An interesting introduction to "UFO religions", here New Religious Movements with a kind-of-traditionally-religious-or-spiritual attitude towards UFOs and space aliens (as defined by American post-war pop culture and ufology).
This kind of UFO religions emerged after World War II. The narrator points out that they were influenced by Theosophy, but I think one could go even further and argue that many of them *were* Theosophists, rather than merely "influenced" by them. That is, Theosophists in the ideological sense, as opposed to card-carrying members of the Adyar society.
As one of the commentators to the first video points out, religions postulating the existence of extraterrestrials certainly existed already before the UFO craze (the Urantia Book), which brings me to the second video.
Would the confirmation of extraterrestrial intelligent life destroy religion? The obvious answers is "no", and this for two reasons. First, religion always adapt to changes in society´s reality-perception, so why not here? This reason is mentioned by the narrator. Second, ETs might fit into traditional religious frameworks, for instance by declaring them to be demons or asuras. Indeed, some Christians and Hare Krishnas are already doing this!
However, there is yet another reason for why an ET-UFO disclosure won´t be as dramatic as many people think. *The idea that there are super-intelligent demigod-like space aliens is part and parcel of the secular-atheist mythology of our time*. It´s the notion that we are alone that would truly shock people...secular people, that is.
Maybe that´s why they are constantly sperging about Christianity collapsing due to evidence of extraterrestrial life...
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