Colin Samul’s journey from New Age seeker to ordained Reformed Presbyterian minister gives him an unusual — and useful — vantage point on the UFO story that now occupies the headlines and the halls of power. He has spent years studying how occult ideas and spiritual deception intersect with the modern fascination with UFOs, and he brings that theological seriousness to conversations many in the media refuse to have.
Samul has been producing the Cultish podcast and an “Alien Revelations” series that trace the roots of UFO culture through New Age networks, military programs, and popular entertainment, arguing that too many who chase lights in the sky fail to ask the spiritual and moral questions that matter. His resume — formerly immersed in occult practices before conversion, now a pastor and a researcher — is not the story of a sensationalist but of someone warning his flock about cultural currents.
Meanwhile the federal machinery that once buried reports about strange aerial objects has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the sunlight. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office was established as a successor to earlier task forces and now even runs a reporting tool to collect accounts and historical information dating back decades, an admission that UAPs are a national-security problem the American people deserve to understand.
That same office has been blunt enough to say the historical record does not support the sensational claim that the government has in its vaults off-world artifacts, while congressional hearings and whistleblower chatter keep the pressure on for greater transparency — a messy, conflicting record that conservatives should watch closely in the months ahead. The sober conclusion from the official historical review is a rebuke to conspiracy-hungry reporters, even as senators push for answers about anomalous cases that remain unexplained.
Which is exactly why Samul’s warning matters: liberal media and pop-culture profiteers want Americans to treat UFO lore as entertainment or a political cudgel, while the spiritual and psychological roots of that fascination go deeper and darker. The problem isn’t just missing data; it’s the cultural plumbing that channels loneliness, curiosity, and theological confusion into lucrative myths — and that plumbing is what pastors and patriots should be diagnosing.
Conservatives should be skeptical of both the glamourized “aliens saved us” narratives and the equally dangerous bureaucratic secrecy that treats citizens like children. We should demand clear, technical answers about flight safety, intelligence gaps, and potential foreign adversary exploitation, and we should oppose any effort to use UAP hysteria to normalize occult ideas or to distract from real threats. Congressional oversight is the right conservative remedy: transparency, accountability, and no room for theatrical mysticism.
This debate is as much about soul as it is about sensors. Hardworking Americans deserve truth and clarity, not a parade of late-night thrillers and clickbait panels that edge the nation toward cultural confusion. Religious leaders like Samul are doing the uncomfortable work of reminding believers that spiritual discernment matters; patriotic citizens should pair that discernment with insistence on transparency from the institutions tasked with protecting us.
If 2026 brings any fresh disclosures — whether bureaucratic reports, new AARO briefings, or overheated media spectacles — conservatives must be ready to call out what is genuine, what is deceptive, and what is being used as cover for political or cultural ends. We should demand sober hearings, technical evidence, and moral clarity, and we should refuse to let our republic be nudged toward superstition while real national-security gaps go unaddressed.
