Disclosure Day: Little Green Men and a Great Big God...

23rd June 2026 
 
The release of a new Spielberg movie is always a big event for me - but when the genius behind E.T., Close Encounters and War of the Worlds announced he was straying back into the territory of science fiction with Disclosure Day... my ticket was booked!



We saw it as a family last week - and it didn't disappoint... but what did surprise me was the focus on how Christians might respond to the discovery that we are not alone in the universe.

I was expecting the huge spectacle - but I wasn't prepared for big theological questions! Needless to say, the discussion in the car journey home was fascinating!

Without any major spoilers (scouts honour!) - let me explain... 

Disclosure...

In typical Spielberg fashion, we witness the aforementioned huge spectacle through the eyes of some very ordinary people. One of the films main characters is a young woman called Jane who is unwittingly drawn into a conspiracy of cosmic proportions... but it's soon revealed that she also has some secrets of her own. As it turns out, Jane is a former nun - who explains that she never lost her faith, simply her calling to be a nun. 

When faced with the possibility that the cover-up of the evidence of extraterrestrial life her response is fearful:

"People have been raised to believe in a supreme being, and now you want to show us actual supreme beings? …the world can't handle both."

JANE BLANKENSHIP

Her fear is that this disclosure could potentially undermine or even destroy people's faith. In fact, Disclosure Day is not really a film about aliens. I think it’s a film about revelation - and what happens to us when our world expands faster than our theology.

Is Jane right - is there room in our faith for both? For little green men and a great big God?

And of course, the film's release is incredibly timely - with release of previously classified official information of reported UAPs (the artist formerly known as UFOs), congressional hearings about it over the pond, and suddenly the fascination with aliens is alive and well once again.

However likely, or not, you believe that to be, it's a big question - if it were ever to be proven that intelligent extraterrestrial life existed, where would that leave the church?
Where would it leave you?

For me, it left me wondering not so much “Would alien life somehow disprove or dilute the Christian message?" but more "What kind of faith collapses when confronted with a bigger universe?"
 

Where's the Issue?

You might be nervous about these kinds of questions, or you may be wondering what all the fuss is about...

I think there's a few core issues that people frequently come up when this question comes up... 

For some it starts right back in the beginning... 

///01. The Creation Story and the Silence That Scares Us

For many Christians, the answer starts and ends here: Genesis 1 doesn’t mention alien life.
It doesn’t exclude it, but it doesn’t include it either. And silence can feel deafening or threatening.

Was Genesis meant to be:

• a catalogue of species?
• a cosmic census?
• an exhaustive list of everything God ever made?

Or is it actually a beautiful liturgy... a revelation of who God is, not what God made in every corner of the cosmos.

You could argue that Genesis doesn’t mention brontosauruses, bacteria or black holes either - yet their existence has never unravelled Christian faith. In fact, although Genesis 1 talking about the stars - other planets don't even get a mention.

Why? Because the purpose of Genesis 1 is not to provide a definitive list but to declare over all that is:

• God is the Maker, Maintainer and Master of the entire cosmos
• Therefore... Creation is ordered by Him and His grand design
• Therefore... at it's genesis - everything finds it's source in God
• Therefore... absolutely everything in creation has an original goodness
• And therefore... humanity has a special place - carrying both a God-given image and mandate

So perhaps the silence isn’t necessarily a gap to fear, but an invitation to humility - a reminder that God’s imagination and power far exceed our own.

///02. Would Jesus Need to Die on Every Planet?

Disclosure Day never names this issue, but the cross and resurrection of Jesus are so central to the Christian faith that it is a real consideration.

If intelligent life, or what we might want to refer to as “soul‑bearing” life exists elsewhere, would Jesus need to become one of them too? Would the incarnation have to repeat itself across the galaxies? 

At first glance, it feels like a theological knot. But perhaps the New Testament already gives us a way through it.

The Cross as a Cosmic Singularity

Christianity has always described redemption in cosmic terms.

• Christ is the one through whom all things were made..
• In Him all things hold together...
• Through the cross, all things are reconciled...
• The sacrifice is once and for all...

This is not the language of a localised religious event. It’s the language of a cosmic shockwave.

If something that happened at one moment in time can offer redemption and healing to all of time, then theologically it's possible something that happened at one point in the universe can redeem all of the universe.

 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1 CORINTHIANS 15.22

For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.

COLOSSIANS 1.19-20

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

ROMANS 8.19-21

It seems that C.S. Lewis, who after The Chronicles of Narnia went on to write the Science Fiction saga The Space Trilogy, also spent time considering big questions like these. Both in an essay and in an interview, he seems open to the possibility of life on other planets - and even suggests that if contact were ever to be established, our task would be evangelise them! (Which gives new meaning to the command of Jesus to preach the good news to "all creation!"). 

A Faith Big Enough for A Big Universe

I don't know what I make of the so-called "evidence" of alien life and technology, or the accounts of them having visited our planet - but for me, the discovery of alien life would not destroy my faith. 
 
The early church didn’t know an awful lot about galaxies, but they still proclaimed a Christ who:

• holds all things together
• fills all things
• reconciles all things

Long before the invention of telescopes, their faith was already framed in cosmic terms. Surely if the redemption can stretch across time, it can stretch across galaxies. The cross is not provincial; it is cosmic. And Resurrection morning stands as the greatest disclosure day in all of time and space:

God promised this good news about His Son ahead of time through his prophets in the holy scriptures...
He was publicly identified as God’s Son with power through His resurrection from the dead...
This Son is Jesus Christ our Lord!

ROMANS 1.3-4

The universe is not too big for Christ - Christ is bigger than the universe.

So I think that if alien life were ever proven to exist, it wouldn't shrink my faith at all - it would only serve to expand it!
 
But I'd love to know, what about you?
Have you seen the film?
What did you think?
What questions did it raise for you?
Where does these questions send you?