Few subjects stretch the modern religious imagination quite like the prospect of intelligent life beyond Earth.
In recent years, congressional hearings, military whistleblower testimony and declassified government records on “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAPs — the newer vernacular for what were traditionally called UFOs — have moved the conversation from the margins of public discourse into mainstream news and policy debate.
Former President Barack Obama was asked in a recent podcast interview, “Are aliens real?” He replied, “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them.” (He quickly clarified that he was not disclosing classified knowledge or claiming proof of extraterrestrial visitation.)
President Donald Trump subsequently pledged to release more UFO-related information, further sustaining public interest in the subject.
Popular culture is amplifying the conversation as well. Dan Farah’s 2025 documentary, “The Age of Disclosure,” features testimony from 34 U.S. government, military and intelligence community insiders discussing alleged secret programs and claims of nonhuman intelligence — claims that have generated both fascination and skepticism. Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming UFO-themed film, “Disclosure Day,” has added another layer of visibility to a topic already gaining renewed attention.
As earnest testimony continues to accumulate regarding UAPs, alleged crash-retrieval programs, claims of nonhuman craft and reports of “biologics” of unknown origin, more people of faith are beginning to ask: How would beings from another world fit within our understanding of God, creation, eternity and, for Christians in particular, the role of Jesus Christ as Savior?
Former President Jimmy Carter, a lifelong Christian who once reported seeing a UFO himself, modeled a more spacious religious posture. Reflecting on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, Carter reportedly told NPR’s Scott Simon, “The way I see it, there’s nothing to fear. If there is life out there, we’re still all part of the same master plan. God’s hands are big enough to hold us both.”
However one evaluates the evidence, that instinct seems right: A universe larger than we imagined need not imply a God smaller than we believed.
A universe larger than we imagined need not imply a God smaller than we believed.
Yet even our best-loved religious narratives can feel brittle when new information appears to fall outside our familiar frame of reference. Claims about human origins, climate change, biblical timelines and modern mental health research have all forced believers to think more carefully about what their faith actually requires — and what may simply be inherited assumption or cultural tradition.
The possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth may require a similar kind of theological stretching. But if our faith is rooted in a God who is larger than our current, limited human categories, then new knowledge offers to expand belief rather than threaten it.
After all, the Bible itself is not small in its cosmic imagination.
“The heavens declare the glory of God,” the Psalmist writes, “and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”
Hebrews declares that God made “the worlds” through his son. Christian faith already contains the seeds of a cosmic theology.
Latter-day Saints have a particular contribution to make to this broader religious conversation. One of the most compelling gifts of the restored gospel is its grand cosmic story — a sweeping account of humanity’s divine origin and destiny capacious enough to include “worlds without number,” divine parentage, eternal progression and a Christ whose redemptive work reaches beyond what mortals presently comprehend.
None of this means Christians should rush to believe any claims being made. People of faith should be no less careful than anyone else about distinguishing evidence from speculation and testimony from conclusion.
But neither should religious believers be afraid of the question. President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expressed this spirit well when he said at the dedication of BYU’s Life Sciences Building: “All truth is part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether truth comes from a scientific laboratory or by revelation from the Lord, it is compatible.”
There is, he affirmed, “no conflict between science and religion”; conflict arises from “incomplete knowledge of either science or religion — or both.”
In the Book of Moses, which Latter-day Saints believe to be a fuller translation of the Book of Genesis, God tells the ancient prophet: “Behold, thou art my son, wherefore look, and I will show thee the workmanship of mine hands — but not all, for my works are without end, and also my words, for they never cease.”
Even though Moses is not shown everything, it still overwhelms him. “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing,” Moses says, “which thing I never had supposed.”
That may be exactly the kind of humility this moment requires. The question is not whether every UAP claim is true. Many may not be. The question is whether our faith is large enough to remain steady if “worlds without number” knock at the door and some of them are true.
Renowned scientist Carl Sagan once wondered why so many religious people seemed reluctant to let scientific discovery enlarge their sense of God. Too often, he suggested, believers respond to cosmic grandeur by retreating into a smaller vision: “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”
A religion equal to the magnitude of modern science, Sagan argued, would look at the universe and say, in effect, “This is better than we thought. God must be even greater than we dreamed.”
Referencing Sagan’s insights, the late apostle Elder Neal A. Maxwell once encouraged believers to resist such smallness, suggesting that for believers the cosmos should appear even more elegant and saying the universe is “pulsating with divine purpose,” giving us “even greater reasons for reverential awe.”
Whatever their specific theology, any serious believer in a Creator must eventually ask whether God’s work is larger than their present imagination.
Our immediate stewardship is here: our families, neighbors, covenants, communities and moral responsibilities on this Earth. But that need not close our eyes to the grandeur of the heavens.
If intelligent life beyond Earth is ever confirmed, it need not diminish faith. Religious communities could respond not with fear, but with humility — allowing the experience to invite deeper worship and reverential awe.
A God who can hold the Earth can also hold the cosmos. And if there are others beyond our world, they too are not outside his care.