A new Steven Spielberg film is reigniting a debate that has quietly simmered in theological circles for years: would proof of extraterrestrial life upend the foundations of Christian faith? A growing number of believers say Hollywood has it completely wrong.
Spielberg sat down with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz on “CBS News Sunday Morning” to pull back the curtain on “Disclosure Day,” his forthcoming theatrical release hitting screens this Friday.
The film follows a meteorologist and a cybersecurity expert as they work to expose a government conspiracy that has buried the truth about extraterrestrial life since 1947.
The director made clear the film is not simply a science fiction adventure — it is designed to provoke uncomfortable questions about what such a revelation would mean for billions of religious believers worldwide.
“There’s a faction in the film that represents a pretty good position of why — possibly because of ontological shock, social dislocation — if this truth… were just known overnight, if the government announced, ‘Yes, we have been keeping this from you since 1947,’ that would mess up a lot of people,” Spielberg told Mankiewicz.
One of the film’s most prominent characters is a former Roman Catholic nun, and Spielberg confirmed the story engages directly with the institutional position of the Catholic Church on the matter.
The questions the film raises, according to Spielberg, cut to the heart of monotheistic belief. “What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have?
Is God, our God, only on this planet, or is God a God for every system where there’s civilization, intelligent life and even developing life?” he said.
Mankiewicz flagged the nun character as carrying particular dramatic weight in the story, with a pivotal line that appears to draw from the Lord’s Prayer.
When a clip of Spielberg’s remarks circulated on X, the reaction from Christian commentators was fast and forceful. Many rejected outright the suggestion that alien life would pose any theological crisis for serious believers.
Christian podcaster Josh Daws did not mince words. “No it won’t. Hollywood is obsessed with the idea that the discovery of aliens will rock Christian faith. It’s weird,” he wrote.
Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, went further. “The only people who think the existence of aliens would mess with Christianity are non-Christians who don’t understand the first thing about Christianity,” Sammons stated.
The film’s release lands in the middle of a very real and actively unfolding theological controversy — one that has already claimed a casualty within the Catholic hierarchy.
Cardinal Robert McElroy last week stripped Monsignor Stephen J. Rossetti, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, of his role as an exorcist in the Archdiocese of Washington.
Rossetti had gone viral after publicly declaring that “probably many, if not most, of these UFO sightings are, in fact, demons.”
His removal has not erased the view from Catholic circles. Father Chad Ripperger, an active exorcist operating within the Archdiocese of Denver, has voiced positions consistent with Rossetti’s perspective.
The demonic interpretation of UFO phenomena also has roots in occult history.
Kenneth Grant, a British ceremonial magician who studied under the notorious Aleister Crowley, traced the wave of UFO sightings that began in 1947 directly to occult rituals performed the previous year — rituals conducted by NASA rocket engineer Jack Parsons and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Government officials have also entered the conversation.
A group of Charismatic pastors made waves last month after claiming they participated in a meeting with U.S. officials who explicitly urged faith leaders to ready their congregations for the spiritual fallout of a potential extraterrestrial disclosure.
Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., who was reportedly part of the call, pushed back on that account.
The Pentagon added fuel to the fire on May 8, releasing a tranche of declassified documents tied to unidentified anomalous phenomena and inviting the American public to draw their own conclusions from the files.
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