Things unseen

Nate Henry had a yearslong fascination with Bigfoot. But for perhaps obvious reasons, he noticed people in his Christian circles didn’t seem too interested in listening to him talk about it. So, of course, he started a podcast.

During the 2020 pandemic lockdowns, the former rock musician set up a small studio in his musty basement and recorded the first few episodes of Blurry Creatures, a podcast aimed at exploring paranormal and supernatural topics through a Biblical lens. The podcast’s name refers to the tendency for blurry or inconclusive evidence surrounding documented encounters with mysterious creatures or phenomena, including Bigfoot.

Henry, 45, thought Blurry Creatures might appeal to a few thousand Christian kids who shared his interest. Co-host and fellow Bigfoot fan Luke Rodgers, 43, a former sports podcaster, was less optimistic. “I always thought, no one’s really gonna listen,” he said. “Maybe my mom and dad, my brothers, my family, some friends, because they’re loyal.”

Rodgers was wrong. Very wrong. Thirty episodes in, they realized lots of people shared their interest. Rodgers recalls their shock: “We’re like, Oh, this could really be something. Maybe we should get a website.”

Since then, the show frequently lands on Top 10 lists of science podcasts on Apple and Spotify. It averages about 75,000 listeners per episode and 700,000 monthly downloads, Henry said. Blurry Creatures now hosts an annual conference, operates out of a live studio in Franklin, Tenn., and enjoys a partnership with the Robertson family of the American reality television show Duck Dynasty.

Henry and Rodgers begin most episodes asking guests for their thoughts on Bigfoot. Henry says Bigfoot is a “gateway drug” into discussing other strange, paranormal, and supernatural topics—from fallen angels and Biblical giants to aliens, unidentified flying objects, and transhumanism.

Blurry Creatures’ appeal has something to do with a cultural moment of spiritual openness, one in which paradigms about what is real are shifting. More people are acknowledging transcendent reality, and paranormal and supernatural topics that were once considered fringe have invaded mainstream discourse.

In recent years, the federal government has contributed to the buzz amid congressional hearings on reported UFO sightings, alleged cover-ups, and public pressure for more transparency from the Pentagon on its knowledge about extraterrestrial activity. The Pentagon established an office in 2022 to vet reports of “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” So far, it has found “no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” according to its November 2024 report.

Still, the report acknowledged hundreds of cases that remain unexplained. Its authors claim that’s due to a lack of information. But it’s only fueled public interest and speculation on the possibility of extraterrestrial life and other strange phenomena.

Meanwhile, top-tier podcasters such as Joe Rogan, Shawn Ryan, and Tucker Carlson regularly host guests discussing topics such as UFO and demonic encounters, ghost lore, and theories about ancient mysteries. The shows garner hundreds of thousands of views.

Rodgers told me believers in Christ are especially interested: “I think for a lot of Christians, or for people who are searching, they’re like, I need a better answer to this, because if this is real, does this disqualify my faith?”

Nate Henry (right) and Luke Rodgers at the 2024 BlurryCon conference in Franklin, Tenn. Arnica Spring

NEARLY 80% OF AMERICANS believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if it’s something they cannot see or touch, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study, released earlier this year. But that belief is largely “untethered from Christian orthodoxy,” said author Michael Horton, founder of the multimedia company Sola Media and J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California.

After years of decline, the number of Americans who identify as Christian has leveled off to 6 in 10, while the share of those who attend church monthly has hovered at 30% since 2020. A growing number of U.S. adults, about 3 in 10, now identify as “religiously unaffiliated,” with young adults assuming the label “spiritual but not religious” at even higher rates than their older counterparts.

“It’s given rise to a more self-defined spirituality,” Horton told me. Many are adopting beliefs and practices associated with spiritualism and the occult. “It’s no longer a God outside of us who creates and judges and redeems, but one who is just part of me and a part of nature and a force behind all things,” he said.

Nearly 2 in 5 non-Christians in the U.S. were reportedly raised Christian, according to a new survey from Barna Group and Gloo. “The winner of the lottery for disaffected Christians is superstition,” Horton told me.

Some, like Rodgers, believe the shifting religious landscape presents an opportunity to woo disaffected Christians and the spiritually curious to a faith rooted in Scripture and the supernatural.

“Maybe we are returning to the supernatural roots of our faith,” he said.

Haunted Cosmos, a paranormal podcast led by Reformed Baptist pastors Ben Garrett and Brian Sauvé of Ogden, Utah, claims to help listeners weigh paranormal phenomena within the context of Christian thought and an unseen spiritual reality. The podcast’s tagline: “High strangeness from a Biblical lens.” One episode that aired in July delves into extrasensory perception. Another recent segment examined anecdotal evidence surrounding “dogman,” a cryptid half-human, half-canine creature that has persisted in paranormal lore for decades. A three-part series examined the lore surrounding Skinwalker Ranch, a 512-acre Utah property reputed to be the site of paranormal activity such as UFO sightings and cattle mutilations and vanishing.

Human fascination with paranormal phenomena has waxed and waned dating back to the ancient Greek philosophers. Some early church fathers were receptive to the idea that God could have created life elsewhere. Today, lots of Christians dismiss this as nonsense. But some believe aliens and other mysterious creatures and occurrences could be spiritual or interdimensional entities linked to fallen angels referred to in the Old Testament. They view UFOs and other mysterious phenomena as part of a long-term demonic plot to deceive humanity.

Old Testament scholar and author Michael Heiser, who died two years ago, argued in his bestselling 2015 book The Unseen Realm that modern Western Christians tend to overlook or ignore the Bible’s supernatural elements, including a real, active spiritual world. Ten years later, a new expanded version of The Unseen Realm is being released in October. The book reignited interest in a long-standing debate surrounding Genesis 6 and the Nephilim. Many hold the Sethite interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4, believing the “sons of God” referred to were descendants of Seth who had children with women from the line of Cain. These children, called Nephilim, were known for their great stature and extreme wickedness.

Heiser argued for a different theological interpretation. He believed God flooded the world in part because angelic beings, “sons of God,” had children by human women. The Nephilim referred to in Scripture were half-breeds, mighty men destroyed in the flood. But their kind reappeared afterward. Drawing from the Second Temple Jewish literature such as the Book of Enoch, Heiser asserted New Testament demons, referred to as unclean spirits, represent disembodied spirits of Nephilim that continue to corrupt humanity today.

Heiser has had an outsized influence on Blurry Creatures’ Henry and Rodgers, among others. They frequently bring him up during podcast interviews. In 2024, together with researcher and author Timothy Alberino, Henry and Rodgers published an edition of the Book of Enoch, a third-century Jewish text said to be written by the great-grand­father of Noah and discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Joel Muddamalle, a frequent Blurry Creatures guest and speaker, dedicated his forthcoming book, The Unseen Battle, to Heiser. Muddamalle is an author, co-host of the Therapy and Theology podcast, and director of theology and research at Proverbs 31 Ministries. About 15 years ago, as a young “punk” seminarian, Muddamalle would pop into Heiser’s office at Logos Bible Software, where they both worked. He recalled a sign hanging on the wall that read, “parking reserved for Hebrew semitic scholars.” Muddamalle credits Heiser with gently challenging his theological assumptions. Heiser especially shaped Muddamalle’s belief in the idea that God exercises authority over a council of divine beings called elohim. According to Heiser, the so-called Divine Council belief provides a framework for the supernatural rebellions in the Old Testament that set the stage for a long cosmic conflict between good and evil that still rages today.

Critics argue Heiser’s interpretations lean too heavily on speculation. Some of his ideas, particularly about the Divine Council, are gaining popularity among evangelicals, according to Charlie Trimm, associate professor and chair of Old Testament at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. Trimm believes Heiser’s views are within Biblical orthodoxy. But he has reservations: “[Heiser] takes possible readings of various Biblical texts and … makes them appear certain.” Trimm also expressed concern over Heiser’s “overreliance on extra-Biblical literature, especially the Book of Enoch.”

Others are more critical. “Heiser excels at fabricating lucid interpretations of Scriptural topics that are not given any substantial data to accurately define,” Bruce Wood, an apologetics specialist on staff at the Institute for Creation Research, told me in an email. He labeled Heiser’s identification of Nephilim “very nebulous work, fraught with many definite-maybe theories and quasi-factual statements.”

Part of Heiser’s appeal, according to Trimm, was his willingness to talk about supernatural topics that are often overlooked in evangelical churches.

Muddamalle sees the growing acknowledgment of the supernatural world today in a positive light, part of a “cosmic inbreaking … whether it’s being described as aliens, UFOs, Bigfoot sightings … you’ve got podcasts on exorcism and demon possession.”

“Christians have the very best coherent answer for all these questions,” he added.

On a recent episode of Blurry Creatures, Henry and Rodgers featured Christian apologist and author Lee Strobel. He was there to discuss his newest book, Seeing the Supernatural: Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Encounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World.

When evaluating paranormal or supernatural phenomena, Strobel, a former atheist and investigative journalist who wrote The Case for Christ, emphasized the need to avoid sensationalism and look for objective and quantifiable evidence.

Strobel’s book includes accounts of spiritual encounters and scientifically inexplicable miracles he argues were corroborated and undeniable. Strobel told Henry and Rodgers he approached the topic as a skeptic with the hope of reaching the spiritually curious.

As usual, Henry kicked off the 106-minute interview with the question, “What are your thoughts on Bigfoot?”

Strobel began listing the differences between the Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, a reportedly dark-brown-haired cryptid hiding in the mountains and woods of Western U.S. and Canada, and the Yeti, a white-furred “bear-like” creature said to live in the Himalayas. “What they share is the question of, are they real? Or is someone just mistaking a bear on their hind legs?” Strobel asks. “We don’t know … I don’t know. But I’m open. If they catch one, I’d like to see.”

Illustration by Hugh Syme

FOR THOSE WHO DELVE into the once-niche Christian subset of paranormal and supernatural discourse, it includes plenty of intriguing characters and troves of content.

One Blurry Creatures guest, L.A. Marzulli, is an author and documentarian popular in fringe Christian supernatural circles whom critics dismiss as promoting pseudoscience and sensational conspiracy theories. During my Zoom call with him, Marzulli reached for props midsentence with such ease it was clear he’s been at it for a while. He zipped around a makeshift metal disc resembling a flying saucer. Then, he glided a remote control up and down his arm to depict an ultrasound wand he says detected an alien implant—a small piece of metal embedded in a man’s knee “with no entry wound.”

At one point, Marzulli held up an elongated skull, a replica of those he says have been discovered in Peru, with eye sockets “about 25% larger than a normal human being.” He pointed to the foramen magnum, the opening to the skull. It should be in the middle, but it’s in the back. According to Marzulli, the elongated skull solidifies the non-Sethian view of hybrid-­human Nephilim that roamed the earth before and after the Biblical flood. The same “seed,” tied to the fallen angels, is being spread today through alien abductions and hybridization, part of a wide-scale “Great Deception” and end times prophecy, according to Marzulli.

Whoever or whatever the Nephilim were, however, the Peruvian skulls don’t prove anything about them, according to prevailing academic consensus. Scientists say Peruvian elongated skulls are a result of ancient cranial deformation, a cultural practice involving binding or flattening a child’s skull using wood or cloth, and not evidence of a separate species.

But Marzulli seems unfazed by his critics. And he’s emboldened by the federal government’s measures to take UFO reports more seriously. “Here we are in the halls of Congress for the first time in history arguing that UFOs are real,” he told me. “We’ve got too many whistleblowers … so, you know, the scoffers will always scoff. ”

Marzulli’s detractors would likely agree with him on one point, perhaps to their chagrin: Today there’s less societal stigma attached to paranormal and supernatural topics that were once regarded as sci-fi tropes or conspiracy theories.

Alberino, the researcher who teamed up with Henry and Rodgers to publish The Book of Enoch, says when his 2020 book Birthright came out, the interest was confined to Christian circles. But lately, sales have shot up, and he claims it’s getting more mainstream attention. Birthright argues humanity was originally created to rule the earth and the cosmos as sons and daughters of God. But rebellious spiritual beings—cue the fallen angels in Genesis 6—thwarted that birthright. Alberino interweaves Biblical interpretation with ancient texts, fringe theories, and speculation about aliens, Nephilim, transhumanism, and coming eschatological events.

“Interest in these topics is only going to rise in the next decade,” Alberino told me.

“These aren’t fads. They’re going to become increasingly more important as we move into the future.”

Reviews of Birthright on Goodreads range from “scales fell from my eyes,” to “a confusing manifesto” and “whole sections of the book can be lifted straight from conspiracy sites.”

Alberino is often referred to as a modern-­day Indiana Jones. He sports neutral-colored clothes, fedoras, aviator glasses, and leather boots. His hair slicked back, he often puffs a cigar during interviews. In recent months, Alberino has appeared on a series of popular podcasts, including Daily Wire’s The Michael Knowles Show, the Shawn Ryan Show, and The Culture War Podcast with Tim Pool.

For many, wading through these protracted discussions may raise more questions than answers.

That doesn’t seem to bother Henry of Blurry Creatures. For him, the fact that debate is taking place among believers and the wider world is a good thing. “Why can’t we ask questions? Why can’t we explore?” he says. “The conversation never really ends. In some ways, that’s a good thing, and in other ways, it’s frustrating.”

But critics of Blurry Creatures say they mislead listeners at times by not interjecting when guests venture into what could be speculative ideas or myths—or even false teaching, such as the Apostle Paul warned the early church against.

Another concern: Curiosity about the supernatural could easily turn into an all-­consuming obsession.

Even those in this space recognize it’s a temptation. “The more you seek after these things, the more consumed you can get … where you’re seeing a spiritual enemy around every corner,” Muddamalle told me. He cautions believers against becoming so enamored that they lose sight of their own sanctification—and even more importantly, the resurrected Savior.

“All of it ought to be understood within the context of Christ’s victory over these dark powers, His pronouncement of judgment over these supernatural beings,” Muddamalle said.

Trimm, the Old Testament scholar at Biola, has seen some students lose sight of that: “It becomes a problem if you dive into these topics and ignore clear principles about who God is and what He wants us to do in the world.”