Director Steven Spielberg suggested during a Sunday interview that his new film about extraterrestrials might raise theological questions among some Christians regarding the nature of the cosmos. Speaking with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz on “CBS News Sunday Morning,” Spielberg said “Disclosure Day,” his upcoming movie about a meteorologist and a cybersecurity expert exposing the government’s cover-up of extraterrestrial secrets, will touch on the implications such a revelation would have for religious people.
“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 also said the film, one of whose characters is a former Roman Catholic nun, “also takes the position of the [Catholic] Church.” “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 of the questions the movie will raise.
Mankiewicz teased that the nun character in the movie “is a really important role” with an important line, presumably drawn from the text of the Lord’s Prayer. A clip of Spielberg’s comments went viral on X from an account that framed them as claiming that extraterrestrial disclosure would shake the faith of Christians, which many users pushed back on. “No it won’t. Hollywood is obsessed with the idea that the discovery of aliens will rock Christian faith. It’s weird,” said Christian podcaster Josh Daws. “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,” said Eric Sammons, who is editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine.
“Disclosure Day” is slated for a theatrical release on Friday and comes amid heightened debate among Christians regarding the nature of so-called extraterrestrials and UFOs, with some claiming the phenomena are inextricable with the occult and demonic. Last week, Cardinal Robert McElroy removed Monsignor Stephen J. Rossetti, a priest with the Diocese of Syracuse, as an exorcist in the Archdiocese of Washington after he went viral for expressing his opinion that “probably many, if not most, of these UFO sightings are, in fact, demons.” Despite his removal, Rossetti’s views align with those expressed by other Catholic clergy, including Father Chad Ripperger, who serves as an exorcist in the Archdiocese of Denver.
Some occultists have also historically linked UFO phenomena to sorcery. The late British ceremonial magician Kenneth Grant, who studied under the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley, attributed the wave of UFO sightings beginning in 1947 to occult rituals conducted the year before by NASA rocket engineer Jack Parsons and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The potentially spiritual nature of UFOs, extraterrestrials, interdimensionals and related phenomena has increasingly emerged as a topic of discussion on influential podcasts and among prominent officials in recent months.
Last month, a group of Charismatic pastors raised eyebrows and stoked controversy for claiming they had a meeting about UFOs with U.S. officials, who reportedly warned them to prepare their churches for the theological implications of disclosure. Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., who reportedly called into the meeting, pushed back against the claim.
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