What does it mean to be impacted by stigma? Well, I’m wrestling with that fear as I write this post after watching the documentary, The Age of Disclosure. It is a documentary that presents evidence and first hand accounts of UAPs (formally known as UFOs).
So, how has this documentary awakened a fear of stigma in me? Ever since childhood, I have had a love of science fiction, space and the awe-filled question that naturally comes from my love of observing the night sky: What is out there?
As normal and healthy as that curiosity may be, I also feel a need to temper those curiosities with the fact that I am a public figure. I am the spiritual leader of the parish of St. Olaf Catholic Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin as a Catholic Priest and have been given the privilege to reflect on my love of the night sky on this blog. I have never been told what to say or not to say other than the presumed call to preach the truth with charity.
The irony is that call to preach the truth with charity also creates in my thinking a natural hesitancy when extraordinary ideas or events are presented to me. For example, have events like the Marian apparitions of Lourdes and Fatima impacted my faith life for the better? Absolutely. One of my favorite books to read when I was in high school was a collection of documented Marian apparitions. As a priest, do I experience a hesitation when people speak of personal experiences of extraordinary spiritual occurrences in their lives? Yes, I do.
Have I lost my faith in the extraordinary? No, I have not. I simply weigh the curiosity I experience when these types of events are shared with the responsibility I carry as a Priest to preach and live the truth of the Gospel. My fallen human nature creates enough unintentional mistakes in my ministry. To blindly dive into rabbit holes that could be harmful to my spiritual life and the people I serve is something I strive to avoid. Yet, my life has been shaped and guided by embracing the extraordinary event of God meeting his people in the Person of Jesus Christ. So, I live in this delicate balance between openness to extraordinary events in peoples lives, but also a discerning heart to critically analyze what is being presented to me.
Therefore, do I fear a potential stigma being placed on me for reflecting on a documentary about aliens, UFOs and otherworldly technologies – especially if I enjoyed it and found it informative? Of course I do. As the whistle blowers in the documentary The Age of Disclosure stated on more than one occasion, The most important factor in the believability of these types of extraordinary events is one’s credibility and reputation. That’s not only true for UAP whistle blowers, but for a Catholic Priest as well. If I reflect on something that hurts my credibility, it also hurts my ministry.
I start here to offer you a framework for how I am going to present my reaction to this documentary. In many ways, I will approach this with a similar approach I take with people who share extraordinary spiritual experiences with me: Openness, discernment, and a critical mind that wrestles between an objective take on the question of UAPs balanced against a temptation to simply dismiss the question outright. This is my bias that safeguards against hurting my credibility.
So, what did I think about the documentary The Age of Disclosure. It was engaging, entertaining, well constructed and a documentary that bucks the trend of being boring and dry. Dare I say, it felt more like a movie or a less dramatic episode of the X-Files than a typical documentary. And that, ironically, was my first moment of hesitation: Is this really a documentary or is it something else?
After watching the documentary, I did a quick search online, asking Google AI a simple question – What is the difference between a documentary and a movie. The response was what I expected. Movies are to primarily entertain while documentaries are meant to educate and inform the viewer of the real world. I think an argument can be made that both dimensions are present in this documentary.
Movies are often fictional with fictional characters while documentaries present real people and life circumstances. After watching the documentary, I didn’t feel a need to question the honesty or “realness” of those in the documentary or the events they explain. Yet, I did feel a hesitancy about embracing some of the presumed cultural narratives the documentary built around the whistle blowers experiences.
For example, predictably, I was not impressed with a mention of how “the Vatican is aware of UAPs” accompanied by less than flattering images of Pope Francis and St. John Paul II. It was a quick statement with no supporting data that sparked the question – What do you mean by the Vatican knows about UAPs? The statement was made, they departed from it and no further supporting information was given. In a word, concerning.
Does the Vatican have top secret information about UAPs? Does the Vatican possess the same type of knowledge I have of UAPs from watching the news, statements from global leaders, watching this documentary or simply enjoying science fiction? These two questions present wildly different types of “knowing about UAPs.” Can I affirm the statement is “true” that the Vatican knows something about UAPs? No in part because I don’t work in the Vatican, but the statement was so broad it really could mean just about anything. Moments like this where people use the Church so carelessly in weaving a narrative always makes me question its credibility.
I must admit that this brief insertion made me question if similar types of broad stroke statements were being made in regard to politics, science and governmental structures. As I stated earlier, one’s reputation and reliability is central when presenting extraordinary events and phenomena. It was a moment, thou brief, that didn’t give me a high level of confidence to trust the claims of the documentary. Still, I also wouldn’t blame you if you dismiss my insight as simply being a Catholic Priest sticking up for his home team.
Another moment of hesitancy is one that no documentary on UAP/UFOs can avoid when exploring extraordinary claims – Few people have the knowledge to either definitively support or refute the claim. For example, after the first half of the documentary that basically represented things I’ve followed and seen on the news, I was fascinated by the two scientists that speculated on what the propulsion system of UAPs may be. They had very confident, clear and convincing explanations of a vessel that could create its own atmosphere and sense of time that would be immune to the impacts of things like gravity and effortlessly transition between water and air. However, other than really neat animations of what this might look like compared with declassified footage, there wasn’t any type of deep dive mechanical explanation that would make this plausible to even the scientific novice. It made me wonder if a well educated scientist would have a similar assessment of the science presented as I did with the documentary’s treatment of the Vatican? I’ll leave that for a scientific expert to explore.
Another aspect of the “other worldly” science of these potential crafts that bothered me was a shift in the narrative from the extraordinary to the ordinary. One of the key narrative themes of the documentary that was revisited a number of times was “these things defy the laws of physics.” Yet, the whistle blower scientists, if simply taken at face value, are claiming that physics could theoretically create a craft to do such things. It was a narrative switch that moved the documentary from a telling of the extraordinary to vaguely demonstrating something more ordinary. Perhaps I’m over analyzing, but it raised a red flag for me.
What was the purpose of this documentary? Though I have shared with you some of my hesitancies, I don’t want you to presume that I am questioning the passion and sincerity of those who made the documentary. The points of the documentary that I am in full support of is that if there are events happening that pose a threat to our country and our world that we don’t understand, we need to understand them. If the stories of this documentary are true that unexplainable events have happened that have turned on nuclear bombs, please, elected officials, figure out what happened!
The insights of how these events happen around military facilities and military activities were the parts of the documentary I felt most comfortable seeing as having solid foundation. Also, sworn testimony under oath always elevates the credibility of one’s claim. Being asked questions that, if proven untrue could lead to charges of treason and imprisonment tend to weed out fact from fiction. These testimonies and the overarching narratives of government coverup obviously point to a political end to the purpose of this documentary. The New York Times reported that elected officials received a private viewing of the documentary by its creators to encourage them to take this matter more seriously. This article from the Times and the end of the documentary made me feel like I just witnessed a masterful infomercial to the American public and Congress to further support and explore these events. This seems to me to be a better way to categorize the genre of this documentary. One part entertainment and one part truth to try to inspire pressure to continue this exploration.
So, has my stigma and bias as a Catholic Priest tainted this post? Perhaps. But I would like to conclude with a commentary that may surprise the makers of this documentary. There was a clear narrative woven of fear of what would happen if someday we learned that we are not alone in the universe. There was a presumption set forward that this would shake the foundations of how we would understand the world we live in.
I disagree with this assessment. Polls can be found that 65% of people believe in life beyond our common home. Scripture teaches us that humans were not the only intelligent beings created by God. The Copernican revolution has already shaken our understanding of the world we live in and it keeps on shaking. Science fiction literature has been a type of speculative think tank of not wondering if there is intelligent life other than humans, but how would contact with those beings unfold. If anything, if there is proof of intelligent life other than humans (this is another statement that deserves a reflective post – last time I checked whales and dolphins are rather intelligent – just different from human intelligence), knowing what that is could actually bring clarity and calm to our world. We would no longer need to speculate about “What is out there,” we would begin the process of engaging an answer to this fundamental question instead of trying to develop intelligent speculations.
So, do I recommend this documentary? It is a bit pricey to rent online, but it is very gripping. I’m not one to either encourage or condemn media. If you do watch it, approach it with openness and a critical mind. I think there is a lot of fascinating things it presents we need to take seriously. Sadly, the narratives at times were predictably typical of painting the tired cultural picture of, “power structures bad – rebel citizens fighting the powers that be – good.” Whenever I watch documentaries, reductionist narratives never bode well in whether or not I trust what I am watching.
The reductionist narratives of this documentary created my biggest hesitation at the end of this documentary. At the very end, there was a type of “Kumbaya” moment when the call was made to look to the United States Congress to push for the truth. So… the answer to finding the truth about UAPs is to trust the United States Congress… No disrespect meant to the elected officials of my home country, but that sentiment invites me to reiterate a recurring theme in this review. The most important factor in the believability of these types of extraordinary events is one’s credibility and reputation.
