Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Disclosure Day (2026)
Legendary director Steven Spielberg has spent almost five decades exploring one of humanity’s biggest questions: Are we alone in the universe? Having a deep interest in how humanity would react and engage with visitors from other worlds, Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial are two of the most beloved science-fiction films ever made. Now, the brand-new release of Disclosure Day continues Spielberg’s ongoing fascination with extraterrestrial beings, leading many to wonder how the movie potentially connects to his first two films on the subject.
Disclosure Day centers on the public release of information confirming the existence of extraterrestrial life and that aliens have been visiting and interacting with Earth for decades (since Roswell and Area 51 in 1947). While it’s since been debunked that Disclosure Day is a stealth sequel to Close Encounters and/or E.T., there are still some significant ties, visuals, and thematic connections across all three movies.
Even if Disclosure Day doesn’t share direct continuity with Close Encounters or E.T., it is very much the spiritual successor to both films in a few key ways while also being the culmination of ideas Spielberg has explored since 1977.
The Thematic & Visual Connections To E.T. And Close Encounters Explained
Disclosure Day shares some striking parallels with both Close Encounters and E.T.
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) and Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) receive visions and subliminal messages that guide them toward Devil’s Tower, the mountain landing site where the aliens make their first official contact with humanity at large, following a series of human abductions who are all released (having been taken to be observed and studied).
Disclosure Day is pretty similar. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) and Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) were briefly abducted by the aliens as children and given abilities to help them communicate with humanity, chosen for a purpose they wouldn’t fully comprehend until years later.
Likewise, both Disclosure Day and Close Encounters utilize alternate forms of communication. With Close Encounters, it was lights and sounds. In Disclosure Day, it’s mathematics as the universal language, with Daniel receiving the ability to understand all kinds of complex equations. This allows humanity to understand the aliens. Simultaneously, Margaret’s telepathic and empathic abilities would allow the aliens to better understand humans.
Reel 1 of 1 · 35mm How Well Do You Know Steven Spielberg? “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
JawsSmile, you son of a…
E.T.Phone home
Indiana JonesBelongs in a museum
Jurassic ParkHold on to your butts
Saving RyanEarn this
01
Jaws (1975) invented the summer blockbuster — partly because the three pneumatic sharks built for the shoot kept malfunctioning in Martha’s Vineyard’s salt water, forcing Spielberg to keep the creature offscreen. What nickname did the crew give the mechanical shark?
✓ Correct! Bruce — named after Spielberg’s lawyer, Bruce Ramer. Three 25-foot hydraulic sharks were built for about $250,000 each, and they kept sinking, shorting, and rusting. The forced minimalism (Williams’ dun-dun cue, a bobbing barrel, a ripple on the water) is now credited with making Jaws scarier than any visible shark could have. Pixar later named the shark in Finding Nemo “Bruce” as a tribute.
✗ Cut! The answer is Bruce — after Spielberg’s lawyer Bruce Ramer. “The Orca” was Quint’s boat. “Moby” and “Chompers” are red herrings. The three real hydraulic sharks kept breaking down so badly that Spielberg hid the shark for most of the film, which paradoxically became the masterstroke that invented modern suspense cinema.
02
In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Elliot lures the stranded alien out of the forest with a trail of candy. In one of film history’s most famous product-placement coups, Mars Inc. turned down the M&M’s offer, so Hershey’s swooped in — and sales of which sweet jumped around 65% overnight?
✓ Correct! Reese’s Pieces. Hershey’s paid roughly $1 million in promotional tie-ins (no upfront placement fee, but they agreed to run an E.T. marketing campaign) and watched sales explode as the film ran through summer 1982. It remains the textbook case taught in business schools for how screen placement can remake a product overnight. E.T. became the highest-grossing film of all time until Spielberg’s own Jurassic Park dethroned it in 1993.
✗ Cut! The answer is Reese’s Pieces. Mars Inc. turned down the M&M’s offer, reportedly because executives thought the alien was too ugly to associate with the brand — a decision they must have regretted all summer. Hershey’s took the deal, did about $1M in tie-in marketing, and saw Reese’s Pieces sales jump around 65%. It’s still the gold-standard case study in product placement.
03
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) nearly starred a different leading man. He’d already screen-tested with Karen Allen and signed on, but CBS refused to release him from his TV contract, so Harrison Ford was cast roughly three weeks before shooting. Who was the original Indy?
✓ Correct! Tom Selleck — locked in by CBS for Magnum P.I., which the network refused to delay. To twist the knife, a writers’ strike then pushed Magnum’s start back anyway, meaning Selleck would have been free in time. Harrison Ford (already Han Solo for George Lucas) stepped in late, and the rest is cinema history. Selleck has joked about it on every late-night circuit for 40 years.
✗ Cut! The answer is Tom Selleck. He had the part and the test footage with Karen Allen still exists. CBS wouldn’t let him out of Magnum P.I. — a writers’ strike then delayed the TV show anyway, which is the great “what if” of his career. Lucas and Spielberg turned to Harrison Ford, already lined up for Empire Strikes Back, just three weeks before Raiders began principal photography.
04
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) climaxes at Devils Tower as scientists greet the alien mothership by exchanging a five-note musical phrase — possibly the most famous handful of notes ever written for a film. The long-time Spielberg collaborator who composed it is…
✓ Correct! John Williams — Spielberg’s collaborator on nearly every film he’s made since The Sugarland Express in 1974. Williams reportedly tried hundreds of five-note combinations before Spielberg signed off on the Re-Mi-Do-Do-Sol sequence. Williams has five Oscars, 50-plus nominations, and his Spielberg credits include Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List and more.
✗ Cut! The answer is John Williams — the only composer Spielberg has really used across his career. Jerry Goldsmith scored Alien and Poltergeist. Hans Zimmer is the Nolan guy. James Horner did Titanic and Avatar. Williams alone has scored nearly every Spielberg film since 1974 and personally wrote the five-note Close Encounters motif after trying hundreds of alternatives.
05
Jurassic Park (1993) was adapted from a 1990 novel whose author insisted on writing the first screenplay draft himself. Spielberg paid $1.5 million for the rights before the book was even published. Who wrote it?
✓ Correct! Michael Crichton — the Harvard-trained physician-turned-novelist who also wrote The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere, Disclosure and Rising Sun, and created ER. He sold Jurassic Park to Spielberg pre-publication. David Koepp rewrote Crichton’s draft into the film’s shooting script. The novel and film were such a phenomenon that Crichton wrote a sequel, The Lost World, explicitly because Spielberg asked for one.
✗ Cut! The answer is Michael Crichton. He wrote the novel in 1990, Spielberg bought the rights pre-publication for $1.5M, and Crichton did the first screenplay draft before David Koepp took it over. Crichton also created ER and wrote Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere, Disclosure and more. Stephen King, Clancy and Grisham are all bestsellers of the same era, but Jurassic Park is pure Crichton.
06
After a decade of being nominated and shut out by the Academy, Spielberg finally won his first Best Director Oscar in March 1994. The film — shot in Poland, mostly in black and white — also won Best Picture. Which one was it?
✓ Correct! Schindler’s List — which swept the 1994 Oscars with seven wins, including Best Picture and Spielberg’s first Best Director statue. He famously shot it in 72 days for about $22 million in parallel with prepping Jurassic Park, and took no salary. He’d later win a second Best Director for Saving Private Ryan (1998). The Color Purple went 0-for-11 at the Oscars in 1986 — one of the most notorious snubs ever.
✗ Cut! The answer is Schindler’s List. The Color Purple (1985) got 11 nominations and won zero. Empire of the Sun (1987) went home empty too. Amistad (1997) was respected but not a Best Director winner. Schindler’s List won seven Oscars in 1994 — Best Picture, Best Director and more — finally breaking Spielberg’s decade-long Academy drought.
07
Saving Private Ryan (1998) opens with a harrowing, nearly 24-minute combat sequence that veterans described as the most realistic war footage ever put on film. Which June 6, 1944 landing does it recreate?
✓ Correct! Omaha Beach — the bloodiest of the five D-Day sectors, where US forces took catastrophic casualties in the opening hours. Spielberg filmed the sequence on Curracloe Strand in Ireland with around 1,000 extras, desaturated the film stock, and removed the protective shutters from cameras to capture that signature jittery, hand-held look. The Ryan opening is routinely voted one of the greatest battle scenes in film history.
✗ Cut! The answer is Omaha Beach. Iwo Jima and Okinawa were Pacific, 1945. Sword Beach was the British D-Day sector. Omaha was the bloodiest of the Normandy landings, and it’s where Spielberg’s shaky-cam, desaturated, shutter-stripped sequence is set — shot on Curracloe Strand in Ireland with about 1,000 extras, many of them Irish Defence Forces reservists.
08
In 2022 Spielberg finally told his own origin story — a young Jewish boy named Sammy who falls in love with filmmaking, watches his parents’ marriage fracture, and learns that a camera can both reveal and lie. Michelle Williams got an Oscar nom for playing the mother. What’s the film called?
✓ Correct! The Fabelmans — co-written with his Lincoln and Munich collaborator Tony Kushner. Paul Dano plays the father (based on Spielberg’s engineer dad Arnold), Michelle Williams plays the mother (based on his artist mum Leah) and earned a Best Actress Oscar nom, Gabriel LaBelle plays young Sammy/Steven, and David Lynch cameos as John Ford in the film’s stunning final scene. Seven Oscar nominations in total, including Picture and Director.
✗ Cut! The answer is The Fabelmans. “Amblin” is the name of his 1968 short and his production company, not this film. The Fabelmans (2022), co-written with Tony Kushner, dramatises Spielberg’s New Jersey-to-Arizona-to-California childhood with the family name lightly fictionalised. It earned seven Oscar nominations including Picture, Director and a Best Actress nod for Michelle Williams.
End of Reel · House Lights Up Your Director’s Cut
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Amblin auteur — or still shooting the first act?
There are also several visual similarities between all three films. The gray aliens depicted in Disclosure Day bear a strong resemblance to the extraterrestrials seen in Close Encounters. In both movies, several smaller aliens are shown along with a singular alien who’s much taller.
Likewise, much of the classified archived footage released to the public at the end of Disclosure Day features some pretty familiar imagery. Various shots of UAPs and spacecraft witnessed by Air Force pilots appear as glowing balls of light, while others look to be massive motherships with multicolored lights across their surfaces, not unlike the ships seen in Close Encounters and E.T.
There are also some key echoes of E.T. throughout Disclosure Day. After all, the abilities given to Margaret by the extraterrestrials, as well as the power from the alien devices, are more wondrous, not unlike E.T.’s healing powers, telekinesis, and empathic connections.
Disclosure Day Truly Is The End Of Spielberg’s Unofficial Alien Trilogy
Mystery and wonder are definitely the true throughline across all three films. Unlike Spielberg’s adaptation of War of the Worlds with its themes of survival in the face of invading extraterrestrial forces, the aliens in Close Encounters, E.T., and now Disclosure Day are all peaceful. They’re seeking to learn, communicate, guide, and teach, reinforcing the longstanding extraterrestrial theme from Spielberg, which is shared by the aliens in Disclosure Day itself: “Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know.“
Spielberg has repeatedly described Disclosure Day as the third chapter in an unofficial trilogy that began with Close Encounters and continued with E.T. While the three films don’t share any direct narrative connections, they clearly explore different aspects of the same overarching question about how humanity would react to extraterrestrial life. From movie to movie, they’re clearly all part of the same continuous conversation.
Emily Blunt doing a newscast in Disclosure Day
Disclosure Day adds to this conversation by fully examining the global paradigm shift that would undoubtedly occur the moment the existence of extraterrestrial life was publicly confirmed. Nearly every aspect of society would be forced to reevaluate, though Spielberg notably has the optimism to hope that it would be for the better. It’s why there’s a heavy implication at the movie’s end that humanity’s discovery that it’s not alone halts the imminent start of WWIII.
The argument is that just like these aliens who believe that empathy and understanding are an evolutionary advantage, humanity could reach that same level of understanding if it could just collectively listen and look beyond itself. Keeping that in mind, if this truly is Steven Spielberg’s final word on alien life, Disclosure Day is not a bad way to bring the decades-long conversation to an end.
Disclosure Day is now playing in theaters from Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures.
