As UFOs go mainstream, the jury is out on what the existence of alien life might mean for religion

Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray points to a video display of a UAP during a hearing of the House Intelligence, Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, May 17, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

LOS ANGELES — In “Disclosure Day,” out Friday, Steven Spielberg is once again inviting audiences to ponder the existence of extraterrestrial life — and the implications it would have for religion on Earth.

But Spielberg is hardly the only one making headlines of late about UFOs and the possibility of life on other planets.

What was once considered fringe or conspiratorial has in recent months popped up everywhere from the White House to the Catholic Church, as public fascination with unidentified anomalous phenomena — or UAPs, as the government calls them — becomes more mainstream.

The Pentagon in May made public large swaths of UFO files with very little context, leaving curious sleuths to piece together their own interpretations. The dump came just weeks after former President Barack Obama set off a media frenzy for stating unambiguously 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!”

Some religious adherents, as well as some nonbelievers, maintain that the existence of life on other planets might undermine many faiths because it would complicate assertions that humans are unique. But others argue the opposite.

“Belief in UFOs is really one of the best things that’s happened to religion in a long time,” said Diana Walsh Pasulka, a religion scholar at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. “It’s a blow to the secular, materialist worldview.”

An intersection of aliens, demons and Catholics

Even if broad interest in UAPs bolsters the case for an enchanted universe, some believers in religions such as Christianity think they are something to be wary of.

“I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons,” Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, said in a recent podcast interview.

That sentiment was echoed by Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, formerly an exorcist with the Archdiocese of Washington. He was removed last week by the archbishop, who said statements by Rossetti “gravely undermine” Catholic teaching on demons and the devil.

“It’s my personal belief that probably many, if not most, of these UFO sightings are in fact demons,” Rossetti said in a May 29 video posted on his Facebook page. “Aliens, if there are aliens, don’t possess people.”

Christopher Baglow, who heads a science and religion initiative at the University of Notre Dame, was surprised by the firing given that Rosetti made clear in the video he was expressing his own opinion. Baglow speculated that there may be other factors behind the decision.

“I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium,” Rosetti said in a statement online.

Despite the assertions by Vance and Rossetti about demons, Baglow maintains the Catholic Church has long 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 said.

While meeting with astronomy students last year at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV spoke about the “ancient light of distant galaxies” and the “mysterious joy” provoked by the study of outer space. Some interpreted these remarks as tacit speculation about the possibility of life on other planets.

Extraterrestrials, old and new

In one sense, the idea of otherworldly beings coming to Earth can be traced 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 said.

But it wasn’t until after 1945 that modern conceptions of UFOs began to develop, according to Jeffrey Kripal, a historian of religions at Rice University. “The flying saucer and the alien and the UFO — it’s definitely a Cold War invasion narrative,” he said.

That narrative explains why UAPs are often perceived as hostile to humans. But it’s also evolved over time and led to the formation of some religions — like Scientology, which counts many a Hollywood celebrity among its adherents — that see extraterrestrials as good or even part of a divine plan. Some adherents to the Nation of Islam, for example, believe that its founder will inaugurate an apocalyptic return to Earth on a spaceship.

The International Raëlian Movement, also know as Raëlism, is a UFO religion that was founded in France in the 1970s. It is still practiced today, with its strongest followings in parts of Asia, Africa and Canada, according to Susan Palmer, a sociologist who studies new religious movements at Concordia University in Montreal.

Its founder, Raël, claims he is a direct descendant of Yahweh, whom Raël visited on the planet of Elohim in 1975. Raëlism claims the Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad are all hybrids of humans and extraterrestrials, as well as Raël’s half brothers.

Of the groups she has studied, Palmer argued Raëlism is the most sympathetic toward UFOs. “They’re not interested in extraterrestrial wars,” she said.

But some think that sentiment might be growing.

Kripal, who heads Rice’s archival collection of reported paranormal experiences called the Center for the Impossible, perceives an increasing openness to these kinds of conversations about the existence of 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.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Krysta Fauria, The Associated Press