Dialogue in Bellaria

In the spring of 1999, an unusual dialogue took place in Bellaria, Italy, during a conference titled “The Mystery of Human Existence.” The participants were Zecharia Sitchin, best known for his writings on Sumerian texts and the theory of the Anunnaki, and Monsignor Corrado Balducci, a senior Vatican theologian. Despite their different backgrounds—Sitchin as a researcher of ancient civilizations and Balducci as a Catholic prelate—their conversation revealed surprising points of agreement on questions of extraterrestrial life and the origins of humanity.

Monsignor Balducci was a respected figure within the Catholic Church. He served as a member of the Curia, a prelate of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and an expert on demonology and exorcism within the Archdiocese of Rome. He also wrote several books and was consulted by the Vatican on questions relating to UFOs and extraterrestrials. Sitchin, by contrast, was not an academic scholar but a writer who drew from ancient Mesopotamian texts to argue that human civilization was shaped by the intervention of advanced extraterrestrial beings.

The meeting nearly occurred in December of the previous year, but scheduling prevented it. When Sitchin arrived in Bellaria on March 31, 1999, accompanied by his wife and supporters from the United States, he learned that Balducci had driven overnight from Rome specifically to attend his presentation.

Sitchin’s lecture, translated by his Italian editor Tuvia Fogel, combined slides with interpretations of Mesopotamian records. He outlined his central arguments: that we are not alone in the universe, that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial beings described in Sumerian texts as the Anunnaki, and that these beings genetically altered early hominids some 300,000 years ago to produce modern humans. While Sitchin framed these claims in terms of physical evidence and ancient sources, he also acknowledged that the Anunnaki, in his view, ultimately served as instruments of a higher divine plan.

After the presentation, Monsignor Balducci expressed admiration for Sitchin’s scholarship and proposed a more extended conversation. Over lunch, with a small group of listeners nearby, the two men discussed their respective perspectives.

Balducci began by explaining the framework of his own upcoming lecture. He argued that UFO reports could not be dismissed outright, given the sheer number of credible eyewitness accounts. Within Catholic theology, he said, “witnessing” has always been considered a legitimate way of transmitting truth. On the question of extraterrestrial life, Balducci emphasized that scripture does not exclude the possibility. Drawing on the 15th-century theologian Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, he argued that life elsewhere in the universe is not only possible but probable.

He further suggested that intelligent extraterrestrials, if they exist, might represent a stage of being between humans and angels—beings composed of both body and soul, but in different proportions than humanity. This, he maintained, would not contradict Catholic teaching. Science might one day prove their existence, but such beings could still be reconciled with Christian belief in salvation through Christ.

Sitchin then raised the central theme of his research: that the Anunnaki genetically altered early hominids to create humanity as described in Mesopotamian and biblical traditions. Balducci responded by distinguishing between the material and the spiritual. From the Catholic perspective, he explained, the human soul is created directly by God, regardless of the material form from which the human body may have arisen. He cited theologian Professor Father Marakoff, who had suggested that when scripture describes humanity’s creation from clay, it may in fact allude to the transformation of an already sentient being, endowed with a new soul by divine action.

Sitchin acknowledged this point, noting that his own writings ultimately grapple with the question of who created the extraterrestrials themselves. He argued that while the Anunnaki may have believed they acted out of self-interest, in reality they carried out the will of a higher Creator. In this sense, he concluded, they were emissaries—what Hebrew tradition calls malachim, or angels.

Their exchange ended on a note of mutual respect. Sitchin observed that while his work focused on physical evidence and Balducci’s on theology, they were both, in their own ways, climbing the same “stairway to heaven.” The two men parted as friends, agreeing to continue their dialogue in the future.