Billionaires, UFOs, and Satan: And to Think, It Used to Be Weird to Link Them

​Billionaire aerospace and Budget Suites magnate Robert Bigelow announced his belief that Earth currently is home to space aliens who have infiltrated our planet, and he claimed to have spent more money than any other private individual investigating UFOs. When CBS’s Lara Logan asked him if he was worried about being labeled crazy, he replied “It’s not gonna make a difference. It’s not gonna change the reality of what I know.” Oddly, despite all of the resources he had devoted to finding space aliens here on Earth and in space, he somehow had no proof. [Update: According to Skeptical Inquirer, Bigelow has been funding MUFON UFO research, and he told Coast to Coast years ago that he hoped to imitate UFO propulsion systems in his own spacecraft.]

​On the plus side, at least he is still looking for actual extraterrestrials rather than Bible demons. You will recall that MUFON’s John Ventre came under fire recently after he posted racist comments to Facebook alleging that affirmative action is an illegal conspiracy against white males, claiming that only white Euro-Americans developed civilization, and directing readers to look up racist claims about the supposed biological inferiority of “f’ing blacks.” Well, after this caused controversy and resulted in denunciations from a range of ufologists, including Ryan Sprague—though notably not from MUFON itself, which issued a mealy mouthed non-apology—Ventre returned to social media to offer an explanation of what happened. He blamed demons.
 
These were not metaphorical demons, like when a celebrity blames personal demons for an addiction. No, he meant literal demons from hell. Ventre wrote that he has become convinced that UFOs are actually demonic, and he added that the people who came out against his racist rant were in fact a conspiracy of atheists and ancient astronaut theorists who have been deceived into worshiping demons. He concluded that these atheists and ancient astronaut theorists are “Satan’s minions.”
 
It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that the toxic brew of conspiracy theory and racism in ufology also has a Christian fundamentalist angle, like so many other conspiracy theories popular among right wing ideologues. But what did surprise me is the degree to which the Christian Nephilim-centric viewpoint is creating tension in the ufology community, less because of the hunt for demons than because the various subgroups can’t decide who is on the side of the angels who are Satan’s minions.
 
A fight has broken out online over David Wilcock and Corey Goode’s claims to have secret information about space aliens and America’s so-called “secret space program.” As you will recall, Goode’s claims are bizarre, including weird claims about sexy aliens kidnapping him from his living room and more recent claims that snipers are targeting him and his children in their home, and a plain reading of his allegations suggests fantasy rather than reality. But ufologists have difficulty accusing anyone of making things up, so Goode is now defending himself against allegations from Bill Ryan that he is working for Scientology. Similarly, the so-called Dark Journalist (the pseudonym of Daniel Liszt) alleges that Goode is an agent of Satan: “Dark Journalist reveals some shocking details that have emerged relating to Corey Goode, and his marketing team’s documented association with Satanism and Luciferic imagery.” Dark Journalist, of course, claims the secret space program as his own special area, too, and he and good are in direct competition for alleged revelations.
 
But that’s not the worst of it. In a Facebook posting attacking Wilcock as a fraud and Goode as a liar, Alfred Lambremont Webre, the founder of the Exopolitics website (and thus another competitor for fan attention and dollars), accused Satanists of a hostile takeover of the ancient astronaut theory, alleging that a Polish Satanist is trying to take control of quasi-Ancient Aliens-adjacent products such as the Contact in the Desert fan conference; the Ancient Aliens Cruise, which features cast members from the cable television pseudo-documentary; and GAIA-TV, an online fringe network that employs Ancient Aliens cast members as hosts:

There is also another more fundamental split, between the Satanists and the Light Workers, which commenters seem in denial of in their facile projections. This post is about the deep penetration of JIRKA RYSAVY, a Polish abusive capitalist with Satanic connections from Poland into a hostile takeover of GAIA TV and CONTACT IN THE DESERT.

​In case you are wondering, Jirka Rysavy is not a Satanist. He is not Polish, either. He is a Czech immigrant who made his money selling office supplies. He is also the former chairman of Whole Foods who in 1988 founded Gaiam (later Gaia) a New Age organization dedicated to the “conscious consumer,” and he later expanded it into a wide range of New Age themes, eventually hitting on the ancient astronaut theory as a compelling narrative to drive subscriptions to his online TV service after yoga exercise videos didn’t quite draw the expected crowd. (Full disclosure: Gaia once tried to get me to write for them and asked that I produce pro-ancient astronaut propaganda.) It’s unclear how much he believes in the ancient astronaut theory, but he is apparently a regular at Contact in the Desert. In his spare time, he is involved in various New Age nonsense. He directed a movie called Secret of Water in which he alleged, falsely, that water defies the laws of physics and can retain memories and can imbue our DNA with magic powers from the spirit realm. I wouldn’t put ancient astronaut beliefs past him.