For many science illiterates UFOs & paranormal are faith-based secular replacements for religion

This is not to deny the reality of the observations by real scientists like reported on NIDS, Maccabee, Stanford, Sturrock and in some of the Weird Desk postings on http://stardrive.org
Disclosure is the secular sci-fi equivalent of The Second Coming e.g., Dan Smith.
The most successful sci-fi moral equivalent of Christian Fundamentalism is L. Ron. Hubbard's Scientology. Indeed, the Operating Thetan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Thetan
is what metric engineering is really all about, i.e. the psychokinetic manipulation of the gravitational curvature and possibly torsion fields - Uri Geller on steroids so to speak.
Start by bending metal, end by bending 4D spacetime for warp drive and star gates. That is Magick without Magic.