The Vatican Observatory (Specola Vaticana) is the Catholic Church’s pontifical astronomical research institute, headquartered at Castel Gandolfo with a research telescope at Mount Graham, Arizona.
In late 2025 OSV News reporting (see src-catholic-filmmaker-vatican-ufo-2026-04), former director Br. guy-consolmagno articulated the observatory’s standing policy of avoiding UFO topics in media to avoid association with charlatans — an institutional artifact of uap-stigma. The observatory declined all interviews for filmmaker sam-sorich’s in-progress Catholic UAP documentary.