Steven Spielberg's UFO Obsession: From Close Encounters to Disclosure Day

Steven Spielberg's lifelong fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrials is explored in a Smithsonian magazine article, tracing its roots from his childhood to his latest film, Disclosure Day, releasing June 12. The article details how real UFO incidents, such as the 1966 Portage County chase and the 1947 Roswell crash, inspired his 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg's interest is linked to his family background: his father Arnold, an electrical engineer, and his mother Leah, a concert pianist, divorced when he was a teenager. Historian Joseph McBride suggests Spielberg's Jewish immigrant heritage and Cold War anxieties fueled his alien themes. The director's films often feature fractured families and absent fathers, reflecting his own experience. Disclosure Day, written by David Koepp, follows a whistleblower and a TV weather reporter uncovering a government cover-up of alien existence. The article also notes Spielberg's early film Firelight (1964) and how E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) evolved from a proposed sequel to Close Encounters. Spielberg's thinking has evolved; he now speculates that UFOs might be time-traveling humans. The article concludes that his UFO films are a way to revisit a childhood moment when his father showed him a meteor shower, instilling a sense of wonder.