Last weekend, Steven Spielberg’s 35th feature film Disclosure Day opened in theaters. But weeks before the premiere the movie—whose title refers to the date upon which alien life is irrefutably confirmed—had already stoked controversy. It may have used footage of actual aliens and it may be a psyop.
This is the sixth time Spielberg has featured extraterrestrials on celluloid, if you count what George Lucas promised were “interdimensional beings” in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Spielberg’s first examination of UFO phenomena was in 1964, when at age 17 he wrote and directed his unseen film Firelight. Starring a cast culled from local high school performers, it followed a group of scientists investigating an alien invasion.
Spielberg created Firelight in the waning years of Hollywood’s fascination with all things extraterrestrial. That era began shortly after civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing glowing objects flying in a “V” formation over Washington State’s Mount Rainier. He estimated their flight speed at 1,700 mph and compared their motion to “a saucer if you skip it across water.” That, of course, became the origin of the soon-to-be popular term “flying saucer.”
Real UFO Footage
Though reports of various types of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) had existed for hundreds of years, Arnold’s sighting—combined with debris found near Roswell, New Mexico, later that summer (that some believed was from a spacecraft)—sparked a frenzy of interest in otherworldly visitors and an entire new subculture, known as “ufology.”
Eighty years later after that mythic (and purported) event, ufologists suspect an even stronger connection between the purported alien crash and the Academy Award-winning director. The trailer for Spielberg’s latest film features a scene that appears to be of the Roswell incident, prompting theories about whether it is based on genuine footage, or perhaps is real footage.
Podcaster Dan Cleary shared a slowed down clip from the trailer on Twitter. In it a slate that reads #5 Occupant, Roll 18 can be seen. In his post, Cleary posits, “It would be awesome if that was based on real footage. Or… maybe it IS real footage.”
Reddit user Patient_Meaning8486 investigated this notion further. After learning what camera lenses were used to film Disclosure Day, the user posted, “I worked in the film industry, and both the Panavision C- & T- Series Lenses are definitively Anamorphic. The footage [from the trailer], which is different than the rest of the trailer, definitely isn’t anamorphic.”
A reply from user TerraInc0gnita, however, says, “the image has many consistencies with modern filmmaking and little to none with something from 1947.”
Preparing Us for Extra-Terrestrials
Spielberg’s new film comes just a month after the US government released over 200 declassified UAP documents and more than 40 videos. Those are available for review at war.gov/UFO.
The timing of the film has some speculating that Spielberg was hired to help the government prepare the masses to make first contact with aliens. Screenwriter David Koepp is aware, and shared his thoughts about the conspiracy theory with CinemaBlend:
“My favorite that I read was that the government was financing this film and got Steven to do it because he’s loved and trusted by the public. They felt that this information needed to get out and they were soft-launching it in entertainment form so that we could handle it, because otherwise we’ll all freak out…I will say I was never contacted by a member of the government on this.”
This isn’t the first time conspiracy-minded ufologists have suggested this about the director. Following the release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977, some suggested that was a concerted effort masterminded by the U.S. government to introduce the public to the concept of friendly aliens.
For his part, Spielberg is convinced more now than ever that we’re not alone in the universe. In the film’s trailer, the directors says:
“I used to say to myself, ‘Wouldn’t this be wonderful if all of this turned out to be true?’ I’m now thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful for people to know all of this is true?’”
As to whether the public is ready, Koepp said:
“I don’t think it would go very well. I think it would get there eventually, but getting to eventually might be painful.”