In Steven Spielberg’s new film “Disclosure Day,” a Catholic character voices a familiar fear: that proof of extraterrestrial life will shatter belief in God. Yet scholars say this dramatic framing misses a deeper truth — that major religious traditions have been spiritually preparing for cosmic neighbors for centuries, not decades.

Diana Pasulka, a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of “American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology,” challenges the assumption of inevitable conflict. “That question is packed with drama, but it doesn’t correspond to the lived realities of people,” she said.

Pasulka notes that Catholic theologians were already contemplating life on other stars in the 15th century, when a German cardinal insisted on the prospect. More recently, multiple heads of the Vatican observatory have openly discussed the theological implications of intelligent extraterrestrial beings. Far from a crisis of faith, this encounter may be seen as an expansion of creation — a reminder that the divine imagination is far vaster than our earthly horizons.