A man who walked on the Moon says UFOs are real, and that they are demons. Charles Duke, the 91-year-old Apollo 16 lunar module pilot, shared the idea on the Christian Broadcasting Network, and the New York Post picked it up on October 13.
What Duke Said
Duke argues that what people are seeing is real, but that it is not benevolent. He cited the Bible’s 2 Corinthians 11:14, the line that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and said UFOs are demons posing as angels to turn people away from their faith and toward alleged alien entities. He told the interviewer people can laugh if they want, but this is what God showed him.
He says he has long suspected this, and that for years he was laughed off the stage at Rotary Club talks when he said so. At one point, he says, he prayed for a sign. If a close friend, a businessman who never talked about such things, brought up UFOs the next morning, that would prove it. The next morning the friend invited him over to talk about UFOs.
The Resume
Duke became the youngest person to walk on the Moon at age 36, during Apollo 16 in 1972. He also served as the capsule communicator, or CAPCOM, during the Apollo 11 landing. The New York Post notes, with some irony, that he never had any close encounters of his own during his lunar missions.
He Is Not the First
Duke is far from the only public figure leaning this way lately. According to the Post, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna posted an image of a winged Ophanim, a wheel-like celestial being from the Book of Ezekiel, on the day of the first government UFO disclosure release on May 8. And in March, Vice President JD Vance told podcaster Benny Johnson he does not think UAP are aliens and that he thinks they are demons, adding that it is a long discussion.
This idea is not new. Researchers like John Keel and others in UFO circles have long argued that the phenomenon behaves more like a deceptive spiritual force than like visitors in spaceships, and plenty of religious writers made the same case decades ago. What is new is who is saying it out loud, and in what setting.
My Take
I am about 50-50 on this one. I do not think the demon explanation can be tested, and I notice that Duke’s own sign was a friend mentioning UFOs, which people do. But I will not wave off the overlap between some UFO encounters and old religious experiences. Many encounter accounts do involve fear, paralysis, and a sense of being deceived. If you want to see how the demon idea fits in, read it beside our UFO coverage, where we try to stay open without leaving our brains at the door.
What I do take seriously is that a former NASA astronaut says he came to this view by faith, not evidence. That tells us a lot about where the disclosure debate is heading, which is away from “are they real?” and toward “what are they, and are we supposed to trust them?”
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