A half-century after he last made a film on the subject, Steven Spielberg is coming clean about where he stands on extraterrestrial life in the universe.
“I don’t know any more than any of you do, but I have a very strong suspicion that we are not alone here on Earth right now,” Spielberg, 79, said in an interview at the SXSW festival with The Big Picture podcast host Sean Fennessey on Friday. “And I made a movie about that.”
After directing two Oscar-winning extraterrestrial films in the 1970s, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg put the fascination to rest for five decades. Now, the director is refocused on aliens for his new film, Disclosure Day, partially due to their resurgence in pop culture.
Spielberg noted that his interest in otherworldly life was “reinvigorated” by a 2017 New York Times investigation into a potential military cover-up of UFOs. In February, his inclinations were seemingly confirmed when former president Barack Obama declared that aliens were “real.”
“Oh, my God,” Spielberg remembered thinking, “this is so great for Disclosure Day!”
Two days later, Obama, 64, clarified his statement, saying that “statistically” there was life beyond Earth.
“He stepped it back to say what he believed was in life in the cosmos—which, of course, everybody should believe in,” the Oscar winner continued, noting the recent congressional hearings with government whistleblowers.
“I’ve been thinking as a kid that we were not alone. So that just goes without saying. The big question is: Are we alone now? And have we been alone over the last 80 years? Have we been alone over the last few 1,000 years?” he added.
Spielberg said that when he made Close Encounters, UFOs were considered “on the fringes of science and mythology,” making it difficult to get the film greenlit.
“When I said, ‘I want to make a UFO movie,’ everybody thought, ‘You want to make a movie about The National Enquirer?’ You want to make a movie about the crackpot reporting of things that aren’t really occurring? You want to make a completely crazy fantasy film about something that isn’t happening?” Spielberg said.
The three-time Oscar winner lamented that he had never seen a UFO himself, even after a lifetime of curiosity.
“I made a movie called Close Encounters of the Third Kind—I haven’t even had a close encounter or the first or second kind! Why haven’t I seen anything?” he said. “Half of my friends have seen UFOS or UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). Where’s the justice of that? If you’re listening out there…”
The EGOT filmmaker’s new project explores what could happen if aliens visited Earth.
“I’m not afraid of any aliens. I have no fears about that whatsoever,” he said. “I think our movie does take into consideration that social dislocation that could occur. If it was announced there is interaction [with aliens] that have been going on for decades, it’s going to cause a disruption in a lot of belief systems. But I don’t think it is a lethal disruption at all.”
Disclosure Day will be released in theaters on June 12.
