On April 7, 2026, during an Annunciation sermon, Metropolitan Hilarion said in an ROC church in Karlovy Vary that aliens are in fact God’s angels, making any search for them on other planets pointless. According to him, such beings exist “in other dimensions” and may appear to people in angelic form.
The publication notes that Hilarion himself had previously held a different view. In his 2020 book Uncomfortable Questions About Religion and the Church, he wrote that the existence of intelligent beings on other planets does not fit the biblical picture of the world. His current statement also contradicts earlier remarks by Patriarch Kirill, who warned that UFOs could become a new delusion and a form of worship of a “dark force.”
Within the Moscow Patriarchate, Hilarion’s words drew a restrained response. ROC spokesperson Vakhtang Kipshidze called the remark “too frivolous” and said aliens cannot be associated with the angelic realm.
On April 17, Donald Trump unexpectedly returned to the subject. Speaking before the conservative group Turning Point USA in Phoenix, he promised to release soon the first batch of previously classified U.S. security documents about contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations. The article also notes that earlier in April Vice President J. D. Vance described aliens as “demons” distracting people from worship of the one true God.
The author links this renewed interest to long-running American debates over UFOs. The text recalls the July 27, 2023 U.S. congressional hearings, where former intelligence officer David Grusch, former pilot Ryan Graves, and retired Navy officer David Fravor testified under oath. Graves in particular described an incident near Virginia Beach in 2014 that led to the suspension of training flights.
At the same time, the publication stresses that aliens remain not an established scientific fact but part of a powerful cultural and religious myth. The article also cites other Christian views on the issue, ranging from cautious skepticism to the idea that intelligent life on other worlds is at least theoretically possible.