A group of scientists and researchers are seeking access to the Vatican’s Apostolic Archives to uncover information about UFOs and the paranormal, believing there may be traces among the 50 miles of shelves that contain everything from handwritten papal notes to presidential missives.
The decades-long effort gained momentum in 2023 following congressional testimony by former U.S. intelligence official David Grusch alleging the Vatican’s involvement in an international cover-up of alien secrets.
Grusch claimed that Pope Pius XII “back-channeled” information to the United States about a crashed UFO recovered by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
“I don’t know where [Grusch] got this information,” Marco Grilli, the mayor’s secretary for archives, told Catholic News Service on June 11.
Grilli said the archives received emails asking about the veracity of Grusch’s claims, but compared them to requests to read personal letters from Pontius Pilate or the Virgin Mary.
“You can laugh at that,” he said.
However, discoveries like those reported in Diana Walsh Pasulka’s 2019 book “American Cosmic” suggest to UFO enthusiasts that the archives contain more than meets the eye.
Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, said the archives are full of reports of paranormal events, such as nuns witnessing orbs entering their cells, flying houses and other aerial phenomena.
She argues that these events can be better understood as UFO-type occurrences rather than miracles as Catholics traditionally understand them.
“The historical record is full of these types of events,” she told CNS on May 30; “people in the Vatican don’t even know where to look; It’s in their basements.”
Hellbound and Down 