Forteana

"A UFO expert has levelled accusations at the Pope, alleging that he is concealing "extraordinary" alien secrets within the Vatican.

Steve Bassett, a UFO lobbyist in Washington, insists that it's evident the Catholic Church is aware of the existence of alien life and has concealed evidence in their archives.

As the executive director of the Paradigm Research Group, Bassett pointed out that the church has subtly suggested the existence of UFOs in religious artwork.

He told The Sun: "The Catholic Church, we have always known, has been aware of this subject going back perhaps hundreds and hundreds of years.

"It's gone so far as to say whoever these beings are, the Church would be happy to baptise them if they wanted to be baptised."

Bassett alleges that the Vatican library houses centuries of knowledge about aliens, with experts attempting to gain access to the Vatican Apostolic Archives.

However, they require permission from the Holy See, the supreme governing body of the Catholic Church. They will then need to sift through thousands of years of records, spanning 50 miles, to substantiate their claims.

This follows last year's statement by former intelligence officer David Grusch at a US congressional hearing, where he claimed the government was concealing evidence of "non-human intelligence".

Grusch suggested that the US has likely been aware of "non-human" activity since the 1930s and possesses fully intact pieces of "craft" of a "non-human origin".

He also mentioned that Italy discovered one of the UFOs in 1933, and Pope Pius XII at the time relayed the findings to President Franklin Roosevelt..."