A Facebook site has called for Americans, on 20 September 2019, to ‘storm Area 51, they can’t stop all of us seeing them aliens’. At time of writing, 1.4 million Internet users have signed up to join in and the American government has issued a warning against would-be trespassers.
If you don’t know (and you are not supposed to know!), Area 51 is the name given to a secret military training facility in the Nevada desert. The site was acquired by the US Air Force in 1955 for testing experimental craft. However, its secrecy fuelled various outlandish conspiracy theories regarding alien spacecraft and technology.
Roswell
Earlier, in 1947, not far from the base there had been a mysterious crash at a site called Roswell. A government agency cleared the debris away and so the claim that it had only been a weather balloon did not satisfy the curious. Sightings of unidentified objects near Area 51 and its role in films such as Independence Day and Men in Black have kept it in the public imagination.
A belief that aliens have been visiting earth down through the centuries has even been fuelled by some misused archaeology. The Temple of Seti I at Abydos provides an inscription of what looks like a modern helicopter along with other strange craft among ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs (see photo).
When these are placed alongside images that look like astronauts found in Italian petroglyphs, seals from Persia and Mayan carvings it is very easy to get drawn in to the aliens-are-among-us narrative. The theories may look plausible, particularly when added to the claim that humans could not have possibly built structures like Stonehenge, the Pyramids or the Nazca Lines of Peru. Stir into the mix a general distrust of government and ‘experts’ (what do they know?) and we might feel compelled to sign up and storm Area 51 too.
Ignoring the facts
The archaeology used in these claims is grossly misconstrued. Hieroglyphs are taken out of context or misinterpreted. The ‘helicopter’ is actually a composite of hieroglyphs that results from a section of stone being re-used in ancient times. We forget when we are looking at a stone inscription that originally they were often plastered and painted, so we see rough workings that were not visible in antiquity. The suggestion that human beings could not have constructed Stonehenge, built the Pyramids or aligned the Nazca Lines, reveals a chronological snobbery where we underrate what people in the past were capable of.
Christians can get caught up in this approach to scholarship. I see it often in the use of archaeology in apologetics. ‘Experts’ and ‘scholars’ are dismissed in favour of dramatic claims on a YouTube video. Those with decades of experience in the field of archaeology or the study of ancient inscriptions are ignored, while the sensational claims of an enthusiast on vacation with a camcorder grabs the headlines.
We are at a fascinating moment in the development of archaeology as more sensitive techniques and technology allow us to interpret the past with greater skill and insight. Just this summer we have seen the possible identification of a number of biblical sites that had been lost to history. It is looking good for biblical studies as we can understand more and more of the ancient world and the history of the Bible.
But the danger is that this scholarship can be swamped by bogus Internet headlines. It is worth checking the credentials of those making sensational claims. Are they a reputable and reliable authority? Why have their astonishing claims not been verified by anyone with relevant expertise? Social media makes it too easy to circulate bogus material.
Truth
As evangelical Christians it is key to our witness that we are people of truth. We can be confident that God’s word is truth without need of manipulation (John 17:17) and we have no need for distortion or deception as we share God’s word (2 Corinthians 4:2). While it is true that, sometimes, the ‘experts’ display a bias and an agenda that we need to confront, often enthusiastic amateurs embarrass our witness.
