President Trump has indicated that he wants to release classified files on UFOs, UAPs and aliens. This is being branded by some commentators at “The Great Disclosure” which will upset everything. Some have called it an “ontological earthquake” meaning our whole frame of reference as human beings will need to adjusted. If there is extraterrestrial life in the universe where does that put us and our little planet? What does it mean for religion? For our cosmology? For our understanding of ourselves?

So what does the Catholic Church teach on the subject? Not much as it happens. For starters, the church does not rule out the existence of extraterrestrial life forms. She does not rule out the possible existence of conscious, sentient life forms. Such beings would fall into the category of the rest of God’s creation–but so far unknown to us. If such beings are conscious and have rational souls, then they would be candidates for evangelization unless, in their world God provided an alternative means of salvation–assuming that in their world there was a temptation and fall of some kind. It could be that they exist in a state of Edenic innocence.

However, all of this is speculation. Very fanciful speculation. As usual in matters of the paranormal and supernatural, the church wisely waits for evidence,, gathers evidence and cautiously comes to a conclusion. So far, evidence is what is lacking.

This has not stopped people speculating about the cause of the reported phenomena. From what I can gather (and I am by no means an expert) there are three basic theories to explain the phenomena. I’ll list them, then discuss each one as far as I can understand.

  1. There are aliens who are visiting our planet from distant worlds  in highly advanced aircraft.
  2. Extraterrestrials do not exist. The phenomena are caused by demons–lying fallen angels who disguise themselves as alien beings
  3. The strange phenomena are manifestations from a previously unknown dimension between the physical world as we know it and the purely spiritual realm

The first theory is purely materialistic. It assumes our own materialistic world and what we know of it through science to be the only world there is and therefore the mysterious aircraft must be technology essentially like our own, albeit far advanced. The inhabitants of the aircraft, likewise are essentially like us, but from a distant planet–which must be similar to ours.

Sticking to this totally materialistic, “scientific” viewpoint has limited the consideration of other possibilities, but even on its own terms this theory is ridiculous. We know from our scientific explorations that there are no inhabitable planets within possible traveling distance to our own. Given the materialistic, scientific assumptions necessary for this theory, extraterrestrials would not be able to fly aircraft such vast distances and survive.

Furthermore, if these creatures are hyper advanced in their technology and knowledge why do they behave in such stupid ways? Some appearances have them wearing overalls or dumb space suits that look like a child’s bad Halloween costume or an outfit taken straight out of a 1950s sci fi movie. Really? And they do dumb stuff like gather vegetation specimens, but if they are here to gather specimens from earth life why do they only dig up, let’s say, a sample of Kudzu from Alabama or a turnip from Ohio but not be involved in systematized information gathering? It is as if they are pretending to look like, and behave like what they think we expect aliens to do.

There are just too many weird things and improbable and impossible things in the reported sightings for the traditional “flying saucers from outer space” theory to be true.

The second theory is that of Catholic writer Daniel O’Connor who believes it is all demons. O’Connor argues forcefully that the UFOs and aliens behave like demons. They deceive, the mock, they dislike the Lord Jesus and they attempt to fool humanity. This theory seems plausible when you learn more about alien appearances. I said above their appearance is so unusual and weird, but human like that it is almost as if they are trying hard to look human or look like what we would expect aliens to look like, but often their attempts are laughably poor.

The third option is that of UFO theorist Jacques Vallee. He supposes that aliens are in the same category of other paranormal creatures and that they are from a third realm of reality. I have written on the idea here that we are used to a “binary cosmology” That is to say, a purely spiritual realm and a purely physical, material realm. But what is there is a third “Middle Earth”–a realm that is not purely spiritual nor purely physical, but one in which there is movement and real existence between the two. This would be the realm from which many paranormal phenomena originate and return: not only aliens and UFOs but elves, gnomes, fairies, Bigfoot, the Mothman, etc etc.

I have always pretty much agreed with O’Connor’s theory and have written about it (as well as the third option) here.

It seems to me that the demons theory and Vallee’s theory offer the most promise of an explanation and the two theories are not mutually exclusive. If there is a middle realm, then just as humans  (in the physical realm) can sometimes perceive phenomena from that middle realm, so spiritual beings–angels and demons–may operate in and through that middle realm.

There is more, much more than can be speculated about all of this, but I am of the opinion that no matter how many reports and information the government reveals, there will not be any massive earthquake in understanding. There will be further puzzles and theories perhaps, but unless we actually have the remains of an extraterrestrial and have his spaceship in the NASA museum in Washington I am doubtful about there being any history changing, life altering evidence.