Separating belief in ET life from belief in UFOs

I agree with your assessment of the probability of life on other planets. As the highly missed Carl Sagan said (paraphrased), "If there's no one else out there, it's an awful waste of space."Now, while I agree there are probably other life forms out there, the probability of intelligent life is probably less than any life whatsoever. I think there's probably some out there, but the odds of intelligence occurring close to other intelligence seems to be very low, and until we show that Einstein's speed limit is not really a limit, distance and time become extremely limiting factors. As such, it seems highly unlikely that we have been visited by anyone.I think the preponderance of "alien abduction" stories comes from the same place as "demon" and "witchcraft" stories. A healthy imagination, fear, and a liberal sprinkling of sleep paralysis. I've experienced it once, and I can definitely see how people would believe the things they imagined had actually happened. Luckily, I had heard of the phenomenon, and upon waking, I was able to realize what had happened. But let me tell you, it was one of the freakiest things I've ever experienced.

It would stand to reason that any natural processes we see in our corner of the universe will hold in other areas. As such, the process of evolution should work just as well on "Earth Prime" as it does here. The neat thing is that evolution is not working toward a goal, and while selection is a non-random process, the mutations are. There are probably many solutions to a particular environmental pressure, and the odds of life on another planet ending up wiht the same one as we find here seems to be small. There will be some weird life forms out there, just as there are on Earth.I would guess some convergent evolution, but just as juch divergent evolution, especially if the ET life isn't carbon based, or if it uses different amino acids for life than we do. Maybe it uses some sort of 4 starnded DNA, rather than the 2 strands we do, making 4 genders the norm, etc...strange stuff.

Interesting idea. I would want to see other similar stories that Christians may be using for similar phenomenon that others explain with alien abductions. For example, if Christians claim fewer alien abductions, but the gap is nicely filled in by claiming demonic possession or witchcraft stories with similar elements, I think it would go a lomng way to showing that these events are not external to the person and are filtered through the person's worldview.

As an interesting question to investigate. I'd want to see what makes the brains of the Christian different from the brains of the non-Christian. Especially since sleep paralysis is the mechanism by which we don't act out our dreams, I would find it very difficult to figure out how Christians would escape from that condition while not all being sleep walkers...