December 31, 2023 — Mark Christopher Lee with Tim Swartz

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present Mark Christopher Lee, a singer-songwriter in the cult indie band The Pocket Gods since 1998. As a filmmaker, he presents “God Vs. Aliens,” which looks into whether life as we know and perceive it is just a simulation designed and controlled by extra terrestrials for some unknown purpose. This theory would then make religion and even the idea of God as a construct of the computer game and thereby the Aliens controlling it. This films explores this theory and its impact on the world’s religions should we make first contact, and especially if that contact would actually negate our physical existence and any notion of God as real. Featured in the film are former UK Ministry of Defence staffer Nick Pope, Harvard astronomer Professor Avi Loeb, and UFO skeptic Seth Shostak. As a working musician, Lee has long advocated for fair royalties for artists, especially on such music streaming services as Apple Music and Spotify. He says that musicians routinely get underpaid for their work by the music industry and they have released albums of 30-second songs since 2015 to highlight the lack of fair royalties.