Washington's Exorcist Went Viral Calling Aliens Demonic. The Church Exorcised Him.

EARTH, Laniakea Supercluster—It’s rare for a man whose actual job is fighting Satan to lose it over aliens.

But that is basically what happened to Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, the Archdiocese of Washington's exorcist of nineteen years, who posted one too many videos theorizing that the UFOs in our skies are demons wearing a disguise.

On June 3, 2026, Cardinal Robert McElroy removed Rossetti as the archdiocese's exorcist and severed all ties with his nonprofit, the Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal. His removal came after posting a video to his Facebook account. In it, Rossetti went where few clergy go on camera.

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The wild claims came during an interview with Joe Rogan.

"There's a danger here," he said. "As an exorcist I wanted to raise that danger. And that is that demons like to hide…They don't want us to know what they're doing because they're more effective when we don't realize it."

Then the line that detonated across X and Catholic media alike.

"It's my personal belief that probably many if not most of these UFO sightings are in fact demons,” said Rossetti.

It’s the kind of claim that plays beautifully online and disastrously inside a chancery. The Church has a developed, deliberately narrow theology of the demonic, and an archbishop's job is to police its edges. McElroy did exactly that. The cardinal stated in a news release that "statements made by Monsignor Rossetti linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center's recent use of social media gravely undermine the Church's very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism."

The archdiocese serves more than 667,000 Catholics across D.C. and suburban Maryland—a flock the cardinal evidently did not want catechized by viral clips.

A priest, a psychologist, a former Air Force intelligence officer, and the in-house chaplain for the Washington Nationals, Rossetti was something of a celebrity clergyman, writing books, cultivating hundreds of thousands of social-media followers, and building one of the most recognizable exorcism brands in America.

The 74-year-old Rossetti didn’t fight his removal. In a statement posted online, he said he was "saddened" and asked “forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church's Magisterium, particularly in the cited video on 'aliens and the demonic.'"

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Notably, Rossetti was not preaching that aliens exist. Instead, he said Catholics can in good faith believe in extraterrestrial life, even though he personally does not. His heresy, in the Church's eyes, wasn't belief in little green men, but rather repackaging the demonic for the algorithm.

In an era when even the Vice President has mused about UFOs and the devil, a celebrity exorcist found the line, and crossed it.

He spent nineteen years casting out unwelcome spirits. In the end, the Church returned the favor.