Steven Spielberg believes his new film, Disclosure Day, may begin to raise important theological questions. Survey data indicate this is unlikely.
Spoiler warning. The movie is about a fictional disclosure that intelligent alien life exists. In a recent CBS Sunday Morning Interview Spielberg said, “The movie also takes the position of the church. What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have? Is God only our God on this planet? Or is God a God for every system where there is civilization?”
First, I am not aware that there is a “position of the church” on alien life. Monotheistic religions tend to believe that God is the creator of all things. Spielberg has included a Catholic sister as a key character in the film. Perhaps he was alluding to the position of the Catholic Church specifically? I am not aware of an official position of the Catholic Church on aliens. We don’t have any encyclicals on this yet. Pope Leo XIV just finished discussing AI. Not sure if aliens are on the encyclical schedule yet. In 2014, Pope Francis did address a hypothetical alien visit in a homily as such:
"If—for example—tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here... Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them... And one says, 'But I want to be baptized!' What would happen? When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, 'No, Lord, it is not prudent!… Who are we to close the doors to the Holy Spirit? If then God gave aliens the same gift He gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?”
A decade ago, CARA surveyed the U.S. adult population nationally about science and religion topics—including alien life. The survey included 1,927 respondents with an over-sample of 1,010 Catholics. The survey asked, “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements: If science finds evidence of life elsewhere in the universe, this would be incompatible with the teachings of my faith.”
At that time, 18% or fewer of those affiliated with a religion agreed (somewhat or strongly) that the confirmation of life elsewhere in the universe would be incompatible with their understanding of their faith. The religiously unaffiliated are the most likely to agree with this (21%). A majority of Evangelical Christians disagreed that finding life elsewhere in the universe would conflict with their faith.
It is very unlikely that Disclosure Day is going to inspire the theological discussion or discomfort Mr. Spielberg may have envisioned. While learning about the existence of intelligent alien life would be one of the biggest stories in our history, the polling data indicates this would not likely challenge the religious beliefs of Americans.
The Disclosure Day Hypothetical
The premise of Disclosure Day is not without merit. Many scientists believe intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe. They would argue that in such an unimaginably large expanse with so many stars and worlds there are likely other instances of intelligent life. At the same time, the Fermi Paradox asks “where is everybody?” This paradox has had several different potential answers or solutions.
One potential solution harkens to the aforementioned size of the universe (in addition to its rate of expansion). Realistically, to travel any great distance in the universe implies a one-way journey. One would need an exceptionally fast spaceship. This ship presumably could not break the laws of physics as we know them.
An alien visiting from the Andromeda Galaxy next door to the Milky Way Galaxy would need to travel more than 2.5 million light-years to get here. Their ship could not move faster than light or likely approaching anything near that speed. Thus, the journey would take billions of years realistically with technologies we can envision. Yet again, if this is really intelligent life we are talking about… What if they created a spaceship capable of travelling 95% the speed of light and there was no space debris in their way to annihilate them on their unthinkably fast journey?
At 95% the speed of light the trip from Andromeda would take a much shorter time of approximately 821,000 years. When their journey ends the time passed back on their home planet would still span more than 2.6 million years meaning the civilization they left would be long gone (...as the result of time dilation. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which isn’t a theory and is an empirical reality or your GPS would not work, has shown that the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. Here is a handy calculator to estimate the distortions). Whatever mission these aliens would have come on would be forgotten by those who presumably sent them. The journey would be pointless unless they were looking for a new home and again were willing to survive through an enormous number of generations on a spaceship to get here.
Surely there may be alien intelligent life here in our own Milky Way Galaxy. What if the ship needed to only span a quarter of the Milky Way? That’s 25,000 light years. At 95% the speed of light this would be a more manageable journey of just more than 8,200 years (while more than 26,000 years pass on your home planet).
Some believed that the interstellar object Atlas 3I might be an alien spacecraft. If it is, its journey began long ago and it doesn’t seem to be heading back to where it came from. It is so slow that it won’t even leave our solar system until after 2030 traveling at just 150,000 miles per hour (0.022 the speed of light). If it collected data on Earth and its inhabitants it won’t be delivering that package “back home” for a very, very long time. For example, if their home was 5 light years away, at current speeds, it would reach that destination in 22,727 years. It is simply not an alien spacecraft or probe. It’s just a comet.
It’s funny how science can often get in the way of science fiction. Few movies take aspects of the universe like time dilation seriously (one excellent exception being Interstellar from 2014). For example, there never would have been any point for Spielberg’s E.T. phoning home with his Speak & Spell device in 1982. Anyone he knew on his home planet would have been dead for many generations when his call came in.
Another example would be my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone, “To Serve Man.” In that story aliens show up on earth with a book entitled “To Serve Man” and this is interpreted through their actions. They provide cures for diseases and make us healthier. We assume the best intentions. But only as humans begin to board their ships to visit the aliens’ home planet do they learn that “To Serve Man” is a cookbook. Why would an alien travel tens if not hundreds of thousands of years to convert humans into a food source for back home when whoever they left would have died of hunger long ago? I guess sometimes science and physics can be a bit comforting. The laws of physics likely prevent us from becoming lunch for aliens.
Realistically, if a “disclosure day” ever happened, the aliens would have arrived here after a very long journey in space without any memory of what the ground of a planet feels like. They’d have no hope (or desire likely) of going back home or even contacting someone they once knew. They would be homeless refugees. While the Catholic Church doesn’t have any “position” on their existence as Spielberg seems to presume, it does teach about how refugees should be treated. I think that might be a good place to start...
