We’ve seen a lot of things go sideways in American Christianity over the years — megachurch pastors buying private jets, worship leaders who can’t name three books of the Bible, entire denominations deciding the resurrection was more of a “metaphor” — but we have to admit, a pastor going on YouTube to announce that a sitting congressman confirmed space aliens invented Jesus Christ is a new one, even for us.
You’d think a guy whose entire job is shepherding people toward the truth might pause before telling his audience that the United States government has confirmed extraterrestrials fabricated the Son of God, the Bible, and all of Christianity as some kind of cosmic science experiment. But no. Pastor Larry Ragland apparently decided the responsible thing to do was fire up the webcam and tell everyone that Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri sat in a secret meeting with pastors and intelligence officials and basically said, “Yeah, the aliens made it all up. Jesus, the Bible, the whole thing — alien fan fiction.” Ragland told his followers, and we’re quoting here: “They were the ones that seeded us here, there is no such thing as God, Jesus was invented by them, the Bible was invented by them.”
And people wonder why church attendance is declining.
Here’s what actually happened. There was a private meeting — phones off, no recordings — where pastors sat down with people connected to U.S. intelligence and military circles. The topic was UFO disclosure and how it might affect people of faith. Burlison, who called in by phone, shared some Christian perspectives on biblical interpretation. That’s it. That’s the meeting. A congressman talked about the Bible with some pastors. Stop the presses.
But Ragland — a pastor and YouTuber, which is already a combination that should make you nervous — took that meeting, ran it through whatever filter exists between his ears, and came out the other side telling the internet that the federal government just confirmed Christianity is an alien psyop. He didn’t hedge. He didn’t say “this is my interpretation.” He presented it as though Burlison himself delivered the message that everything you believe is a lie cooked up by little green men.
Perry Stone, the Tennessee evangelist, discussed the meeting in a video. Alan DiDio, a North Carolina pastor, confirmed it took place. But neither of them went on camera claiming Congress just debunked two thousand years of Christian theology using UFO files.
That was all Ragland.
Now, to his credit — and we’re being generous with that word — Ragland did apologize on May 6th. He admitted he “conflated his own opinions with Burlison’s message.” His exact words: “I want to apologize directly to Congressman Burlison. Those were my words.” Which is a polite way of saying, “I made up the most explosive claim a Christian pastor can possibly make, attributed it to a United States congressman, broadcast it to the internet, and now I’d like everyone to forget about it.”
Convenient.
Burlison, for his part, clarified that he “did NOT know what the strange objects in the skies are” and that his portion of the call was simply sharing Christian perspectives on scripture. In other words, the man talked about the Bible at a meeting with pastors. Revolutionary stuff.
But here’s the thing that should bother every single one of us, and it goes way beyond one pastor with a YouTube channel and an overactive imagination. We are living in a moment where trust is the most valuable currency in America. Trust in institutions is gone. Trust in media is gone. Trust in government is circling the drain. And for millions of Americans, the church is the last institution standing. It’s the one place people still go expecting to hear the truth.
So when a pastor — a man who literally stands behind a pulpit and claims to speak with spiritual authority — goes on the internet and tells people that a congressman confirmed aliens invented their entire faith, and it turns out he just made it up? That’s not a whoopsie. That’s not a “my bad.” That’s a man taking a wrecking ball to the one thing his congregation trusted him to protect.
And let’s talk about the timing. This is all happening while President Trump is pushing for UFO transparency and promising to release classified files on unidentified anomalous phenomena. The government is actually, for the first time in decades, moving toward disclosure. Real disclosure. And instead of letting that process play out — instead of waiting for actual evidence and actual information — Ragland decided to skip ahead and just fabricate the conclusion himself.
That’s not prophecy. That’s not discernment. That’s a guy who wanted clicks.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the biggest threat to the things we care about doesn’t always come from the left. Sometimes it comes from people on our own side who are so desperate for attention, so addicted to being the one who “breaks” the story, that they’ll torch their own credibility and take a congressman’s reputation down with them — all for a viral moment.
Ragland’s apology is noted. But the damage is already done. His original video is out there. It’s been screenshotted, clipped, shared, and embedded in a thousand Reddit threads where people who already think Christians are gullible are now using a pastor’s own words as proof. You can’t unring that bell.
So here’s our advice, free of charge, to every pastor with a webcam and a WiFi connection: if you’re about to tell your audience that the United States government confirmed space aliens invented Jesus Christ, maybe — just maybe — double-check your notes first.
Because the aliens didn’t invent Christianity. But Larry Ragland sure invented a story.