UFOs, Aliens and the Vatican

The UFO bombshell story rocking America which claims its origin as European

Daniel Côté Davis

24 October 2023

(Edited and with additional comments by Michael Organ)

'FLYING SAUCERS' SCARE (Truth's Special Service.) NEW YORK, Saturday.— Amateur airman Kenneth Arnold of Pendleton (Oregon) reported yesterday that he had seen "nine planes like flying saucers travelling at 1200 miles an hour." A Texas clergyman called him by telephone today to state that they were "Harbingers of Doomsday," adding that he was getting hisfollowers ready for the end of the world. Arnold went to a cafe for dinner last night, but was too upset to enjoy it because a woman shouted, "There's the man who saw the men from Mars!" (Truth, Sydney, 29 June 1947)

Contents

America is watching
A new extraterrestrial frontier for Europe?
Ezekiel's vision
The Catholic religion and UFOs
The Inquisition of the weird Whistleblower and his believers
Closing thoughts from Europe’s finest
References

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We are not alone - David Grusch interview, NewsNation, 5 June 2023, YouTube, duration: 41.54 minutes.

1. America is watching

Live on an American TV program during October 2023 Ross Coulthart, an Australian award-winning investigative journalist and writer, alleged what he considered to be the greatest story and international cover up ever to be told. He was speaking about an interview he had presented on the US channel NewsNation on 11 June 2023 and which had resulted in a US Congress special hearing on 27 July 2023. A war veteran “whistleblower,” David Grusch, who as Coulthart said had the “world watching his face,” revealed parts of what he had disclosed under oath in an internal report to Congress, and who had later asked for clearance from the Pentagon to disclose publicly, among other things, the following - namely, that at the zenith of World War II and Mussolini’s rise to power, Pope Pius XII and the Vatican intervened to bring a crashed UFO and its deceased alien occupants from Europe to the USA. It was subsequently revealed that a UFO and pilots had been secured by the Italians on 13 June 1933 followings its crash two days earlier (Boswell and Sharp 2023, Organ 2023).

Ross Coulthart - Within Plain Sight?, 10 October 2023, That UFO Podcast, YouTube, 10 October 2023, duration: 46.25 minutes.

David Grusch's reference to Vatican involvement in UFO retrieval had also appeared on an Australian TV program during July 2023, hosted by Coulthart and entitled The Inside Story. In this he revealed the significance of the contents of the 5 June interview with Grusch, coming as it did after the appearance of his own 2021 book on the UFO issue, entitled Hidden in Plain Sight? (Coulthart 2021).

Ross Coulthart, David Grusch UFO/UAP bombshells, The Inside Story - 7News.com.au, 27 July 2023, YouTube, duration: 33.36 minutes.

This single action by the Vatican, at the heart of Europe’s darkest hours, was claimed to have begun what was alleged publically to be a “90 year cover up” involving the setting up of an American “UFO retrieval programme” known to the Vatican and which resulted in approximately twelve craft up to the size of “football fields” being collected by America and its geopolitical rivals. In addition, alien “pilots” were recovered dead, and there was even some military engagement with UFOs leading to human fatalities. All of this had been covered up by the US government since the 1930s, as is well known. In the original Grusch interview, Coulthard probed candidly again and again as the story unravelled like a Hollywood script. It was broadcast to the nation and subsequently picked up by all the major news outlets such as Fox News, News Nation and CNN, Congress officials, and to millions of viewers on YouTube worldwide.

David Grusch's credentials were impressive - he was the former highest security cleared Pentagon official commissioned to investigate UFOs under its Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program AATIP (2007-2012). This program was subsequently replaced by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force UAPTF (2012-2022) and, since 2022, the strangely named All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office AARO. The existence of AATIP was only leaked to the public by the New York Times in 2017. Since then, the cover up by government and authorities had continued. As part of the cover up, the term UFO (unidentified flying object) had been officially replaced in the US by UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena) in order to expand its coverage to include all areas of the earth, from outer space to the deep ocean floor. The link with the Vatican, however, was new to Western audiences, and an aspect which intrigued many people who questioned whether the Catholic Church would ever be involved in such as significant cover up.

Brian Banfield, Vatican and UFO? What is in the archives?, News Nation, 2 August 2023, YouTube, duration: 6.04 minutes.

I had to blink several times at the first hearing of all this - not because I believed the tale, but rather at Coulthart’s deadpan delivery of the interview on prime-time national US television, of what he understood to be a “heroic” disclosure of these crimes and lies which he had now served to expose. In an American culture of respect for people’s status and reputation, freedom of information, and an inexorable historic alliance with Europe, this story was being lapped up across the whole American populous as more and more interviews in the mainstream media showed support for this brave “whistleblower.” It was further revealed that Grusch had spent four years preparing the disclosure, involving top American lawyers.

To those who would scoff at the absurdity of the Vatican's involvement in UFO retrieval and subsequent cover up, it must be emphasised this was, after all, the very same Coulthart who in 2002 won the Gold Medal at the New York Film Festival for best international coverage of an investigation into how Indonesian and militia killers in East Timor had committed war crimes unpunished. Coulthart was just as angry with the American-alien cover up that had covert roots at the very heart of European civilisation. You could see this in the tone he took with any detractors to his tale. This was a hill he was prepared to die on. But why? And how? And for what purpose?

For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. (Chapter 1, Down the Rabbit-Hole, Alice in Wonderland)

As I was beginning to realise just how bizarre this whole European origin story context really was, I could begin to feel my inner voice saying “the rabbit hole calls…” So, taking all the intellectual “carrots” I could fit under my tin foil hat (as sweet bait), I decided to jump right in because this was more of a public “warren” it seemed. I would soon be assailed by rabbits galore that would make even Monty Python’s infamous Holy Grail scene seem like a walk in the park. The story had reached national television coverage around the world. So it was that in 2023 Coulthard was furious at the alleged “lie” against democracy and the whole human family; NASA had just had a public hearing on UAPs; navy pilots were claiming UFO encounters in the New York Times since 2017 - all of this and more. It was overwhelmingly the case that “something” was happening in America-from-Europe, though I had no idea what, apart from what Coulthart and Grusch were revealing. Furthermore, one might be just as surprised as I was subsequently to find out, that some of Europe’s most brilliant minds and visionaries were, and as might be expected remain, at the heart of the whole drama being played out.

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2. A new extraterrestrial frontier for Europe?

I am a Catholic and believe my tradition has always believed in the existence of UFOs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena. This is evident from the following examples:

Ezekiel's vision, in Ezekiel 1:1-25
Biblical Angels
Mary's appearance from heaven
Constantine's pre-battle heavenly sign
Creatures both good and evil in angeology and demonology known to exorcists
Mystical visions and remote viewing by saints
Sister Maria Fernandez Coronel, the bi-locating Lady in Blue
Levitating saints who moved with non gravitational means of propulsion such as Josef Copertino
The House of Loretta flying across the sky!

3. Ezekiel's vision

Ezekiel's vision is all at once transcendent yet physical. He sees wheels within wheels, with great lights and a shiny disk filled with living creatures. This Jewish story leaps off the page as a UFO encounter. The theophany (revelation of God) passes through an entirely alien (otherworldly) technology. Ezekiel's vision also includes silver planes the size of football fields, as described at the July 2023 UAP hearing at the US Congress, which apparently hover above nuclear sites switching the weapon to high alert only to shut it down later. This encounter with a powerful entity transcending all human capacities is a source of wonder and mystery which is as relevant today as for Ezekiel.

There are Jehovah Witness art of UFOS from Ezekiel's vision in the Bible, with a similarity to the 2003 Vandenberg air force base sighting of a large, reddish coloured structure the size of a football field, similar in part to his vision of Jehovah's (God's) celestial chariot.

Jehovah's celestial chariot.

The famous 2004 sighting of UFOs off the US east coast of America by a group of navy aircraft crew, who described them as black boxes in a bright white sphere, is also similar to Jehovah's throne as seen and described by Ezekiel.

A rainbow surrounding Jehovah's throne.

Ezekiel's vision does not stand alone. There are numerous Biblical and historic Catholic references to events and encounters which can be, or have been, intepreted as of an alien nature. Some of these are references in the following:

* Biblical Angels https://youtu.be/wME7B3ZD1HE?si=lyk1_BrjLg3K1rso

* Mary's appearance from heaven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

* Constantine's pre-battle heavenly sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vision_of_the_Cross

* Creatures both good and evil in angeology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_in_Christianity

* Creatures in demonology known to exorcists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonology

* Mystical visions https://www.wikiart.org/en/hildegard-of-bingen

* Remote viewing and bi-locating by saint Sister Maria Fernandez Coronel, the bi-locating Lady in Blue

* Levitating saints who moved with non gravitational means of propulsion such as Josef Copertino https://catholicstand.com/levitation-miracle-or-science-the-life-and-flights-of-st-joseph-of-cupertino/

* The House of Loreto flying across the sky https://academic.oup.com/princeton-scholarship-online/book/14138.

4. The Catholic religion and UFOs

What! No Flying Saucers? Jesuit astronomers who run the Vatican observatory in the Alban Hills near Rome said recently that despite their modern equipment and diligent observation they have not yet seen a flying saucer. "We are well provided with telescopes. We scan the heavens daily. But so far we have seen no trace of celestial crockery," a Jesuit told journalists touring the observatory. "They seem to be the invention of a few persons of exalted imagination." (Advocate, Melbourne, 27 July 1950)

The Catholic religion is centred on the Bread that falls from Heaven such that every tabernacle is an extraterrestrial encounter. On the UFO claims front, my curiosity regarding the implications from the interconnections of science, theology, cosmology, politics, science fiction, conspiracy and historical intrigue have been awoken as I have come to realise that there is a growing “UFO consciousness” that is being engaged with by some of our brightest intellectual minds worldwide, including within Europe where I am based. Indeed, a YouGov poll in 2015 revealed that it was Germany which apparently had the highest populous percentage of believers in alien life at 56% (Bleiker 2015). This is not far off the young Americans who are reported to be at 75% by Dr Diane Pasulka of the University of North Carolina, and as revealed in her book American Cosmic Space: Aliens, UFOs and why we believe in them, published to widespread positive reception in her field of Religion Studies (Pasulka 2019). Pasulka is in charge of the St Joseph Copertino manuscripts at the Vatican archives where she delights in the large section of writings on UFOs with in the collection that has 53 miles of books! She was a practising Catholic at the time, and you can find an interview with her on Lex Fridman’s YouTube channel.

Diane Walsh Pasulka: Aliens, Technology & Religion and the Nature of Belief, Lex Friedman, 28 December 2020, YouTube, duration: 175.13 minutes.

Fridman's no fool, being a Russian-American computer scientist, podcaster, and artificial intelligence researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These are two of the academic glitterati. Pasulka is reaching a wide audience as she expresses how “ufological” belief arises seemingly in the same zeitgeist as traditional religion did. It fills the void for many that counterbalances the cold scientism that has swept across Western thought and reawakens a sense of wonder and awe that is a vestigial trace of the ancient Judaeo-Christian roots of European civilisation. She is quick to even suggest that Catholic mystics, monks, visionaries and the Biblical testimony attest to a constant tradition of “extraterrestrial visitations,” sometimes even abduction-esque encounters and non-human beings that fall broadly within the traditions of the angelic and demonic. With our technological advances these stories are keeping pace and re-expressing themselves, she argues. From Harvard to the Vatican, the UFO question is in vogue, with the Vatican itself setting aside a large section of its own library for studies on extraterrestrial-life, and Pope Francis’ viral statement within a public address during 2014 that “Yes” he would “baptise aliens” (Ohlheiser 2014).

Jesuit Father Jose Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, is also on record recently saying that Europeans could well be one day referring to alien life as an “extraterrestrial brother.”

“Curiouser and curiouser!”

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5. The Inquisition of the weird Whistleblower and his believers

As the image of Pope Pius XII and Mussolini flashes on the screen, Grusch candidly explains that a “part intact vehicle” (citing an internal memo of the Italian fascist secret service which documented many UFOs or UAPs) was in 1945 back-channeled to America with Papal approval. The Catholic Church and Vatican know about this, Coulthart gasps in wonder, and more so helped do it! The infamous Roswell UFO incident in 1947, which is sacrosanct to ufologists, followed. It ultimately led to Presidents Clinton, Obama and most recently Trump being asked directly about its “cover up.”

Joe Rogan, YouTube's most highly paid star and most watched podcaster, interviewed Bob Lazaar in 2019 on this topic, Lazaar claimed that in the 1980s he back engineered UFO alien craft after Roswell.

Interview with Bob Lazaar and Jeremy Corbell, Joe Rogan Experience, 21 June 2019, YouTube, duration: 134.44 minutes.

In his interview with Coulthart, Grusch links all these things to that original, now papally-sealed, Italian UFO crash recovery incident. In more recent times the commentators have finished by citing the UFO encounter of the US Navy ship Nimitz with the American air force engaged in a cat and dog fight with a craft that outmatched even their best billion dollar planes. This was just in 2004 and the videos can be found with a cursory Google / YouTube search.

Pentagon declassifies Navy UFO footage from 2004, ABC News, 20 April 2020, YouTube, duration: 1.16 minutes. part 1 of 3 videos.

Believers such as Grusch say there are thousands more videos that remain unclassified. Grusch did not hold back in being candid, stating that he has heard and seen so much documentation, and had inside information fed to him from numerous channels, that his role afforded him to simply sum up: “I though it was a ruse. It was too crazy, but it’s true and it’s real.” YouTube now has videos analysing his facial features and people arguing with dogmatic zeal that it all connects. But reality is not a Dan Brown novel. It is something happening in real-time, which is happening now in America, and giving rise to the claim that Europe started it all off!

In amongst all this, Mike West has emerged as what detractors call “the voice of reason,” with a uniquely English love for the mundane that has seen him leave a lucrative role in computer engineering to become a professional debunker whose old school empiricism would have Bertrand Russell and David Hume practically drooling. The Guardian writer and author of the bestselling Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect (West 2019) gathers an online crowd easily to whom he preaches from a well-scripted counter-narrative:

This is not to say there’s nothing for the military to be concerned about. There are real issues regarding unidentified sightings – drones being a major one. A distant drone, even a domestic one, is difficult to identify, and we know foreign adversaries have a strong interest in developing and using novel stealth drones for espionage and probing our defenses. There are other genuine issues, too – like anomalous radar returns and inexplicable eyewitness sightings – but there’s no evidence of aliens. There isn’t even really any good quality evidence of flying objects displaying amazing technology. There are, however, many people who want UFOs to be “real” and who feel like promoting the story will make it real. They present weak evidence as strong evidence. Don’t be fooled. (West 2021)

Believers disagree, such as theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University, who was recently granted $1,755,000 for the academic effort to look for UFOs. He bit back and can be seen online contending:

What other than some sort of psychological barrier that prevents some scientists from admitting they want the search for technological signatures of alien civilizations to be at the periphery, with very little funding? What I’m saying is that these sorts of things should be prioritized and that they are conservative things to do because they will bring us the most information about the existence of alien life. And yet the opposite is being done right now. (Avi Loeb in Billings 2021)

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5. Closing thoughts from Europe’s finest

European minds as great as C.S. Lewis, Padre Pio and St John Paul II have weighed in on this debate. I certainly don’t believe Grusch’s claims of the historically factual Pope Pius XII connection myself, but his inclusion of the Pope as a European genesis is an intriguing mythology that would fit in well with a early 20th century European civilisation that had birthed such monolithic thinkers as Catholic priest Father George Lemaitre (proponent of the Big Bang theory) who was friends with the Jewish Albert Einstein himself. In this “mythology” of Europe’s connection to the UFO story it seems conceivable to my mind that some of Europe’s greatest cultural architects might actually also end up arguing that George Lucas was more of a seer and prophet than a fantasist.

Whilst I do not, like most Europeans, accept Grusch’s claims, I can appreciate that he is the most recent, and possibly most peculiar, prophet of an emerging UFO tradition that is not at all at odds with European thought. If you do not believe this, consider the following dialogue from Così parlò Padre Pio [Thus Spoke Padre Pio] (Castello 1974). It was officially published by the Capuchin Order and concerns an interview with Padre Pio, an international global celebrity of European Catholicism:

Question: Father, some claim that there are creatures of God on other planets, too.

Answer: What else? Do you think they don’t exist and that God’s omnipotence is limited to this small planet Earth? What else? Do you think there are no other beings who love the Lord?

Another question: Father, I think the Earth is nothing compared to other planets and stars.

Answer: Exactly yes, and we Earthlings are nothing, too. The Lord certainly did not limit His glory to this small Earth. On other planets other beings exist who did not sin and fall as we did.

Further to this, the beloved of European thought, the intelletctual and spiritual titan St. John Paul II was reported to have whispered in a visit to the parish of Sant'innocenzo I Papa e San Guido Vescovo in Rome on 28 November 1999, when a child asked him:

“Holy Father, are there any aliens?”

He replied, “Always remember: They are children of God as we are.” (Thigpen 2022)

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We are not alone: live round table on historic UFO hearing, News Nation, 31 July 2023, YouTube, duration: 84.13 minutes.

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6. References

Ancient Aliens: Secret Vatican archives contain explosive revelations, History Channel, YouTube, 12 February 2023, duration: 4.35 minutes.

Bledsoe, Chris, UFO of God: The extraordinary true story of Chris Bledsoe, UFO of God, 360p.

Billings, Lee, Astronomer Avi Loeb says aliens have visited, and he's not kidding, Scientific American, 1 February 2021.

Bleiker, Carla, Germans believe in aliens, DW, 23 September 2015.

Boswell, Josh, and Chris Sharp, Italian researcher shares extraordinary evidence files of world's 'first' UFO crash - 14 years before Roswell - and the secret department set up by Mussolini's government to study the craft that was later captured by US forces, Daily Mail, 4 July 2023.

Castello, Don Nello, Così parlò Padre Pio [Thus Spoke Padre Pio], Vicenza, Italy, 1974.

Coulthart, Ross, In Plain Sight: An investigation into UFOs and impossible science, Harper Collins, 2021, 430p; Revised and updated, Kindle, 2023.

-----, UFOs and government coverups, The Search Podcast #17, 7 June 2022, YouTube, duration: 62.55 minutes.

-----, David Grusch UFO/UAP bombshells, 7News.com.au, 27 July 2023, YouTube, duration: 33.36 minutes.

-----, Ross Coulthart: UFOs and why we are not alone, Neil Mitchell, 3AW Melbourne, 26 September 2023, YouTube, duration: 50.46 minutes.

-----, Ross Coulthart - Within Plain Sight?, 10 October 2023, That UFO Podcast, YouTube, 10 October 2023, duration: 46.25 minutes.

-----, Ross Coulthart and Nick Cook - The Consciousness Connection, Project Unity, 14 October 2023, YouTube, duration: minutes.

Downing, Barry H., The Bible and Flying Saucers, Sphere, 1974, 176p.

Hansen, Suzie and Bryan Dickeson, The Dual Soul Connection: The Alien Agenda for Human Advancement, Skylight Books, 2016, 358p.

Harris, Paola, Historical Interview [circa 1999] - Monsignor Corrado Balducci and UFOs, The Paola Harris Report, accessed 20 December 2023.

Ohlheiser, Abby, Pope Francis says He would baptize aliens if they asked him to, The Atlantic, 12 May 2014.

Organ, Michael, Mussolini's UFO 1933 [blog], blogger.com, 28 October 2023.

Pasulka, Diane, American Cosmic Space: Aliens, UFOs and why we believe in them, Oxford University Press, 2019, 288p.

The Vatican has known about aliens for decades, Capturing Christianity, YouTube, 5 August 2023, duration: 48.40 minutes.

Thigpen, Paul, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Catholic Faith: Are we alone in the universe with God and the Angels?, TAN Book, 2022, 456p.

West, Mike, Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect, Skyhorse Publishing, 2019, 304p.

-----, I study UFOs and I don't believe the alien hype - here's why, The Guardian, 11 June 2021.

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Last updated: 29 January 2024

Michael Organ, Australia

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