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I can’t fault anyone for looking around at the state of things on the planet Earth and pondering the existence of aliens. Who wouldn’t want to hop on the Starship Get-Me-The-Hell-Out-Of-Here right now? It costs me a vital organ to fill up my gas tank, everyone I know is unemployed and the cast of Bravo’s Summer House is crumbling before our eyes. Unfortunately, for alien observer JD Vance, he’s partially responsible for two of the three. Pretty sure the vice-president isn’t hooking up with Amanda Batula, so he’s off the hook for that one.
On a recent appearance on The Benny Show, a conservative podcast you’ve never heard of, Vance outlined his “obsession” with UFOs. He might not be fully read into the current state of extraterrestrial discourse, but he does have a theory. Vance said: “I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons anyway, but that’s a longer discussion.”
JD, it’s a podcast. I think you have time to elaborate in between ad reads for Squarespace. And elaborate he did. “Well, look, I think that celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people – I think that the desire to ascribe everything celestial, everything that’s otherworldly, to describe it as aliens – I mean, every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there,” Vance said. What he’s describing is a really excellent episode of the original Star Trek. So, naturally, I believe him.
Vance’s grand theory of aliens is based on what he calls “the Christian understanding that, you know, there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also some evil out there. I think that one of the devil’s great tricks is to convince people he never existed.” If so, the devil is doing a particularly bad job. As recently as 2023, a Gallup poll found that 58% of Americans believed in the existence of Satan. That’s also nine percentage points more than the fraction of the American voting population who ticked their box for his boss. Maybe the devil needs to fire his publicist.
What’s fueling the vice-president’s interest in the unexplained? Is he bored because Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is the one front and center amid Donald Trump’s folly in Iran? Is he lonely because his wife is too busy with her podcast to join him on the couch? Did he watch Project Hail Mary and identify with the childlike rock monster that helps save the universe?
But maybe Vance wants to get off this dump as much as we do. If aliens, or angels and demons, are out there, then that means there’s another realm of existence we could all go to. Some glorious paradise with short wait times at the airport, free guacamole at every restaurant and Major League Baseball games with no blackout restrictions.
With Trump’s approval ratings hitting subterranean lows, it doesn’t seem like Vance has much chance to get the top job in 2028. A spaceship scooping him up and taking him to a far-off paradise may sound like a fun vacation.
Though there’s always the possibility that what Vance really wants is for the visitors to take everyone else. Maybe Trump will end the war in Iran swiftly, then Rubio slips on a patch of ice next winter (considering the shoes thepresident makes him wear, that’s always possible), but it’s not looking too good right now. A well-timed rapture that disappears all of his rivals is Vance’s only hope of ascending to the Resolute Desk at the White House.
It’d be easy for aliens or angels to coax most of our major politicians to hop on their vehicle for a joy ride. Tell Gavin Newsom there’s a Michelin-starred restaurant inside it. Park the spaceship in the Star Wars land at Disney World and Lindsey Graham will skip his way through the airlock with his lightning lane pass.
I won’t spoil the ending of Project Hail Mary, but I will say that it’s a movie that posits the notion that maybe being on Earth isn’t all that worth it and that maybe there’s something better out there among the stars. I can’t quibble with that. You wouldn’t have to try too hard to get me up there, either. Maybe on another planet, there’s no war, hunger or disease. I’ve had my fill of all three of those thanks to the last … 40 years of my life. I’ve hit my absolute limit on all that. Why not try for a fresh start? I’d gleefully take my chances on a barren celestial body without all our prejudices and selfish behaviors.
And maybe, hopefully, on this hypothetical alien world, there’s no Summer House on TV.
What I’m saying is, don’t invite Andy Cohen on the spaceship. No one needs the Real Housewives of Tau Ceti.
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Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
