Yoruba Cosmology and the UFO Question
Description
In this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde traces how Yoruba cosmology understands contact with “sky beings”—from Ọ̀run and Ayé, Odùduwà’s chain, Ọ̀ṣun’s skyward journey, and Ṣàngó’s thunderstones to folk accounts of night-flying àjẹ́—then connects those themes to contemporary UFO/alien talk. He explores how these ideas traveled through the Atlantic slave trade and live on in the diaspora (Cuba’s Lukumí/Santería, Brazil’s Candomblé, in Haiti, Trinidad, and beyond), including spiritist currents that speak of otherworldly guides. Along the way, Bidemi highlights how Ifá verses, proverbs, and Egúngún traditions frame “visitation” as ancestral or divine rather than extraterrestrial—and how modern Yoruba communities sometimes bridge both lenses. A concise, story-rich look at continuity, adaptation, and why Yoruba thought treats the boundary between worlds as porous.
United States
