[Carol]

As Paola Harris's recent book editor I asked her for permission to post this which she granted and is from her new, unpublished book.

In Memorium
A personal recollection by Paola Leopizzi Harris
October 27, 2008

“When we talk about ‘Extraterrestrials,’ we refer to humanoid beings that are, like us, of both a spiritual and a material nature, a physical body (for which to move they indeed need spacecraft), although in their case the relationship between mind and matter might be a different one than in our case. For this, we do not have scientific evidence yet, although we are approaching this question slowly thanks to an increasing number of careful studies and research.” (Monsignor Corrado Balducci, 1923-2008)

We need to thank Monsignor Corrado Balducci for those words and for choosing to become part of the UFO research community. We all mourn the passing of this great man but especially I, who was a close friend of his.

Msgr. Balducci is one of the best-known and most respected Italian theologians. The Roman priest and Curia member served the Holy See as a diplomat and member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Propaganda Fide). He is an expert on demonology and parapsychology, was for several years the exorcist of the diocese of Rome, the Pope’s diocese. Msgr. Balducci wrote several books, including the best seller 'Il Diavolo' (the Devil) which reached 14 print runs in the hardcover edition. Furthermore, he was a regular guest on the Italian State TV (Rai Due), where he made several statements on the UFO phenomenon since 1995. He spoke on the UFO congresses in Acapulco and San Marino. His words are indeed noteworthy, since it is the very first detailed statement of a senior Roman Catholic theologian and Curia member on the UFO phenomenon. More than that, it demonstrates the openness of the Roman Catholic church in this question and can be considered the first ever complex positive statement regarding the UFO/ET reality from the point of view of a major world religion - with its over 1 Billion faithful, the Roman Catholic Church is indeed the largest religious community on Earth. His influence in disclosing the extraterrestrial presence on Earth was a pioneering effort in a highly skeptic atmosphere. In light of the Vatican announcement of May 13th, 2008 made by Father Funes, chief Vatican Astronomer, in which he said that the extraterrestrial is our brother or sister and that Jesus did not need to die for him because aliens are born without “original sin,” we can see how Monsignor Balducci was avante guarde and the messenger of this Vatican position. Many times, he told me, “Witness testimony is essential to the human experience as it is to UFO sightings. This applies to the religious life, too. Indeed the Christian religion is based on the testimony of humans who became witnesses of God's revelation in historical events.”

His Research work and his Theories
Perhaps Monsignor Balducci is in a dimension that will now bring him many answers, those we are all looking for! Often I would ask permission in Rome to bring over foreign researchers to meet him. He is quoted in Dr. Steven Greer’s Disclosure Project video and has received a lifetime award at Steven Bassett’s X-Conference in Washington DC in 2005, when I accompanied him to America after a twenty year absence. There he met with top Mexican research journalist Jaime Maussan for many hours to discuss the “special nature” of the Mexican sightings, the flotilla. “Mexico is a very spiritual place,” he said. It should be noted that Padre Baldacci had been Vatican Nuncio in Washington many years before. I also did the interpreting for him in the documentary FASTWALKERS produced by Robert Miles Safe space Productions.

I fist met Monsignor Balducci at a May 1999 conference in San Marino where I was translator for Dr. John Mack. Many famous researchers like Dr. Mack sought out Padre Balducci’s advice. It is a shame that both these two men are no longer with us. It is essential to note that Padre Balducci also spoke to Zecharia Sitchin in 2002 and I photographed this historic meeting. As it happened, in April 2000, Zecharia Sitchin became engaged in a public discussion of those very issues with a leading theologian of the Vatican, Monsignor Corrado Balducci, during an international conference held in Bellaria (Rimini) in Italy. The historic dialogue was reported at the time on this official website of Zecharia Sitchin.

Sitchin describes it like this!

The Dialogue with Zecharia Sitchin
“We have much to talk about.” Msgr. Balducci said to me as he came forward to congratulate me on my presentation. “I have great esteem for your scholarship.”

We returned to the hotel for lunch. My American fans, intent on not missing a word of the forthcoming dialogue, surrounded our table in a semi-circle. In the hours-long session, Msgr. Balducci outlined the positions he was going to state from a prepared text in his talk the next day. While my approach was based on physical evidence, his was a purely Roman Catholic theological-philosophical one seeking the spiritual aspects. Yet, our conclusions converged.

“There must be something in it.” Balducci continued. “The hundreds and thousands of eyewitness reports leave no room for denying that there is a measure of truth in them, even allowing for optical illusions, atmospheric phenomena and so on.” As a Catholic theologian such witnessing cannot be dismissed. “Witnessing is one way of transmitting truth, and in the case of the Christian religion, we are talking about a Divine Revelation in which witnessing is crucial to the credibility of our faith. Life may exist on other planets is certainly possible. The Bible does not rule out that possibility. On the basis of scripture and on the basis of our knowledge of God's omnipotence, His wisdom being limitless, we must affirm that life on other planets is possible.” He told Sitchin, author of The Twelfth Planet: “Moreover, this is not only possible, but also credible and even probable.”


In his later years, I found Monsignor Balducci often distracted by metaphysical concepts and he would stray off into different tangents as we would try to lead him back on track. He was a very random abstract thinker and a very intelligent man. Monsignor Balducci has an incredible archive of news clippings on UFOs and the paranormal. It fascinated him. Unlike many of us researchers, he excluded nothing in the cosmic mystery and had begun “connecting the dots” long ago.

He explained: “There are thousands of persons in all the world who claim that they saw a UFO at least once, and many even claim a contact with their crews.” He would say, “On this basis, it can no longer be denied that there is indeed something true about them. Any skepticism would be completely unjustified und unreasonable! Of course some eyewitness reports are based on imagination, hallucination or external influence. In other instances, they are caused by atmospheric phenomena, lenticular clouds or ball-lightning. Let me add one more important point: The general apriori-skepticism, the systematic total denial damages, even destroys, the basic value of the human testimony with grave and incalculable consequences, since it is indeed the fundament of human society if individual, social or religious. Of course there is always one or the other exemption, there are errors and lies, but generally all our life is based on what we learned from others. It is unthinkable to live without this basic confidence; unimaginable are the consequences of a general negation of the human experience on the individual, social and religious life. It would destroy the very fundament of any human society!”

“We can exclude that angels use spaceships nor does the devil need to manifest himself like that. As purely spiritual beings angels can project themselves at any place they want to reach and, in rare instances, when they want to reveal themselves take a visible form without any difficulty.”

A Personal Remembrance of an extraordinary man
We would meet often at his home on Via Pio IV in Rome. Balducci would be doing his own research. He would often audiotape me as I shared my research or my newest stories, people I met, investigative world-travels. He had thousands of news clippings meticulously categorizing the paranormal. He wanted to write two books. One about God’s Infinite Mercy and a second one on UFOs. He had a habit of calling me by my last name. “Listen Harris, UFOs are real.” he would say. I think he thought using my first name was too personal but we were personal in this great friendship. My mother and I would dine often with him and he would have a different wine for every course we ate in a four-course Italian meal.

Padre Balducci considered himself a ufologist as well as demonologist. I remember well his showing his business card that said this very thing to a stranger on a plane ride back from Washington D.C. in 2005. I was too tired to talk to him so Padre Balducci went up into the cabin to sit next to a perfect stranger and spread the word. I found him there two hours later. He was so friendly that on our train rides back from Conferences, Monsignor Balducci would speak to everyone, especially children. He would talk about everything but passionately about the paranormal and often “bless” perfect strangers as they lined up. He did this in the Cincinnati, Ohio airport on our way to Washington. He had an excitement, wonderment, a childlike quality that I personally experienced the two New Years Eve’s that I spent with him. He was the first to light up the firecrackers that sparkled, the last to leave his window after the New Year’s light display and he kept his Christmas decorations up all year around so we, his visitors, could enjoy them.

He had a houseboy from India called Jinnison that Padre Balducci considered as a son more than an employee. Jinnison cooked, knew where everything was in the house, which because of the magazines and news clippings appeared chaotic. We both knew that Balducci loved Lasagna, ice cream, reading newspapers and speaking to the general public. He loved humanity and imagined the extraterrestrial as the “best” of the Universe. Like Gene Roddenberry the creator of Star Trek, Padre Balducci wished that the human species would evolve and live in peace in its diversity. He saw the good in people, “the divine.” Let it be remembered that there was one and only one Monsignor Corrado Balducci. For me a truly good person, I will miss that famous smile.