We are in the process of facing the fact that somebody else is here with us on Earth. Not only that, it is becoming clear that their understanding of reality is not only very different from our own, it is deeper. This has resulted in their being able to deploy technologies that seem to us like magic. They can  appear and disappear at will, move instantaneously, engage in telepathy, project emotions like shining a lights, levitate, control the minds of others and engage in many other exotic abilities.

This has led many of us to see them as supernatural.

But there is no supernatural. There is only nature that we understand and nature that we don’t understand.

Unfortunately, some very important elements of our society see these beings through the lens of the stories we have told to ourselves in the past about angels, demons, gods, djinn and so forth.

This  is potentially the single most dangerous mistake ever made—not so much now, during the process of disclosure that appears to be slowly advancing, but if direct contact takes place.

Right now, the vice-president of the United States has offered the opinion that our visitors are demons, by which he means supernatural beings who roam the world seeking the ruin of souls. Although he has converted to Catholicism, this does not reflect Catholic teaching about aliens, but it is an idea that is deeply embedded in American Evangelical belief.

This is the Catholic position, as reported by Catholic Answers: “Pope St. John Paul II (1920-2005) was once asked in a public audience by a youngster, “Holy Father, are there any aliens?” Tellingly, the saint did not reply, “No, that would be contrary to our faith,” or “If they exist, then . . .” Instead, he said simply, “Always remember: They are children of God as we are.” (This anecdote was reported by Msgr. Corrado Balducci in “Ufology and Theological Clarifications,” remarks presented at Pescara, Italy, June 8, 2001.)

While this position was being formed by Vatican staff, Anne and I met and spent an evening with Msgr. Balducci in his apartment in the Vatican. During the conversation, we told him of both the good and bad things that had happened to us, including every detail of my abduction and its aftermath, and the challenging relationship that had subsequently evolved between us and my abductors.

I did not tell this story in the context of hate or fear or superstition. I told it as I saw it and still see it: the story of a man first being assaulted by strange beings, then learning, along with his family and many friends, to engage in a relationship with them.

They were shy and easily frightened. Trying to get near them was like trying to approach deer or birds. But they were not like deer or birds. As long as they had the upper hand, they were going to do what they wanted with us and they could be dangerous.

But they were not supernatural beings. They certainly weren’t a version of us, either.

On balance, though, I think that the pope’s teaching is correct: “They are children of God as we are.” But remember, that doesn’t mean that they are “nice.” We are hardly that, we tough, violent, brilliant, glorious and dangerous gang of fast-talking, duplicitous and just plain wonderful apes.

And yet, also, they are not apes. They are not mammals. They are built on a different framework and the world they inhabit is a different place from the one we do—and yet it’s the same world.

But they do not roam it seeking the ruin of souls. They roam it seeking whatever it is they want from its largesse, and exploitation of and relationship with us are among those things.

The view that they are demons is also prevalent, in my experience, among many military and intelligence officers who are involved in the UAP area. I know a number of such people personally, and they do believe NHI is demonic. Some of them, who are friends, have expressed concern to me that I am too close to these entities for comfort, and that I should follow their example and shun them.

I feel that we endanger ourselves if we try to see them through the lens of belief, without knowing for certain that the belief is correct.

It should not be forgotten that these entities, if they emerge, will at once become the most powerful of all forces acting in human culture. To isolate them in a category we have already invented—djinn, demons, angels, gods, sylphs, fairy-folk, any of those—is to block what chance we may have of understanding them well enough to defend ourselves, if necessary, and if not, then to get all we can out of any relationship that might develop.

If we say that they are supernatural, then we start from behind. We are telling ourselves that we are helpless to defend against them, and if they are part of the physical world, as they demonstrably are, then what we are saying is that we surrender.

I have a one-word response to that: no.

At the beginning, I was a helpless victim. Had I believed they were demons, I would have stayed helpless.

The Aztecs at first believed that Cortez was their god Quetzalcoatl. This caused them to become passive and simply watch as he established himself along their coast. By the time he began to move inland, they had understood that he was not a god, but now they were mystified by things like wheeled vehicles, and for a time thought that his horses and their riders were single beings. They were horrified by guns but also rendered helpless before them because they could not understand how they worked, let alone how to defend against them.

It must not be forgotten that the Spaniards, who to the Aztecs seemed unstoppable, were actually a tiny band of half-starved and disease-ridden men nearly at the end of their tether. They could have easily been overwhelmed.

The result of all this confusion was that a force of a few hundred men defeated a vast empire, leaving its people completely helpless. Fifty years after the conquest, the population of Mexico had been decimated by starvation, upheaval and disease. In a hundred years, of the estimated ninety million people who had been alive when Cortez arrived, only around nine million remained, and most of those had been enslaved.

A whole world had slipped into the past, millions of lives had been cut short, and an immense amount of human achievement lost forever. And, in fact, this happened time and time again as the European powers, using superior technologies, spread across the world.

It is a mistake to assume that higher technological achievement and scientific prowess also means a greater ethical consciousness. If the human experience is any example, if should not be assumed that our visitors have brought higher ethics with them.

Until we understand their motives, we are not going to be able to evaluate their ethics.  

Whenever I hear somebody say that they think that our visitors are gods or demons or angels or whatever, I hear somebody saying, “I feel helpless and I don’t think we can ever master this situation.”

Once the Aztecs realized that Cortez and his band were ordinary, vulnerable human beings, they brought their gods to bear, but this was no way to resist. As Cortez approached, desperate sacrifices were made.   

Prayer is fine, but we’d best pray for strength, not deliverance.

One of the most disturbing things I have heard, and have been hearing consistently for at least thirty years, is that the Air Force remains silent about the non-human presence because you are supposed to ignore demons.

I see in that approach a terrifying mirror of the Aztec mistake. Just as they initially felt helpless before Quetzalcoatl and acted too late when they realized their mistake, those who are supposed to be defending us are remaining silent before our own intruders and, I fear, doing nothing that is going to result in our having much, if any, say in how contact might unfold.

The Defense Department and its contractors have chosen silence. As a result, the broader scientific and academic communities have been prevented from thinking about the implications of a complex and aggressive nonhuman presence. This probably arises in part from their unwillingness to reveal their helplessness, in part from a desire to conceal efforts to acquire and exploit alien technology, but also, I suspect, because of a desire to shun the demon.

Recently, I saw someone who is part of scientific circles that do take an interest in these matters, and who has a hidden connection to the Defense Department, attempt to not only debunk the efforts of a brilliant colleague to explore the NHI phenomenon in a novel way, but also to destroy their career and ruin their life. And this is just one episode in a vast, years long, effort to destroy any and all scientific inquiry outside of the secret government.

How much advancement has been denied us over the years because of DoD’s aggressive efforts to suppress NHI research that unfolds in the public space.

The stakes are as high as they can be. What we do in the next few years, as NHI continues to come into focus in our reality, is going to color our experience of them, of ourselves, indeed, of life itself, not just for a few years or a few centuries, but as long as we exist.

If we don’t come together and finally make a coherent effort to determine if there is a level of threat, and, if so, what it involves and how we may most effectively respond to it, then, the closer NHI comes, the greater our peril will be. And this will be true no matter their intent, as long as we insist on looking at them through the lens of beliefs rather than the tissue of facts, such as it is.

Right now, whether they are a positive or negative presence doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that they are here and we don’t know what they are or why they are emerging.

We don’t know. That’s the truth of it. But we most certainly need to find out, and right now. Their presence has been growing steadily for years, and, at least when it comes to manifestations in the sky, is now a commonplace.

All the evidence points toward direct contact, and sooner rather than later. We are not prepared, and as things stand, we are going to fail to meet them except on their terms.

I hope that we aren’t running out of time, but I fear that we may be. If so, the relentless, cancerous secrecy will prove to be the most terrible mistake in human history, and quite possibly the last.