The recent passing of Pope Francis has reignited speculation over one of the most enduring mysteries within the Catholic Church - a secret ‘UFO archive’ buried deep within the walls of the Vatican. UFO researchers and transparency campaigners are urging the Holy See to open its vast and closely guarded Vatican Apostolic Archives. Many believe these archives hold long-suppressed evidence of extraterrestrial contact, often hidden under the guise of divine or mystical phenomena.
The roots of this theory stretch deep into history. Diana Walsh Pasulka, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, has spent years researching the Catholic Church’s archives. In her groundbreaking book American Cosmic, she recounts how, while exploring texts on purgatory dating from 1300 to 1800, she unearthed descriptions of “orbs of light, flames that penetrated walls, luminous beings, forms of conscious light, spinning suns and disc-like aerial objects.” These accounts, she argues, bear a striking resemblance to modern UFO sightings. “The historical record is filled with these kinds of events,” she notes. “The people at the Vatican, they don't even know where to look - it's in their basements.”
The Vatican Apostolic Archives, formerly known as the Secret Archives, were formally established by Pope Paul V in 1612 and are believed to contain over 50 miles of shelving - a labyrinth of papal correspondence, records of inquisitions, and, perhaps, evidence of alien contact. While the Vatican is reportedly racing to digitise centuries of documents, Pasulka claims that archivists are “not exactly prioritising ‘orbs that were bothering nuns in the 1800s.’
One of the most compelling figures in Pasulka’s research is Sister Maria of Ágreda, a 17th-century Spanish nun who claimed to have bilocated - appearing in New Mexico while never leaving Spain. Indigenous tribes described visitations from a “lady in blue,” matching Sister Maria’s habit, and said she taught them about the Catholic faith before missionaries arrived. Her destroyed early writings, known as cosmographies, reportedly detailed travels not just across Earth but beyond it, into the cosmos.
Pasulka calls her a “meta experiencer” - someone whose religious visions may have connections with modern extraterrestrial phenomena. “She was a mystic who wrote books about the Virgin Mary that were very popular in her era - and they're still widely read today,” Pasulka writes.
In modern history, the Vatican’s involvement in UFO-related matters has occasionally surfaced. Pentagon whistleblower David Grusch alleged in 2023 that Pope Pius XII covertly aided the U.S. government in retrieving a crashed UFO from Mussolini-era Italy. “They recovered a partially intact vehicle… The Pope back-channeled that and told the Americans what the Italians had, and we ended up scooping it,” Grusch told NewsNation. Though the claim remains unverified, it adds fuel to the theory that the Church has long been aware of the phenomenon.
Perhaps the most famous case often cited by UFO researchers is the 1917 Miracle of the Sun in Fatima, Portugal. Tens of thousands witnessed the sun appear to spin and descend to Earth. The event, described in contemporary newspapers and photographs, began with visions by three shepherd children who saw a radiant figure - later declared the Virgin Mary. For Pasulka and others, the parallels with modern UFO encounters are uncanny: shining beings, radiant craft, and the reception of cryptic messages. “While some researchers argue that the Miracle of the Sun may have been an alien encounter misinterpreted through a religious lens,” Pasulka writes, “Religion cannot be analysed in the same way as science. One cannot put an angel under a microscope.”
As the new Pope assumes office, pressure is mounting on the Vatican to address these longstanding mysteries. Whether or not the so-called ‘UFO archive’ will ever be revealed, the intersection of faith and the unexplained continues to captivate believers, sceptics, and truth-seekers alike.
