Entry #015: Gary Bates

Bates is the author of “Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection", a central book within the Christian UFO movement. Bates is a Biblical literalist and creationist, conspiracy theorist and a UFO “scholar”. Official website here (apparently you can get a free anti-alien sticker for each book purchase; you can also take a quiz on the Bible and UFOs – Bates claims that the Bible is the best UFO book ever written).



Short story according to Bates: Alien stories are part of the conspiracy! There are no extraterrestrials – beliefs in these are just result of atheistic sci-fi writers’ biases and a distortion of the truth caused by the prevalence of the false theory of evolution (you can sort of see the strangely twisted reasoning here) . The true account of UFO-related phenomena is found in the Bible (demons and angels), but this true account is covered up by the liberal, atheistic government conspiracy. You can read an interview here (from the creationist “peer-reviewed” journal Creation).

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Diagnosis: Deranged dingbat who panders to not-entirely-conservatively-Christian but gullible UFO-enthusiasts and new age conspiracy theorists. Mad as a hatter. Impact: Might be able to influence the divisions of labor among already crazy fringe-cranks, and possibly able recruit some religious fundamentalists. Potential recruits must already be quite unhinged.