The Aliens Are Here
The December 2025 teaser only hinted at something extraterrestrial. Emily Blunt's meteorologist began speaking in clicks during a live broadcast, and Josh O'Connor's whistleblower urged that "the truth belongs to 7 billion people." But we never saw them.
The Super Bowl LX trailer changed that. Debuted on February 9, 2026, the full trailer confirmed the alien presence in unmistakable terms: warships in the sky, crop circles in the fields, and a mothership design that sent the internet into a frenzy. After decades of hinting at this story, Steven Spielberg is showing us first contact on the grandest scale imaginable.
The Spaceship
The trailer's most talked-about images are the ships themselves. Massive warships hover over cities in sweeping shots that recall both Independence Day and Spielberg's own War of the Worlds — but with a crucial difference. These ships don't immediately attack. They wait. They watch.
And then there's the mothership. Fans noticed it immediately: the primary spacecraft design bears a striking resemblance to the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The same luminous, disc-like structure. The same overwhelming scale. The resemblance is too specific to be coincidental — and it has ignited one of the biggest fan debates of 2026.
Close Encounters Connection
The identical spaceship design raises an electrifying question: is Disclosure Day set in the same universe as Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
Whether Disclosure Day is a direct sequel, a spiritual successor, or simply Spielberg rhyming with his own legacy, the Close Encounters connection is real — and it elevates the stakes of this film enormously.
Signs of Contact
The Super Bowl trailer layers multiple forms of alien contact, each escalating the sense that something massive is unfolding:
What Are Their Intentions?
This is the question the trailer refuses to answer — and it's the most important one.
The warships hovering over cities suggest a potential threat. But they don't fire. The crop circles suggest communication. The possession of Blunt's character could be aggression — or it could be an attempt at contact through the only available channel.
Disclosure vs. Cover-Up
The trailer's tagline — "people deserve to know" — frames the core conflict not as humanity vs. aliens, but as disclosure vs. cover-up. The real battle may not be against the extraterrestrials at all. It may be against the institutions trying to keep their existence secret. That's classic Spielberg: the most dangerous enemy isn't the unknown — it's the people who want to keep you from knowing.
Spielberg's filmography offers no easy prediction. He's given us benevolent aliens (E.T., Close Encounters) and terrifying ones (War of the Worlds). Disclosure Day could go either way — or, more likely, somewhere far more complex than simple friend or foe.
Fan Theories
The alien reveal has generated a wave of fan speculation. Here are the leading theories:
Spielberg's Alien Legacy
Disclosure Day is the latest chapter in a career defined by humanity's relationship with the unknown. Spielberg has returned to extraterrestrial themes across five decades:
Each film reflects where Spielberg was as a filmmaker and where the world was culturally. Close Encounters emerged from post-Watergate idealism; War of the Worlds from post-9/11 anxiety. Disclosure Day arrives in an era of government whistleblowers, UAP hearings, and a public that increasingly demands transparency. The timing is not an accident.