For nearly five decades, Steven Spielberg has invited audiences to wonder “what if?” with cinematic masterpieces like ‘E.T.’ and ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind‘. But with the release of his new film ‘Disclosure Day‘, the legendary director is moving beyond speculation.
In a few recent interviews, the 79-year-old filmmaker has gone on the record to say he is convinced that extraterrestrials have not only visited Earth, but are currently here.
Steven Spielberg Goes Public With Explosive Claim
Spielberg told CBS News, “Based on the circumstantial evidence of everything that I’ve gathered throughout my whole life, everybody I’ve listened to and every documentary I’ve ever watched and all the testimonies in Congress that I’ve heard, I absolutely think that they have been here, and they are here.” The director added a final, haunting thought: “And who knows, maybe they’ve always been here.”
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The remarks come as a publicity tour for ‘Disclosure Day,’ a film Spielberg describes as a “bookend” to ‘Close Encounters‘. Unlike his previous works, which he categorized as “science speculation” or fantasy, Spielberg insists this new thriller is built on a “foundation of truth.”
In the film, a whistleblower (played by Josh O’Connor) races against time to expose an 80-year government cover-up of alien presence. While the plot is fiction, the director says the anxiety and evidence behind it are not.
Steven Spielberg’s Father’s Influence
Spielberg’s certainty is not the result of a recent conversion but a lifelong obsession. He revealed that his father, Arnold Spielberg, an electrical engineer, planted the seed of belief when the director was a child.
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“My father put it into my mind that we are not alone,” Spielberg recalled in an interview with E! News. “He said, ‘There’s intelligent life out there.’ I was born believing that out there, life exists, intelligent life exists.” That fascination was cemented when Spielberg was five or six years old, after his father woke him in the middle of the night to watch the Perseids meteor shower. “That began my love affair with the sky,” he said.
Why Steven Spielberg Says the Conversation Has Changed
While the director has played in the sandbox of science fiction for years with films like ‘War of the Worlds‘, he is now drawing a hard line between artistic license and observable reality. He noted that the proliferation of smartphones and high-definition cameras in the 21st century has changed the conversation, providing “overwhelming” visual data.
‘Disclosure Day‘, which opens in theaters on June 12, stars Emily Blunt and Colin Firth. The film asks a provocative question: What if the beings from ‘Close Encounters‘ never left, and their existence has been systematically denied to humanity for nearly a century?
Spielberg clarified that he is not trying to become anyone’s “religion” or source of fear, but rather to validate what he believes is an inevitable truth. When asked what he would show an alien if one arrived on his doorstep tomorrow, the director didn’t pick one of his own blockbusters. “I’d show them Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life!” he joked.
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