Pressure is growing on the Vatican to shed light on whether it was aware of a UFO being retrieved from Italy in the 1930s, amid a slew of claims about the U.S. government's knowledge and handling of contact with alien life.
It follows claims made by David Grusch, a U.S. Air Force veteran who previously worked at the National Reconnaissance Office on UFOs, in an interview in June that an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) was recovered from Magenta, a town near Milan, in 1933, before becoming a U.S. possession with the help of the papal state.
The "whistleblower" was among three people to recently testify to the House Oversight Committee on the allegations. He repeated his earlier claim that the federal government had been aware of non-human activity since the 1930s.
The Department of Defense (DOD) and NASA have publicly stressed that they have no evidence of alien life or of a government program to reverse-engineer alien materials.
The alien probe was launched after Grusch, who resigned from his post in April, told NewsNation that the government had retrieved several "non-human origin technical vehicles," some of which contained "dead pilots."
In the same interview, he claimed that under the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the Italian government had recovered a UFO and moved it to a "secure airbase" for the remainder of his regime, which ended with the allied occupation of Italy.
Grusch alleged that then-Pope Pius XII had "backchanneled" knowledge of the UFO to the U.S., which "ended up scooping it" from them. When asked explicitly whether he was saying the Catholic church knew about the existence of alien life, Grusch responded: "Certainly."
NewsNation reported on Tuesday that it had been attempting to get the Vatican to publicly comment on the matter for a week, but had yet to receive a response. Newsweek approached the Vatican via email for comment on Wednesday.
Ross Coulthart, one of the journalists who interviewed Grusch prior to the congressional hearing, told the news network that other, unnamed sources had confirmed the story to him, and suggested that the Vatican's silence may be a sign of the claim's truth.
"It's a very difficult situation for the Vatican because if Mr Grusch is telling the truth—and I'm told he is—it's a difficult thing for the Vatican to admit without the U.S. concurring," he said. "I'm told the Vatican does have a very efficient intelligence service and it's long collaborated with intelligence services like the CIA providing useful intelligence, and especially in the wake of the Second World War."
The possibility of alien life poses a complex theological question for the Catholic church, which holds that humans were created as intelligent creatures by God and have a special connection to him through Jesus Christ—but this does not necessarily mean that the same cannot be said of another, similar life form.
In 2008, Jesuit Father Jose Funes, then-director of the Vatican Observatory, told the state's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, that there was no conflict between faith and the possibility of "extraterrestrial brothers."
He said: "Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom."
"390 years ago it was the Vatican that tried Galileo as a heretic for arguing that the Earth wasn't at the center of the universe—and in nearly four hundred years, I have to say the Vatican has actually shown quite creditable openness to science," Coulthart commented, noting that the Vatican had hosted a conference on astrobiology in 2009.
"Everything I've read about the Vatican suggests a lot of the work they're doing at the moment is trying to demonstrate that there is no incompatibility between religious beliefs and good science," he added. "I just wonder—I can only speculate—whether it's driven by information that it does possess, as Mr Grusch suggests."
Coulthart said he had spoken to someone who had been granted access to the Vatican's archives—which they said ran extensively underground with 53 miles of shelving—and suggested that documents that provide evidence for Grusch's claims may be found there by the select few with permission to enter.
Following the hearing on July 26, DOD spokesperson Sue Gough previously told Newsweek that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) had "not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."
"[The] DOD takes public interest in UAP seriously," she added. "The department is fully committed to openness and accountability to the American people, which it must balance with its obligation to protect sensitive information, sources, and methods."
Reacting to the claims in the witness testimony, scientists have remained skeptical of visits by alien life, while keeping the door open to the possibility, noting a lack of concrete evidence produced during the hearing.
Newsweek approached Coulthart via email for further comment on Wednesday.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
