We are assured by the authors of The Urantia Book that we live in a well-ordered, lovingly administered universe. As a serious student of the Papers, I also share this “bigger picture” perspective, so I often find it frustrating when I settle in to watch a hotly anticipated new sci-fi movie only to be confronted with the same cookie-cutter Hollywood depiction of aliens who are out to destroy our planet and enslave, exterminate, or even engorge themselves on us poor humans. I think that the closest that Hollywood has come to depicting the reality of monster aliens is in the movie, Ender’s Game (spoiler alert: WE are the monsters). Ender’s Game is a notable and praiseworthy exception to their rule.
The only redeeming qualities that allow me to sit through most sci-fi alien movies are, of course, the awesome special effects, and more importantly the portrayal of humans forced to abandon their limited nationalistic worldview in order to unite against a threat that we all face as one- regardless of borders, cultures, or races. It makes me think. It makes me ask the question: is that what it would have to take to unite us all, finally, into one global human family? Is it only through the realisation of a global threat that we can finally give birth to a truly global consciousness?
It’s a question that really deserves some serious thought.
Another question which deserves serious thought is that of ‘aliens’. The Urantia Book devotes a large portion of itself to describing just how “not alone” we are; how absolutely teaming with life the grand universe is. We are told in no small detail of the various orders and types of life that populate planets not only throughout the seven superuniverses, but on planets that we are even now discovering in our own backyard as well.
The Urantia Book certainly does have a lot to say, but when you start to dig into any one topic that it covers it’s not long before you arrive at a realisation of just how much it leaves unexplained. The authors describe to us a universe full of life, but fail to make any mention of the UFO phenomenon on our planet. This has been left to us to figure out for ourselves, and there are a lot of unexplained things going on. My two biggest questions in this area are the following:
1. Why is so much space in The Urantia Book devoted to a description of the different types of mortal life populating our universe,
2. If we are being visited by ‘aliens’, why not just come out and tell us so, and what the purpose of these visits is.
We talk about these things every so often at study group and these questions have repeatedly come up. When they do, we always try to take another stab at answering them to the best of our currently knowledge and ability.
My current thinking is that we are told as much as we are about our universe brothers and sisters because we are fast approaching some sort of event where we either find and contact a civilisation on one of the growing number of extra-solar planets astronomers are finding in our ‘immediate’ neighbourhood, or one of these civilisations makes official public contact with us. I’m not sure why else so much detailed information would be included in the Papers.
There are many who believe that we have been visited by extra-terrestrial civilisations in the past and these visits continue into the present day. It is hard to study the Papers without thinking about these things. The Urantia Book tells us that we are one of 37 planets in our System isolated in a spiritual quarantine due to the participation of our planetary administration’s participation in the Lucifer Rebellion. We are isolated from the other planets in our neighbourhood. This satisfactorily answers the question as to why we have not been “contacted” before now, but it raises another important point: if our planet is still isolated and contact with extra-planetary civilisations is forbidden, then who is it that is visiting the planet? The only answer I can come up with is that these visitors are from planets which share in our isolation- visitors from planets outside the quarantine would not be allowed to come here (at least not to the extent that the UFO phenomenon seems to suggest). This line of reasoning then calls into question the motives and purpose of these visitors. I’m not prepared to pursue these ramifications in this article but they form the basis of a great conversation!
Some of you might feel these speculations are idle ones. I would argue that they are not. They are the product of digging deeper into what The Urantia Book tells us and attempting to reconcile what it does not. These speculations are part of our process of trying to figure things out and we would invite you to join us in this process by leaving your own thoughts and speculations on these ideas in the comments below.
I know they come here, I’ve seen them. I can only speculate the reason, that this World of the cross is where Michael chose to live his 7th bestowal life, we are the Disneyland of Nebadon.
Excellent article, thank you
A bit of “universe romancing” for you (David Kantor’s phrase): I am intrigued by the many mentions of “the student visitors.” Here’s a few:
(30:3.12.) Morontia mortals are student visitors only within the confines of the local universe of their origin. … These personalities may be executing a universe assignment, or they may be enjoying a period of leisure—freedom from assignment. The privilege of intrauniverse travel and observation is a part of the career of all ascending beings. The human desire to travel and observe new peoples and worlds will be fully gratified during the long and eventful climb to Paradise through the local, super-, and central universes.
(46:2.9.) Transports arrive on the crystal field, the so-called sea of glass. Around this area are the receiving stations for the various orders of beings who traverse space by seraphic transport. Near the polar crystal receiving station for student visitors you may ascend the pearly observatory and view the immense relief map of the entire headquarters planet.
(114:5.5). Each administrative day on Urantia begins with a consultative conference, which is attended by the governor general, the planetary chief of archangels, the Most High observer, the supervising supernaphim, the chief of resident Life Carriers, and invited guests from among the high Sons of the universe or from among certain of the student visitors who may chance to be sojourning on the planet.
In our study group last time we paused to contemplate this intriguing bit: (191:4.7). The next day, Wednesday, Jesus spent without interruption in the society of his morontia associates, and during the midafternoon hours he received visiting morontia delegates from the mansion worlds of every local system of inhabited spheres throughout the constellation of Norlatiadek. And they all rejoiced to know their Creator as one of their own order of universe intelligence.
How did all these delegates get around? Count ‘em, we thought 700, 7 mansion world delegates from the 100 local systems in the constellation. Sometimes I think no wonder our UFO-following friends see so much going on in the sky.
That’s really interesting Dave. Thanks for your input! One question that pops into our heads regarding the idea of UFOs being ‘student visitors’ is the question of visibility. Would morontia or spiritual visitors be visible to us at all? If they arrived here using seraphic transports, again, would the transports be visible? If they were mortal student visitors from nearby planets, the question of quarantine comes up again. Visitors from outside the quarantine would not be permitted to visit. This leaves the only possibility that these visible visitors are from neighbouring isolated planets. What do you think?
Hola a todos, es un tema muy interesante la posibilidad real que los visitantes visibles sean de nuestro vecindario cósmico, y es muy probable que también estén en cuarentena.
La pregunta es si vienen apoyando la causa de la rebelión, la verdad de Miguel, o se mantienen al margen.
Un saludo desde España.
Gracias por tu comentario, y pido disculpas por mi español- ¡Estoy usando el traductor de Google! La rebelión de Lucifer y nuestro actual cuarentena planetaria son temas muy importantes, ya que recorrer un largo camino para explicar el estado actual de nuestro planeta. Todavía hay mucho trabajo por cada uno de nosotros para hacer antes de la cuarentena se puede levantar y podemos cumplir finalmente y oficialmente a nuestros hermanos y hermanas planetarios!
Sometimes we can miss the obvious–whereas ‘aliens are sensible’ would satisfy most UB study. From about 1970 alien contact has always had a peaceful purpose–“we feel that you might contaminate the Local Universe” being the universal reply. ” When atoms perform radioactively, they emit far more energy than would be expected” still has multiple warheads to nationally come to terms with. Morontia transporters and physical UFO’s are quite separate considerations.