These days, the existence of extraterrestrial life, more popularly known as aliens, is no longer dismissed as a farfetched notion. With eagled-eye alien hunters spotting UFO after UFO in every NASA-released photograph and experts neither confirming nor denying its possibility.
Even astronomers from the Catholic Church - the very same church that vilified and denounced Galileo "for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion" in 1633 - acknowledge the plausibility of the alien life theory.
Rumor has it the Vatican, home to the Pope, knows more about extraterrestrial life than it has led us to believe and holds alien secrets it plans to divulge through a press conference in months to come, a report by Disclose.tv claims. The article cited Father José Gabriel Funes and Brother Guy Consolmagno, both from the Vatican Observatory (the Specola Vaticana in Latin), an astronomical research and educational institution supported by the Holy See.
In recent years, Father Funes, a master's degree holder in astronomy from the National University of Cordoba in Argentina, has given statements recognizing alien life.
In 2008, after NASA's breakthrough discovery of an Earth-like planet 1,400 light years away through the Kepler telescope, the Vatican Observatory Director wrote in L'Osservatore Romano:
"The discovery of the new planet Kepler 452b revives the idea that contact and, why not, the encounter with extraterrestrial intelligent beings of an alien civilization could happen in the near future."
Father Funes was also quoted saying, "It is probably there was life and perhaps a form of intelligent life... I don't think we'll ever meet a Mr Spock," In a 2015 article by the Daily Mail UK. "The discovery of intelligent life does not mean there's another Jesus. The Incarnation of the son of God is a unique event in the history of humanity of the universe," he quickly added.
The Vatican Observatory has been researching about heavens and beyond as far back as 1852. Conspiracy theorists have long suggested that the Vatican is privy of top secret information about aliens.