out among physical scientists, social scientists, behavioral scientists, and students of the Bible: pursue truth where it may be found and tested, and beware of pursuit that links, directly or indirectly, with occult power or ‘secret’ knowledge” (emphasis in original).22 Following the truth where it leads reveals that involvement in the occult correlates with experiencing UFO phenomena.23 As Ross warns, don’t mess with the occult, and you won’t need to worry about having a dangerous UFO/ET encounter.24 But to embrace Goode’s conspiracies and wild theories about ETs and space wars is to steep oneself in occult deception. The real world includes a spiritual realm, “for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12 ESV). Thus, the apostle Paul exhorts us to “put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (v.10 ESV). We must hold tightly to the biblical worldview and abide in Christ (John 15:1–10).
Unlike the untestable, esoteric, conspiratorial evidence Goode proffers, the Christian worldview stands or falls on the basis of historical events attested to by many witnesses whose lives were transformed by what they saw. The truth is that none of us are ascending to become God in His essence, but those who are in Christ will be renewed in His image and likeness in union with Him for eternity. Christians should lovingly engage with those who follow Goode or subscribe to UFO conspiracies. Our world is hungry for something real. Real peace and joy come from Jesus. Real hope is found in Christ, the one who lived, died, and was resurrected for us. The truth, and only the truth, will set humanity free.
Lindsey Medenwaldt is Director of Ministry Operations at Mama Bear Apologetics and serves as a consulting editor for the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL. She has a Master’s in Apologetics and Ethics from Denver Seminary, a JD from St. Mary’s School of Law, and a Master’s in Public Administration from Midwestern State University.
NOTES
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” June 25, 2021, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf.
- See Robert Velarde, “Did Ancient Extraterrestrials Visit Earth?” Christian Research Journal 37, no. 6 (2014), https://www.equip.org/article/did-ancient-extraterrestrials-visitearth.
- Corey Goode, “Corey Goode on The Jenny McCarthy Show 11/17/20,” JennyMcCarthyTV, November 19, 2020, video, 41:40, https://youtu.be/lpQNqMEVqrg.
- Goode, “Corey Goode on The Jenny McCarthy Show 11/17/20.”
- Corey Goode, “#10 Exclusive Never Before Revealed Info About the Moon W/ Corey Goode (1/2),” 90 Degree Turns, July 25, 2019, video, 47:08, https://youtu.be/IV-B9Rxy12w.
- For more about ascension, see Lindsey Medenwaldt, “Humanity’s Ascension: Assessing the History Channel’s New Age, Time Travel Guru David Wilcock,” Christian Research Journal 43, no. 3 (2020), 30–33. https://www.equip.org/article/humanitys-ascension-assessing-the-history-channels-new-age-time-travel-guru-david-wilcock/
- Goode, “Corey Goode on The Jenny McCarthy Show 11/17/20.”
- Goode, “#10 Exclusive Never Before Revealed Info.”
- Goode, “#10 Exclusive Never Before Revealed Info.”
- Corey Goode, “About Me,” https://spherebeingalliance.com/about-me.
- Read more about Wilcock and the Law of One in Medenwaldt, “Humanity’s Ascension.”
- Corey Goode, “Ascension & End Times Prophecy QnA — Corey Goode at Cosmic Waves — Part 2,” video, 47:32, https://youtu.be/rOGaTBTrRNE.
- Michael E. Salla, Insiders Reveal: Secret Space Programs and Extraterrestrial Alliance (Pahoa, HI: Exopolitics Institute, 2015), 385.
- Salla, Insiders Reveal, 386.
- Corey Goode, “Mandela Effect, Merging Timelines & Ancient Aliens from the Future,” Sphere Being Alliance, presentation at New Living Expo on April 29, 2017, https://spherebeingalliance.com/blog/mandela-effect-merging-timelines-ancient-aliens-fromthe-future.html.
- Goode, “Corey Goode on The Jenny McCarthy Show 11/17/20.”
- Corey Goode, “Ascension & End Times Prophecy QnA — Corey Goode at Cosmic Waves — Part 1,” video, 46:42, August 4, 2019, https://youtu.be/rACn0u_zCD8.
- Corey Goode, “FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions),” Sphere Being Alliance, May 25, 2015, https://spherebeingalliance.com/faqs.
- The Cosmic Secret, directed by Corey Goode and Roger R. Richards (Ten Ninety One, 2019), 1:56:20-1:57:00, https://youtu.be/_YlPx0-ebVU.
- Goode, “Ascension & End Times Prophecy QnA — Corey Goode at Cosmic Waves – Part 2.”
- See note 1. For a brief response, see Mark Clark, “New US Government UFO Report: A Christian Perspective,” Reasons to Believe, August 12, 2021, https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/voices/new-us-government-ufo-report-a-christian-perspective.
- Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples, and Mark Clark, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men: A Rational Christian Look at UFOs and Extraterrestrials (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002), 166.
- Ross, Samples, and Clark, Lights in the Sky, 32, 162.
- Hugh Ross, “Little Green Men,” Grace Church St. Louis, streamed live July 19, 2021, video, 1:27:40, https://youtu.be/bwPrBdjHkxI.