“UFOs and the Bible—how do you believe in both?” That is the opening sentence in a story on CNN’s Belief Blog: “Can You Believe in Both Bigfoot and the Bible?”

Apparently CNN’s people—its authors and most of the people who have commented on its article thus far—have not been not been channel-surfing enough. At least not in Tennessee.

Just two weeks ago, on October 1, 2010, Hal Lindsey (author of the grand-daddy of all Left Behind books, The Late Great Planet Earth), devoted his television show to this very question: “Are UFOs Real?”

If you missed the show, here it is on Lindsey’s website.

Lindsey’s short answer to CNN’s question is that yes, indeed, UFOs are real and fully understandable, almost predictable, in terms of Lindsay’s dispensationalist end-times scenarios. They are literal demons and are further evidence for a plot that is “subtly advancing us toward the predicted one-world government.”

Perhaps more diligent channel-surfers than I can shed more light on this subject and explain that I am slow in noticing this evangelical theme—but since I teach about end-times discourse I try to pay at least passing attention to evolving trends, and this twist seems mildly noteworthy because I have seldom heard it.

Although I spoke of Lindsey’s “short answer,” I hasten to add that viewers will learn it only after lengthy sequences about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United Nations, a case for the U.S or Israel attacking Iran, and a pitch for the phone ministry 1-888-RAPTURE.

Apparently the UFO issue got onto Lindsey’s radar screen because of reports that United Nations is paying attention to it, as discussed here.

Lindsey offers a mass of evidence (quite disturbing if true) claiming sightings by military personnel who witnessed UFOs disarming nuclear weapons. In Lindsey’s interpretation, such disarmament fits a similar script as dystopian movies in which aliens “are fattening us up for lunch.” However Lindsey explains that this will be part of the tribulation, after the rapture—and, as already noted, complicit with the UN-led “one world government.”