There are no aliens.

(Note: this post — click here — has been translated into Spanish. Thanks, Elvira!)

I had been writing this piece as an appendix to my forthcoming post on Resisting the Coming Diabolical “Quantum Leap” –– but, as it took on a life of its own, I am now instead publishing it on its own as a forerunner (a preview, perhaps) of that post.

Indeed, part of the coming Great Deception will perhaps in some way involve the notion of “aliens,” this notion being used to persuade us to change our ways and beliefs. I am concerned that this Great Deception will be hastened with the imminent release of the U.S. Government’s hitherto confidential “UFO” files — their deadline is June of this year. And I am equally concerned that many in the Vatican will do their utmost to promote this Deception (it wouldn’t be the first deception that many prelates in the Vatican have promoted lately), especially now that we have a Pope who has boasted that he would happily “baptize Martians,” and theologians in the Vatican giddy about the idea of aliens. Last year’s Vatican Nativity Scene was, I fear, more than just a hideous piece of “art,” but perhaps was also a symbol and a signal that they are ready to promote this Deception as soon as the time is ripe. I mean, just look at it:

This proposal to listen to the aliens, (“more evolved beings,” they will be called by their mediators among our elite), however, — if indeed it is offered — will be nothing other than a cover for the demons themselves to directly instruct the masses to a degree they usually can only attain with devoted Satanists themselves. It is, therefore, essential that we all right now realize that there are no aliens — that is, no extraterrestrial intelligent incarnate life (in this post I am only addressing the question of extraterrestrial intelligent life) — so that we are not tempted to dialogue with or listen to demons if they communicate under the guise of being friendly aliens. We already know that demons use any opportunity they can find to give camouflaged destructive communications to unsuspecting souls who stray from realms of safety — e.g. people using Ouija boards or participating in Séances — so there is no reason to suppose these demons won’t likewise use modern society’s fixation upon “aliens” to do the same thing.

Now, I am aware that there are no clear Church Dogmas expressly affirming that there are no extraterrestrials (So don’t worry, I am not accusing you of being a heretic if you believe they exist!). But it is quite clearly implicit in Church Teaching. Read on to see why that is the case.

The word “Human.” The Church does, however, teach that all of humanity truly descended from the two literal, and first, humans: Adam and Eve (See, for example, Humani Generis). But “human” doesn’t merely mean “those who descended from Adam and Eve.” Such a definition of the word “human” would render the aforementioned Church Teaching a mere trivial truism; an empty tautology. And we know that no Church Teachings are like that. Indeed, “human” has always been defined (in both Catholic theology and Catholic philosophy) as “rational animal” (that is, intelligent incarnate life). From this it follows that all rational animals are descendents of Adam and Eve; which, in turn, means that there are no extraterrestrials (at least, no intelligent ones).

If one protests, “But ‘human’ actually just means rational incarnate life on this particular planet,” then the burden of proof rests on that person. Nowhere that I know of has the Church defined “human” as necessitating that distinction; everywhere we see man defined, this definition is given in a way that implies, if not outright indicates, universality; “human” simply being the word encompassing all rational incarnate life. As the Catechism itself teaches (quoting Vatican II’s binding teaching):

“Of all visible creatures [i.e. non-angels], only man is able to know and love his creator… he [man] alone is called to share… in God’s own life.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 356)

(Note: the full context also makes reference to “on this earth,” simply to distinguish earth from Heaven/Hell/Purgatory. But even if one insists upon a different interpretation of “on this earth,” it makes no difference: the clauses I present above are logically independent from that reference, which anyone will see who reads the entire section and considers basic grammatical norms.)

Now, an alien believer will protest, “Ah! So maybe there are aliens, they just aren’t able to know and love God or share in His life!” But this protestation blasphemes God’s goodness. Any rational creature, by nature, is intrinsically inseparable from the potency (and call) to know and love God. For God to create a rational being who nevertheless could not know Him would be for God to create an evil, which can never be (God can at most allow evil; never cause it). From this, too, it therefore follows that we can be certain that man is the only visible (non-angelic) creature that exists who has rationality. No aliens.

The sensus fidelium absolutely rules out aliens. We must also consider the fact that the Church does teach that sensus fidelium is infallible; the sensus fidelium being the consensus of all the Faithful. Now, if something is infallible, that means it cannot change at any time — it does not merely mean that it was “true in its day.” Infallibility is by nature permanent. This means that discoveries in, say, the year 2021, cannot possibly warrant conclusions that contradict what the sensus fidelium held in the year 1300. A batch of theologians — even if they reside in the Vatican — deciding in the year 2021 that they believe in the existence or possibility of something that the sensus fidelium held, in the year 1300, to be impossible, cannot budge that element of the sensus fidelium one iota. Up until the days of Galileo’s discoveries (and the concomitant absurd, but predictable, assumption by the giddily progress-crazed scholars of the times following that all of these newly observed planets and moons “must” have life on them just like ours… more below…), the sensus fidelium always held that human beings were the only intelligent incarnate life. I challenge anyone to find any meaningful amount of material — from the millions of pages we have which derive from any point in the Church’s history from 33 AD to 1500 AD that regards the proposition of extraterrestrial intelligent life (or any extraterrestrial incarnate life, for that matter) seriously. I’m not holding my breath. (Nota Bene: no, Aquinas and other scholastics did not posit the possibility of aliens; more on that below.)

We are, therefore, “stuck” with that element of the Sensus forever. Similarly, the Church (as far as I know) gives no clear and explicit Dogmas that Christ was celibate; and yet, we know with certainty that He was celibate, since this has always been an element of the Sensus Fidelium — and the ridiculous Dan Brown novels (e.g. Da Vinci Code) cannot budge that fact one bit, no matter how many theologians pretend it is possible that Christ wasn’t celibate.

Neither can one claim that this question of extraterrestrials is outside of the proper domain of the Sensus Fidelium, as, for example, the details of physics and astronomy are (i.e., it will not work to protest, “but for the first thousand years of Christianity, all the faithful thought the earth didn’t rotate, also!”). For the question of whether mankind (and thus the Incarnation and Redemption) is unique is no mere trifle and no mere empirical question that could be dismissed as tangential to the Faith; rather, it is a question that touches upon our fundamental understanding of the Creator’s creation, our place within it, the meaning of the Incarnation, the domain of Redemption, and on the list goes. As you will see below, the Catholic theologian alien-supporters themselves implicitly admit that this is a Faith-essential question, since they say that discovering aliens would require us to “completely re-read” the Faith. Whether the earth rotates, on the other hand (and other similar questions), has absolutely no effect on the Faith.

An article in Scientific American published a couple weeks ago, though ostensibly refuting my point on the Sensus Fidelium here presented, actually only proves my point. The article’s very title boldly (and falsely) claims “Until recently, people accepted the ‘fact’ of Aliens in the Solar System.” The body of the article, however, confuses one small period of history — the era of modernism — with history itself, as it only refers to “the period from some four hundred years ago until the last century” harboring the widespread belief (among scientists) in aliens. The entire article contains not a single reference to belief in extraterrestrial life before Galileo. (Note: there were indeed ancient pre-Christian thinkers who believed in aliens; but, obviously, they do not get a “vote” in the Sensus Fidelium!) One thing this article does an excellent job of, however, is to demonstrate that those who blindly “trust the science,” when doing so requires leaving aside common sense, good philosophy, or good theology, are always led into error. Indeed, most — if not practically all — of the post-Galileo astronomers insisted [with their primitive telescopes to ‘prove’ it] that the Moon, and Mars, and the other planets they could see, were filled with life. “Our telescopes prove it! Look at the engineered canals on Mars!” (there were none) they would proclaim in the 1800s when telescopes were improved further still. Now, “the science” clearly proved extraterrestrial life! The 18th century astronomer who discovered Uranus, William Herschel, insisted that not only were the planets populated with aliens, but so was the sun (it has dark spots! These simply must be holes in its life-supporting atmosphere!). The 19th century astronomer and “enlightenment”-promoting Christian minister Thomas Dick went on to calculate that there were 50 billion aliens on Venus, 15 billion on Mars, 7 trillion on Jupiter, and 8 trillion on Saturn’s rings. If you dared contradict these claims with philosophy or theology, then you were, of course, nothing but a “rigid philosopher” or a “dogma-obsessed theologian” who failed to acknowledge the superiority of science. These scientists had the “evidence,” after all! They had the telescopes, the calculations, and the advanced astronomy!

Then …. came July 14th, 1965, when Mariner 4 sent us back photos and other observations of the surface of Mars during its flyby: no magnetic field, virtually no atmosphere, and nothing but a surface of dead rock. As the article there linked notes, “There were, alas, none of the canals seen by astronomers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nor evidence of senders of messages heard by Nikola Tesla or Gugliemo Marconi. Indeed, the hazy images of a barren, crater-strewn landscape ended speculation that Mars might plausibly be inhabited by higher life forms.”

Indeed, sometimes the vindication of good philosophy and theology takes centuries. Only months before these photos were obtained, the famous skeptic (probably atheist, but at least agnostic) Carl Sagan insisted — in a formal scientific paper –– that “the present body of scientific evidence suggests” that there is life on Mars. This was the case, Sagan continued, because of “photometrically observed waves of darkening … [interpreted] in terms of seasonal biological activity.” Woops. Too bad Sagan saved his “skepticism” for God — Whom anyone should easily be able to conclude with certainty, and even with reason alone, exists — instead of being skeptical about scientific conjectures. But remember, Sagan wasn’t merely giving a personal opinion; rather, he was representing a “body of scientific evidence” (indeed, those waves on Mars had been observed for over a hundred years). Well, the inferences drawn from that entire “body of evidence” were garbage. We now know those waves are just from dead dust moving around. [Similarly, science itself will soon conclude that macroevolution was the biggest hoax in the history of science, despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists now believe it. (It is, however, a much newer theory than the post-Galileo Martian-life theories which were annihilated 56 years ago; centuries after they were written.) ]

Of course, we never learn our lessons. Men of a given age almost invariably arrogantly regard “our science” as somehow by nature a different kind of thing than yesterday’s science. One hears it said today, “Come on! It’s 2021!” — which is no more meaningful than reminding one of which day of the week it is — “…now we actually can allow science to overturn philosophy and theology!” What utter myopia. Don’t succumb to it. In my forthcoming post on Resisting the Coming Diabolical “Quantum Leap,” I will be writing on a number of other areas in which we must be sure to never allow “what the science says” to undermine what we should know is true by Faith and Reason.

***

A note on Aquinas and the Scholastics: Those who do not understand how Scholastic Theology works are known to take certain considerations found in the writings of Aquinas and others — whether before or after him — and pretend that these great spiritual masters thought that there are, or might be, extraterrestrials. But that is false. In pointing out that making “other worlds” is possible for God, Aquinas was just making a theological point about God’s omnipotence and the world’s finitude, not presenting a speculation about aliens. Jesus said the same to Luisa: “One single act of my Will is enough to create a thousand worlds.” (October 20, 1914) Aquinas’ point here would be in contradiction to (for example) that of Descartes, who thought that God would not even be capable of creating other worlds (cosmos), for Descartes erroneously regarded the given physical space we now inhabit as exhaustive of all possibilities.

The Grave Dangers of Believing in Aliens

Karl Rahner, a theologian very influential during Vatican II, famously posited that aliens were possible. (While Fr. Karl certainly had some good things to say, which I am not disputing, it should be noted in considering this particular question that he is perhaps best known for his heretical teachings by which he supported artificial contraception and women’s ordination.) He said “it cannot be proved that multiple incarnations in different histories of salvation is absolutely unthinkable.” Of course it’s unthinkable, Fr. Karl. Salvation History is just that: Salvation History. Not “a” Salvation History or “our” Salvation History or “one” Salvation History. The phrase has no qualifiers because it needs no qualifiers; it enjoys a categorically and absolutely spatio-temporally/universally unique status. It is the only Salvation History and it is everyone’s Salvation History. However, if one is merely a theologian and has forgotten what is infinitely more important than advanced theology (namely, basic Christian common sense), then this absurdity is indeed quite “thinkable.”

The current Vatican astronomer, Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, tragically goes even further, claiming that discovering alien civilizations will require us to conduct a “rereading of the Gospel in light of the new data.” He is far from alone in the Vatican in believing in aliens who will, or may, require us to completely “reread” our Faith and fundamentally change our theology.

Can you not see how diabolical this is? There are no aliens. But I do not doubt that the Antichrist or his forerunners will try to convince us that there are — and that, conveniently, he has contact with them (and maybe even can “show them” to us) — and through this “contact” he will strive to compel us to “reread” our Faith, thus emptying it of its power, as St. Paul prophesied for these times. Have nothing to do with it.

But the damage is, sadly, not restricted to when the “aliens” are “introduced” to us; the damage is being done right now. To even think that it is possible (as Fr. Giuseppe and so many others in the Vatican and throughout the Church do) that something like contact with alien civilizations might one day require us to completely “re-read the Gospel” and “revise our theology” is to even now undermine the confidence and certitude we must have in our Faith — as it is understood; as it is laid out in public revelation; as it is developed by Sacred Tradition; as it is authoritatively interpreted by Magisterium. I’m not saying we should pretend we “have it all figured out.” We don’t, and we never will. God is a great mystery and we must stand in awe and humility before Him and His creation. But maintaining a posture of humility and awe, as we ought, does not imply that we should be flexible with those truths which we should know to be true.

The justification for saying aliens do exist, or might exist, is always the same: “given the incredible number of planets out there, it is likely or at least possible that life developed somewhere else as well.” But the premises of such an assertion are nothing but patently heretical Darwinism. Life cannot “develop” if merely given enough chances to do so. It can only be created by God. It wouldn’t matter if there were a trillion times as many planets out there as modern astronomers now think there are and if the universe were a trillion times as old as they think it is– the chance of life “developing” would still be zero — mathematically, scientifically, and logically impossible — as demonstrated in part 1 of The Crown of Sanctity.

A few footnotes:

I’m aware that there is one small passage in Maria Valtorta’s writings that seem to speak of aliens. It’s not the only error in her writings. (I’m making no claims regarding Valtorta’s authenticity here; even authentic mystics’ private revelations can, and often do, contain errors! I do not know much about Valtorta, so I cannot comment on her, but I do know that many people I love and trust regard her highly, so please don’t take my insistence that she is wrong on one small thing as an attack on her or her mystical writings. Even St. Catherine of Siena’s private revelations had at least one glaring error! [i.e. that Our Lady was not immaculately conceived])
I’m also aware of the many claims of UFO/Alien phenomena. Although the vast majority of these can be explained by military testing/ atmospheric phenomena/ optical illusions/manipulated media/ weather balloons/ mentally unstable people “seeing” things/etc., it is also true that some testimonies are not so easily cast aside. I am not one to ignore what a person — who by all accounts appears trustworthy — insists that he himself directly observed. Indeed, we must take such testimonies seriously. However, when one reads these testimonies, they almost universally include elements of incredible darkness and evil. The people themselves who give the testimonies usually speak of some horrible, dark, evil feeling pervading them when they witnessed the “UFO” or the “alien.” Often heinous sexual things are described. All of this just confirms my thesis: yes, there may well be alleged “aliens,” but, again, they aren’t aliens at all; rather, they are demonic manifestations. This just redoubles the importance of rejecting the possibility of actual aliens, so that we may remain firm in our insistence to have nothing to do with these “aliens” when they appear.
Consider as well that any alien race would either be 1) Unfallen, or 2) Fallen, thus in need of Redemption. If they were 1) Unfallen, then they would each be Immaculate Conceptions, which would itself be contrary to Catholic Dogma on Our Lady being the only Immaculate Conception. If they were 2) In need of Redemption, then this would be abhorrent, since they could not receive it — it is Catholic Dogma that there is one and only one Incarnation (which itself is necessary for Redemption).
The typical Catholic response to this question these days, i.e. “Well, there’s no Church teaching on this, so who knows,” may not, after all, be accurate. Pope Zachary may indeed have condemned this notion. Here is an excerpt from Ireland and the Antipodes: The Heterodoxy of Virgil of Salzburg, by John Carey.

Now, the cleric in question, “Virgil,” did later become a Bishop (and was canonized a saint!), so we can presume he recanted this view — plenty of saints have believed errors and then recanted. Nevertheless, Pope Zachary evidently regarded this error of positing the existence of “other men” in “another world” beneath the earth (or perhaps even on the sun and moon) as such an egregious opposition to God that it was “abominable,” a detriment to one’s very soul, and a just cause for expelling this priest from the Church and stripping him of his priesthood. Perhaps Pope Zachary was particularly condemning the ancient Irish pagan belief in elves who existed in “fairy mounds” underground; in any event, this condemnation clearly covers aliens as well. So, dear Catholics, weigh what we have here: on the one hand, an extremely strong denunciation, in a Papal letter, of aliens as an “abominable teaching,” and, on the other hand, Pope Francis making a verbal remark that he’d “baptize Martians.” Discerning which is the weightier teaching is not difficult. Obviously I am not claiming we can have certainty in Pope Zachary’s condemnation merely from John Carey’s work here quoted, but we should presume its validity absent legitimate reasons to doubt it.