Tucker Carlson Endorses Ancient Alien Ideas, Says "Dark" UFO Lore Frightens Him

​The recent National Defense Authorization Act, nearing passage, contains a watered-down UFO provision that eliminates many of the most dramatic and controversial elements of the Senate amendment pushed through by majority leader Chuck Schumer. The resulting legislation, and the more limited windfall it provides to UFO contractors and think tanks like Garry Nolan’s Sol Foundation, prompted so-called UFO whistleblower David Grusch, an executive at Sol, to tell News Nation this week that stripping the government’s ability to seize any materials ufologists deemed “alien” was “the greatest legislative failure in American history.” I imagine that would be a surprise to, say, those who died as a result of the Indian Removal Act. But Grusch’s comments were far less interesting than offhand remarks conservative firebrand Tucker Carlson made about UFOs.

​This week Carlson launched a subscription streaming service for his own far-right content, complete with a logo designed after the “red pill” MAGA enthusiasts use to symbolize right-wing radicalization. To promote the service, Carlson appeared on Redacted, a right-wing podcast hosted by Clayton Morris, a former Fox News anchor. During the discussion, Morris said that he and Carlson used to discuss UFOs when both worked at Fox News.
 
Carlson told Morris that the UFO story was one of only two that “bothered” him and left him with unanswered questions that ate at his soul. He said that he believes UFOs are non-human craft. He called the story spun by ufology “dark” and suggested that he believes there are unexposed levels of conspiracy and evil beyond the mythology of flying saucers. Carlson said that there is a “spiritual component” to UFOs and implied that he thinks they may be demons. 

The more you dig into that and talk to people with actual knowledge—again, that’s another story where there are some fanciful ideas floating around and there’s no evidence that they’re true—but if you talk to people who have actual knowledge of it that they gathered themselves, there are parts of that story that I do not understand at all that are really, really, really dark. It’s so dark that, you know, I haven’t even told my wife about. I mean, I haven’t verified any of this, but this is not just stuff I read on the internet. […] There’s a spiritual component there that I don’t understand.

​Both Carlson and Morris agreed that they have been told stories that are “so dark” that they cannot process them, refuse to speak about them, but will tease them on podcasts. The stories, Morris said, do not involve “technology” or “flying saucers” but are instead about deeper metaphysical questions about humanity’s place in creation.
 
Carlson went on to cite “paintings” and ancient texts in revealing that he is an ancient astronaut theorist and implied that the “darkness” had something to do with the suggestion that humanity was created or controlled by what are presumably demons. Carlson previously appeared on Ancient Aliens and has frequently played host to prominent UFO advocates, including Lue Elizondo and Garry Nolan.
 
But what struck me is that both Carlson and Morris claimed that, despite being struck by spiritual stories of such immense power that they chilled their very souls, neither attempted to research or verify the tales. I can’t quite wrap my head around the cognitive dissonance of thinking on one hand that you have received the key to the secrets of creation and on the other hand having no interest in doing much more than having a giggle about it on a buddy’s podcast while promoting a conspiracy theory subscription service.
 
Perhaps the answer lies in Carlson’s own words, implying that ufology is a sacred priesthood protecting the masses from forbidden truths and cosmic secrets: “The public can’t deal with it. It’s too far out. The implications are too profound. And so… And I understand that because I’ve heard things where I’m just like, oh, man, I don’ even really want to know that.”
 
Where have we heard an effete, tweedy, upper-class WASP worrying for his soul and sanity in the face of confronting the cosmic truth of the Old Ones? Yes, this is right out of an H. P. Lovecraft story. Carlson’s words are an odd paraphrase of the opening lines to “The Call of Cthulhu”:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

​Fortunately for Carlson, Lovecraft was deeply racist, too, so they’re a good fit for each other, and probably use the mythology of aliens as metaphors for racist fears of cultural collapse for the same underlying reasons. But there is too much of Lovecraft in this version of ufology, whatever the stories “insiders” are spinning to frighten the powerful, too much warmed-over Theosophy, and too much risk that the major players in ufology are aching for a New Age mirror of the Christian nationalism curdling into GOP fascism. 

UPDATE: Shortly after I wrote this post, David Grusch appeared with Tucker Carlson on his new streaming network.

Ep. 51 It’s becoming obvious that the US government has made contact with nonhuman beings. So why are they lying to us about it? We asked UFO whistleblower Dave Grusch. pic.twitter.com/IP1dV29KnI

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 13, 2023