Starship of Bethlehem?

Found on Facebook, Baptism of Christ from 1710 by Aert de Gelder:

I know there’s other pages that have already brought up the “UFOs in classic art” thing before, so I’m hardly bringing anything new to the table here (what, me come up with something original? Perish the thought), but I still find this kind of startling. I’m sure the thing apparently firing lasers at Jesus and John the Baptist is meant to be the spirit of God being pleased with the proceedings, but it’s a very odd depiction of something the book says descended on Jesus like a dove. Wonder what the reason for rendering that God character quite like this was…