Donald Trump's pledge to declassify long-rumoured 'alien files' has triggered an unusual backlash across the United States from Christian pastors, who warn the move could destabilise Churches and even 'destroy' confidence in Christianity if it is not handled carefully.
Talk of Trump's alien files has been building for months in US conservative media, fuelled by the President's public promise to order agencies, including the Pentagon, to dig out and release government records on UFOs and possible extraterrestrial life. That promise has now collided with a strand of American evangelical theology that views talk of aliens not as a scientific question, but as a spiritual trap.
