Fans of ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial‘ by Steven Spielberg know the story well: a lonely boy, a stranded alien, and a race against time to send the creature back home. It’s a film that has set the standard for heartwarming sci-fi.
But what many viewers don’t realise is that a very similar story had already been written two decades earlier in India, with another young boy, another alien, and a crash-landing that starts it all. And once people began comparing Steven Spielberg’s beloved film to Satyajit Ray’s unmade project The Alien, the overlap felt too close. And that’s what led to all the debate.
How Similar Is Steven Spielberg’s E.T. To Satyajit Ray’s Story?
Steven Spielberg has given the world many unforgettable films, but E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial remains one of his most loved. Half of the film’s charm lies in the simple idea of a lonely boy meeting a gentle alien who only wants to go home, and generations of viewers continue to feel that warmth. But those who’ve followed Satyajit Ray’s work couldn’t help noticing that the heart of E.T. sounded a lot like something Ray wrote decades earlier.
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Back in the 1960s, he developed a sci-fi script called ‘The Alien,’ inspired by his 1962 story ‘Bankubabur Bandhu‘ from his family’s magazine Sandesh. It featured a spaceship crash-landing in rural Bengal, a curious alien stepping out, and a young boy who quickly befriended it. The alien in Ray’s story charmed villagers with light-hearted tricks and harmless mischief, and fans later pointed out that this childlike innocence felt very similar to Spielberg’s friendly visitor.
Both stories also followed the same emotional path: a stranded alien forms a bond with a boy, authorities chase the creature to study it, and the boy tries desperately to protect his new friend. People familiar with Ray’s screenplay even noticed a moment that closely matched E.T.’s famous bike flight sequence. According to them, Ray’s script included a scene where characters escape on bicycles that rise off the ground, which only added more fuel to the comparison.
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As soon as fans spotted the similarities, the conversation quickly grew louder. Ray reportedly believed that E.T. drew heavily from his unmade film. He said the movie “would not have been possible without my script of The Alien being available throughout America in mimeographed copies,” suggesting that his work had reached Hollywood long before Spielberg made his film.
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Spielberg, on the other hand, firmly denied copying anything. He explained that he had been “a kid in high school when his script was circulating in Hollywood,” and stressed that the timeline alone made plagiarism unlikely. Even with his denial, the comparisons didn’t disappear, and the debate has stayed alive over the years.
No one has ever found solid proof that Spielberg copied Ray’s story. Still, film lovers find it interesting that Spielberg had previously mentioned Ray as one of the filmmakers who inspired him. At the same time, many people point out that stories about aliens visiting Earth existed long before either Ray or Spielberg took a shot at them. From that angle, E.T. may simply have followed a classic sci-fi setup rather than borrowed from a specific script.
Whichever side fans take, both stories have now become part of sci-fi history in their own way. One became a blockbuster classic watched around the world. The other remained a ‘maybe’ that still continues to bring in conversations.
