The release of Steven Spielberg’s new film, “Disclosure Day,” on Friday, once again prompts audiences to consider the existence of extraterrestrial life and its profound implications for religion on Earth.
This cinematic exploration arrives amidst a surge of public fascination with unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), which the government now uses to describe what were once commonly known as UFOs.
What was previously relegated to the fringes of conspiracy theory has recently entered mainstream discourse, appearing in discussions from the White House to the Catholic Church.
This growing interest has been fueled by several recent developments.
In May, the Pentagon began making public large swaths of UFO files with very little context, leaving curious sleuths to piece together their own interpretations.
This followed remarks by former President Barack Obama, who sparked a media frenzy by unambiguously stating in an interview that aliens are real, though he later tempered that take.
“Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” the former president, who made a surprise visit to the “Disclosure Day” set, posted on social media.
“I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
The potential existence of extraterrestrial life presents a complex challenge for religious beliefs. Some adherents, alongside nonbelievers, suggest it could undermine many faiths by complicating assertions of human uniqueness.
However, others argue the opposite. “Belief in UFOs is really one of the best things that’s happened to religion in a long time,” stated Diana Walsh Pasulka, a religion scholar at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
“It’s a blow to the secular, materialist worldview.”
Despite the notion that UAPs might bolster a sense of an enchanted universe, some Christian believers view them with suspicion.
Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, expressed this sentiment in a recent podcast, stating, “I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons.”
This perspective was echoed by Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, formerly an exorcist with the Archdiocese of Washington, who was removed last week by the archbishop for statements that “gravely undermine” Catholic teaching on demons and the devil.
Rossetti had claimed in a May 29 Facebook video, “It’s my personal belief that probably many, if not most, of these UFO sightings are in fact demons. Aliens, if there are aliens, don’t possess people.”
Christopher Baglow, who leads a science and religion initiative at the University of Notre Dame, expressed surprise at Rossetti’s firing, noting that Rossetti made clear in the video he was expressing his own opinion.
Baglow speculated that there may be other factors behind the decision. Rossetti later issued an online statement: “I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium.”
Despite the assertions from Vance and Rossetti, Baglow maintains that the Catholic Church has historically been open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
“Theologians have been speculating about this for centuries and the church has never ever taught one way or the other,” he explained.
Pope Leo XIV, during a meeting with astronomy students last year at the Vatican, spoke of the “ancient light of distant galaxies” and the “mysterious joy” evoked by studying outer space, remarks some interpreted as tacit speculation about the possibility of life on other planets.
The concept of otherworldly beings visiting Earth has roots stretching back millennia.
“People would call it the plurality of worlds. So even back in the time of Socrates and Aristotle, there were Greek philosophers who talked about beings on other planets and other stars,” Walsh Pasulka noted.
However, the modern understanding of UFOs largely emerged after 1945.
Jeffrey Kripal, a historian of religions at Rice University, described “The flying saucer and the alien and the UFO — it’s definitely a Cold War invasion narrative.”
This narrative often portrays UAPs as hostile to humans.
Yet, it has also evolved, leading to the formation of religions like Scientology, which counts numerous Hollywood celebrities among its followers and views extraterrestrials positively, even as part of a divine plan.
Adherents to the Nation of Islam, for instance, believe its founder will return to Earth on a spaceship in an apocalyptic event. The International Raëlian Movement, or Raëlism, founded in France in the 1970s, is another UFO religion with strong followings in parts of Asia, Africa, and Canada, according to Susan Palmer, a sociologist studying new religious movements at Concordia University in Montreal.
Its founder, Raël, claims direct descent from Yahweh, whom he visited on the planet Elohim in 1975, and asserts that the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad are all hybrids of humans and extraterrestrials, as well as Raël’s half brothers. Palmer considers Raëlism the most sympathetic toward UFOs among the groups she has studied, noting, “They’re not interested in extraterrestrial wars.”
This sympathetic view might be gaining traction. Kripal, who oversees Rice’s archival collection of reported paranormal experiences at the Center for the Impossible, observes an increasing openness to discussions about UFOs and the possibility that they are not hostile. “People are reporting these experiences or these encounters with entities and they’re religious through and through,” he said. “My colleagues in the academy, they’re really starting to listen in a different way.”
