UFOs, extraterrestrial life explored at Vatican parish event

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Amid renewed claims by U.S. President Donald Trump and members of Congress that secret UFO files could soon be declassified, a Vatican parish hosted a discussion on extraterrestrial life and the modern disclosure movement.

The talk, titled “UAPs from Schopenhauer to Other Forms of Intelligence,” was presented April 29 by UFO researcher Vladimiro Bibolotti at the Vatican’s St. Anne parish, where a long-running series known as “Cultural Wednesdays” has for decades featured presentations on subjects ranging from music and poetry to science and religion.

The UFO talk was one example of the parish’s broader effort to engage timely cultural topics and their intersection with Catholic thought.

A slideshow accompanied the talk, displaying images of Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, UFO whistleblowers testifying before Congress and screenshots of news reports about alleged secret government knowledge concerning unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, the term used by the U.S. government for UFOs.

“Some people have said that perhaps this topic is being used as a kind of mass distraction,” Bibolotti told about 20 attendees gathered in the parish hall, referring to speculation that government officials may be teasing the public with promises to reveal classified UFO information to divert attention from more conventional political issues.

“Every day I publish at least 20 news items about debates in the U.S. Congress — in both the House of Representatives and the Senate — where this subject is being discussed with concrete evidence,” said Bibolotti, who is the president of the National Ufology Center based in Italy.

During the roughly one-hour talk, Bibolotti surveyed the history of UFOs from classical antiquity to the modern American disclosure movement, citing Greek philosophers, military reports and congressional testimony. He also highlighted Vatican astronomers and pontifical university professors who have spoken on the compatibility of extraterrestrial life with the Catholic faith.

“I don’t have the truth in my pocket,” Bibolotti said. “But I’m presenting things that are not merely personal speculation — they are based on scientific documents.”

The talk evolved at times into an extended exchange between speakers and attendees, including skeptical questions from Giuseppe Loiacono, a retired philosophy teacher, who argued that scientific claims require verification and reproducibility.

“Scientific conjectures have to be tested and verified,” Loiacono said, arguing UFO sightings cannot be taken at face value. “Otherwise, it becomes a dogma.”

Marco Cremoncini, an amateur astronomer attending the event, also expressed skepticism, saying that despite years of observing the night sky, he had seen no evidence of extraterrestrial visitation.

“The people who spend the most time looking at the sky are astronomers,” Cremoncini told Catholic News Service.

“If we don’t see these things, it’s strange that others do,” he said.

During a Q&A session, Bibolotti discussed longstanding rumors that the Vatican possesses undisclosed information related to UFOs, claims echoed by former U.S. intelligence official Lue Elizondo in the 2025 documentary “The Age of Disclosure.”

Asked about the possible origins of such claims, Bibolotti pointed to Msgr. Corrado Balducci, a Vatican official who publicly discussed extraterrestrial life before his death in 2008. Bibolotti said Msgr. Balducci had claimed Cardinal James McIntyre relayed information concerning the alleged 1947 UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico, to the Vatican, though Bibolotti said he could not clearly recall the details and offered no evidence to substantiate the claim.

According to one of Bibolotti’s affiliated websites, UFO-themed talks have been held at St. Anne’s nearly a dozen times since the early 2000s. The events, usually held in the parish’s Hall of Good Counsel, are not official Vatican initiatives, though Italian media have occasionally highlighted them with headlines such as “The Holy See Opens to UFOs.”

The parish’s May 2026 “Cultural Wednesdays” calendar reflected the eclectic character of the long-running series, featuring a dermatologist speaking on skin cancer prevention, a Vatican Radio journalist presenting a talk on St. Francis of Assisi and an amateur astronomer discussing astronomy and women in scientific discovery.

According to the parish website, the series has operated at St. Anne’s since 1993, when it was first organized by Nadia de Marinis Giudici and her late husband, Pier Vincenzo Giudici, former deputy director of Vatican Radio, both Vatican City State citizens.

The parish now hosts roughly 26 annual events on a wide range of cultural topics. The events are open to the public, and Giudici continues to organize the talks more than 30 years after launching the series.

Giudici said she distributes the schedules through internal Vatican mail and that past popes had encouraged her to continue the initiative. She said she carefully selects speakers, relying largely on personal relationships and avoiding talks that could be seen as offensive to the Church.

Giudici said her aim has always been to gather “people who can teach me something new.”

After the April 29 event, she told CNS: “It keeps me alive.”

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