Our commentary
The interdimensional theory of UFOs
Our own look at a common question, by David Dell. The background on this page is ours, not a summary of the book.
The popular picture of UFOs is simple: nuts-and-bolts spacecraft from another star. The interdimensional theory says the picture is wrong. On this view, whatever is behind the strangest cases isn't traveling across space at all. It comes from a realm alongside ours.
Where the idea came from
Two secular researchers made the idea famous. In Passport to Magonia (1969), researcher Jacques Vallée compared modern UFO and “occupant” reports with much older folklore about fairies and spirits, and doubted the spacecraft explanation. Writer John Keel, in Operation Trojan Horse (1970), used the term “ultraterrestrials” for non-human intelligences that share our world rather than visit it. Neither man argued for a Christian interpretation, but both noticed that the phenomenon behaves more like the visitations in old stories than like a space program.
What physics does and doesn't say
“Hidden dimensions” is a real phrase in physics, but it means something specific. String theories require extra dimensions of spacetime for their mathematical consistency: ten in superstring theory and eleven in M-theory. Those extra dimensions are usually assumed to be curled up, or “compactified,” far too small to see. It isn't known to what extent string theory describes the real world. So physics doesn't show that beings travel between dimensions. What it does show is that serious science takes seriously a reality bigger than what we can see.
An older version of the idea
Long before either, the Bible described a realm that is real but usually unseen, which occasionally becomes visible:
“And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” 2 Kings 6:17 (KJV)
“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18 (KJV)
That's why many Christians find the interdimensional theory more familiar than strange. The question it raises is who lives in that realm, and Scripture's answer includes both holy angels and fallen ones.
Sources: Jacques Vallée · John Keel · String theory · 2 Kings 6:17; 2 Corinthians 4:18 (KJV)