The Next MAGA Split: UFOs and Demons?

An FBI lab rendition of a supposed eyewitness report in September 2023 of an ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of light in the sky and disappearing instantaneously—publicly released Friday by the Pentagon. Department of Defense.

There are many critical matters dividing the MAGA movement these days. Donald Trump’s war in Iran. The Jeffrey Epstein files. US policy regarding Israel. The right’s relationship with white supremacists. To that list we might soon have to add demons and UFOs.

I kid you not.

Yesterday morning the Pentagon, following an order from Donald Trump, released a trove of files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)—the new name for UFOs. The material made public was related to “unresolved cases” in which the government was “unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena.” The release includes scores of reports on unexplained sightings tracing back decades—including photos and videos showing lights in the sky and fuzzy images of objects that are unidentified and appear to be flying—but it delivers no explanations of these UAPs.

In the run-up to this release, there was a brewing debate on the right as to whether UAPs are vehicles for extraterrestrial beings or spiritual entities. And this battle goes far beyond what might seem like a late-night, weed-infused dorm gabfest. The implications are profoundly consequential.

In a way, this conversation was kicked off two years ago, when Tucker Carlson was a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Talking about UFOs, Carlson said, “Of course, these are spiritual phenomenon. There's no evidence they're from another planet. I mean, I think that's the op. That's the lie that they're from Mars.” The op—he was suggesting that the government was lying about UFOs. Not to cover up the existence of ETs, but to hide evidence of this “spiritual” activity.

Assuming that UAPs are real and noting that outer space and the atmosphere are well monitored by the military and scientists, Carlson insisted that there has been no proof “these vehicles coming into our atmosphere [are] from somewhere else, some other planet.” So, he said, “they’re from here,” and they must be “spiritual entities” and “supernatural.” He suggested they were part of an “unseen battle around us, that spiritual battle”—a reference to what fundamentalists call "spiritual warfare," the supposed ongoing titanic clash between God and Satan. The government, by not acknowledging this, he added, was “serving a bad force.” Demons, that is.

Carlson believes demons are real. In a 2024 documentary, he maintained he had been "physically mauled" by a demon one night as he slept in his bed with his wife and four dogs. He claimed when he woke up there was blood on the sheets and "four claw marks” on his side and left shoulder, and underneath his arm. The only explanation: In the middle of a night, a demon had attacked him. But not the dogs and not his wife.

After presenting his UFOs-are-spiritual-entities theory for Rogan, Carlson added, “Seems like the obvious explanation, right?” Rogan replied, “Hmmm, it’s not that obvious to me.”

Carlson did not let go of this notion. Last June, podcaster Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, was a guest of his internet show. After Carlson noted that “Satan runs the world,” Ryan, who says he was a CIA contractor, remarked that he believed UAPs are “spiritual” and all the talk of “alien extraterrestrial shit” is “a big distraction…a controlled psy-op.” Carlson replied, “Of course it is.”

A psy-op. This is a UFO theory you didn’t see on X Files: The conspiracy theory that the government has covered up the existence of ETs is actually a cover-up of the real truth that UAPs are spiritual beings, such as demons or angels. That’s what they are keeping secret and not telling us.

The UFO-demon theory got a fresh jolt a few weeks ago when Vice President JD Vance endorsed it. Appearing on right-wing influencer Benny Johnson’s podcast, Vance was asked when the Trump administration would make “all the UFO files” public. The veep answered, “We’re working on it.” He then said, “I don't think they're aliens. I think they're demons anyway.”

Vance contended it was a mistake to describe UAPs “as aliens” and that it was best to explain “extra-natural phenomenon” through “the Christian understanding.” He elaborated, “There's a lotta good out there, but there's also some evil out there.” Meaning, demons.

In response to Vance and Carlson, Marina Medvin, a conservative writer and attorney who represented January 6 rioters, tweeted, “Both Tucker Carlson and JD Vance have publicly said that UFOs are ‘demons.’ We really need to distance ourselves from these two as much as possible.”

Several conservatives, who have been at odds with Carlson over his anti-Israel stance and his hobnobbing with antisemites (such as white supremacist and Hitler fan boy Nick Fuentes), have mocked his demon talk. Dinesh D’Souza suggested Carlson was lying or had a “psychotic episode.” Fox host Mark Levin called him a “psycho” and wrote, “Just ask the dogs.” These folks are not likely to embrace the UFO-demon position.

And what’s known as the UFO disclosure community—whose members believe the government has for decades been hiding the fact that UFOs are real and extraterrestrial in origin—was angered by Vance’s comment. For them, this is a new government cover-up.

Meanwhile, Paula White, the grifty evangelist who sells supernatural blessings and heads the White House Faith Office, in February delivered a fiery sermon in which she said the spiritual warfare transpiring within the White House was “absolute hell.” She claimed there were decisions being made by the administration that cause her to “literally tremble in fear” and that they will impact “millions of people…how their life will turn here." Contrarian writer and novelist Walter Kirn, who’s long claimed there has been a government cover-up of UFO information, speculated that White was referring to the coming UAP disclosures. Perhaps. Was she concerned that the Trump administration would release information that undermines the demonic or spiritual warfare explanation?

By the way, Carlson recently slammed White for daring to compare Trump to Jesus. “Did Jesus command the disciples to go out and kill people?” he sharply asked. But might Carlson and White be allies in the UFOs-demons debate?

Prior to the disclosure, some on the Christian right feared the release of these UAP files for a reason unrelated to demons. New revelations, they believed, might undermine the Christian faith. The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday:

Influential pastors are claiming that they have been told to prepare their followers for shocking revelations about UFOs which may upend belief in the Bible.

Perry Stone, a well-known evangelist, author and Bible teacher from Tennessee, warned that fellow pastors were recently invited to a secret meeting with US intelligence officials to prepare for the release of secret files on extraterrestrials. 

According to Stone, the officials warned a small group of pastors with a large reach in the Christian community that the government was about to release reports and possibly videos of aliens and spacecraft which were not from this planet. 

In the April 27 video posted to his YouTube channel, the evangelist claimed that pastors were told about the existence of 'reptilian' creatures, UFOs and materials from a non-human origin and 'other things that almost sound like something out of a sci-fi movie.'

This report was far-fetched. Reptilian creatures? Videos of aliens? Not surprisingly, the newly released files don’t include footage of scaly beings from another world. Still, this story reflected concern on the Christian right that disclosure of any information that can be interpreted to suggest there’s intelligent life beyond Earth could pose a challenge to Christian fundamentalism. Stone said: “You're going to have people who are going to say if there are galaxies and there are allegedly other creations in the galaxies, then the whole creation story is a myth, and you're going to have people that's going to apostatize and turn from the Christian faith because they have no answer for what they're about to hear.”

The pending release of UFO files did have some conservative Christians on edge. This past week, conservative columnist Rod Dreher, who lives in “self-exile” in Hungary, wrote:

There has been for decades a group within the government called the “Collins Elite”—Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the intelligence world who know that UFOs are real, but who believe they are demonic, and who have been fighting disclosure.

I doubt this has been fact-checked. A cabal of Christian fundamentalist spooks opposing disclosure? If there is such a thing, they seemingly lost the fight to Christian fundamentalist Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense who oversaw this release. Dreher asked his readers to “start thinking and praying about what ‘disclosure’ might mean to you and to your religious community. Something very big is coming, and I believe it’s going to rattle our bones and shake us to the epistemic foundations. Do not be deceived.” Then again, it might not.

The Pentagon says these files do not provide an answer to the mystery of UAPs. Are they demons? Or ETs? These blurry objects could certainly be either. Or...neither. Might we now see MAGA luminaries and Christian fundamentalists get into crosscutting tizzies over the new material?

You can bet the conspiracizing will continue. The government is hiding evidence of demons! The government is hiding evidence of aliens! But which cover-up is the real cover-up? This new material will inevitably be seized upon as proof for different and competing theories, and its release could fuel a demons-versus-ETs brouhaha on the right. The truth may be out there, but it’s not likely to emerge from that sort of debate.

By the way, longtime readers might recall that years ago I recounted in this newsletter an encounter I had with what seemed to be an object in the sky that was unidentified and moving. Despite that, I don’t believe UAPs are spaceships piloted by aliens. And I don’t believe what I saw was a demon. You can read my account here.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

The judges pleaded for the imposition of the mercy rule for Trump this week. But there were just so many dumb remarks from this guy who controls a nuclear arsenal and who can destroy human civilization on a whim. They could not be ignored.

Speaking at The Villages, the huge retirement community in Florida and a stronghold of Trumpism, he once again boasted that he passed a test for dementia:

I took three cognitive tests. Aced all of them, by the way. Three of them. I'm the only president to take a cognitive test. I don't think Obama could pass it. I doubt it…The first question is very easy -- it's a lion, a giraffe, a bear, and a shark. They say, “Which one is the bear?”

Of course, scoring well on such an exam is nothing to brag about. Yet Trump keeps doing so—and looking like an idiot. This time, it was particularly ludicrous for him to say President Barack Obama could not have passed such a test. Yet the crowd cheered and laughed when he said that.

My hunch is that there are two reasons why his supporters react in such a fashion. It’s not that they actually believe Obama couldn’t pick out the bear. They just are delighted to see Trump call Obama, a Black man, stupid and get away with it. And they also love to see Trump get away with such a bold lie. Perhaps many of them wish they, too, could voice racist sentiments and false statements and escape condemnation and consequences. Trump does so constantly, and that’s one reason he’s their hero.

According to Washington Post reporter John Hudson, when Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s top White House aide for counterterrorism, was asked this week if Trump’s war in Iran might create new terror threats, he answered: “You are testicularly challenged” if you don't support this war. "That's a low T approach.”

When Gorka, a self-proclaimed expert on terrorism, was given a White House job in the first Trump administration, there was criticism that his academic credentials in the field were iffy at best and that he lacked experience for the post. Good to know that our national security is in his hands.

Bill Pulte, Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency said this week he is "not particularly concerned" about home foreclosures spiking to a six-year high.

Maybe that’s because he’s been too busy orchestrating bogus criminal prosecutions of Trump’s perceived enemies for mortgage fraud. His targets have included Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Pulte has been a hatchet man for Trump, not an advocate of housing policies to help Americans cope with rising housing costs.

Back to Trump. This week, someone had the bright idea of bringing a couple of kids into the White House for a photo op with Trump. At this event, he said many stupid things and even asked one of the children if the kid thought he could take Trump in a fight. This week’s contest could be nothing but remarks from that one session. But the judges settled on this declaration from Trump: “I ended eight wars. Nobody else ever ended a war.”

In all human history, only Trump has ended a war. His megalomania and ignorance know no bounds.

Trump faced competition from his wife, Melania. During another White House event, she said something nearly as dumb. Speaking about her husband, she told a crowd of mothers who have adult children in the military, “His empathy transcends the role and shape a caring leader who constantly remembers each and every American soldier is someone’s child.”

Empathy? Even Trump laughed when Melania said that. By the way, remember those reports that Trump called American soldiers “suckers” for serving in the military?

Melania and her hubby lost out to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Speaking at a legal conference on Wednesday, Roberts whined and whined and whined. Fresh off his success in finally eviscerating the Voting Rights Act—which he has been aiming to do for decades—he griped that people unfairly criticize his court for being too political:

I think at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, [that] we’re saying we think this is what things should be as opposed to this is what the law provides. I think they view us as truly political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do. I would say that’s the main difficulty…We’re not simply part of the political process, and there’s a reason for that, and I’m not sure people grasp that as much as is appropriate.

Really? Not making policy decisions, not being political? Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times published internal court memos showing that a historic decision by the Roberts court in 2016 to halt Obama’s signature climate change law—an order implemented in an unprecedented manner with a one-paragraph ruling that contained no legal reasoning—was prompted by Roberts’ concern that Obama’s policy was too costly and too extensive. He pushed for a stay of the law before the case against it had been fully argued, relying on his own view of the measure, not a legal justification.

Perhaps more to the point, last month, Justice Clarence Thomas gave a speech in which he called progressivism “an existential threat” to the republic and said it was “not possible” for liberalism and the principles of the Declaration of Independence “to coexist forever.” After the most senior member of the court publicly expressed his deep bias against progressives, Roberts insisted the justices are not “political actors.”

The judges couldn’t stop laughing as they selected the chief for this week’s trophy.

Anyone who reads a classy newsletter these days has thoughts about AI. I found that out after the recent issue on the failure of the political class to confront the challenges of AI.

Jim Chalfant wrote:

A super timely piece, but it needs to be read by those with the means to act on this critical issue. Do you have the ability or means to forward this to every member of Congress? I do recognize that most MAGA acolytes in Congress wouldn’t or couldn’t comprehend the enormity of this problem but certainly there are some who might.

I’m not sure how we reach these guys. Few members of Congress engage in proactive legislating or even thinking. My hunch is that the best course of action is to get people in their states and districts informed and riled up—perhaps about data centers and the high energy costs caused by AI—so that they place pressure on their representatives to give a damn and perhaps do something. Like read about it.

Linda LeMonde raised a point I had missed:

Fewer employees will cause less financial input for social security and Medicare, thus putting even more strain on a program upon which millions depend.

Charlotte Dunham emailed:

It is hard for me to see a bright future with AI looming large. The potential for misuse is immense. Not only can scientists put us out of our jobs and create dangerous chemical weapons; they also have the potential to create new life forms by altering DNA. Proponents say this is all for the greater good but the potential for abuse is enormous. Yes, there could finally be a cure for cancer, but in a future dystopian world will societies be engineering their population for gender or race? Or IQ or submissiveness? It sounds farfetched, but it is plausible given the state of the world. As you point out, there seems no appetite for regulation.

And how can we sustain an economy where the wealth is concentrated in an even fewer number of billionaires. They will have trouble finding anybody to pay for their new miracle drugs, self-driving cars, and genetically engineered food AI is creating. 

Linda Jack reacted to a statement from Elon Musk I referenced:

"Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.” Do Musk or his ilk intend to pay for it? Millions of displaced workers won't be paying taxes. Neither will they have the income to consume goods and services. $1000 per month universal income is a cruel joke when the federal poverty level is $1,330 per month. What will happen to all the unnecessary unemployed Americans? This brings to mind the Nazi phrases: “useless mouths” and “unworthy of life." IMHO, AI will be limited by its huge demands for energy, and the unrenewable resource of water.

Sarah Manire reported in from Texas:

Two results regarding Waymo self-driving taxis in Austin (where they are breeding like rabbits): Waymos do not stop for school buses, so parents are having to warn their children about getting off the bus and possibly getting run down When there was a mass shooting in downtown Austin recently, at least five Waymo taxis blocked the access routes so responders could not respond.

Yikes. Those are major problems. But they seem to be in the realm of solvable problems—if Waymo cares enough. 

Lynda Dobens observed:

Oh no, we don’t have a kill switch for any untoward action that could harm us, but we have a chat bot that can coach us to develop a bioweapon. At this point at least every Congress person should be given an AI for Dummies book to read and understand. 

Nor sure that would work. How many would read that? Maybe we need to give them a one-page summary of AI for Dummies.

Responding to the issue in which I presented research on Trump’s use of the phrase “low IQ” to insult Black people, Susan Myerson wrote:

I can give you more evidence that Trump is a racist and a misogynist. His Department of Education has just launched a sham investigation into my alma mater, Smith College, the largest women's college in the country, purportedly because the college admits transgender women. I think the real reason is that the college practices DEI and has a dynamic Black woman president, and Trump hates Black women of accomplishment. I am also a lifelong librarian and was horrified when he fired the Librarian of Congress, also an accomplished Black woman, a PhD librarian. 

“You were gone for years!”
“Moxie, it was three days.”
“No one played with me for months.”
“I doubt that.”
“No one scratched me for weeks.”
“That’s not true.”
“Are you denying my reality? I missed you.”
“And I missed you, too.”