Disclosure Day vs Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The CE3K mothership is an iconic circular craft covered in brilliant lights, descending from the sky over Devils Tower, Wyoming. Its saucer-like silhouette with a domed underside became one of the most recognizable spaceship designs in cinema history. Designed by Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Alves.

The Super Bowl trailer reveals a massive craft hovering over a city with a design that unmistakably mirrors the CE3K mothership — circular form, brilliant underlighting, and overwhelming scale. Fans immediately noted the visual echo. The design is too specific to be coincidence.

John Williams composed the legendary five-note communication signal — D, E, C, C (octave lower), G — used by scientists to communicate with the alien visitors. It became one of the most recognizable musical phrases in film history and a symbol of peaceful first contact.

Williams came out of retirement at age 93 to score Disclosure Day — his 30th collaboration with Spielberg. In January 2026, Williams attended a BSO concert featuring his CE3K suite, widely seen as a nod to the new film. If the five-note motif appears in the Disclosure Day score, it would be the strongest evidence of a direct connection.

Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is an everyday electrical lineman in Indiana who has a close encounter with a UFO. He begins experiencing compulsive visions — sculpting Devils Tower in mashed potatoes, drawing the shape obsessively — implanted by the aliens as a signal. He is chosen, not by governments, but by the visitors themselves.

Emily Blunt plays a Kansas City meteorologist who is possessed during a live broadcast, speaking in alien clicks on camera. Like Neary, she is an ordinary person used as a conduit for alien communication — not a scientist, not a government agent, but someone the aliens choose to speak through.

The U.S. military orchestrates a massive cover-up around Devils Tower, faking a toxic chemical spill to evacuate civilians and keep the alien landing secret. Scientists like Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut) work within the system, but the government's default position is concealment. Only a select few are allowed to witness the truth.

The title itself is a statement: "Disclosure Day" implies a reckoning with government secrecy. Josh O'Connor's character declares "The truth belongs to 7 billion people" — positioning the film as a direct confrontation with institutional cover-ups. The trailer shows military response, suggesting the government has been keeping alien truth hidden.

While CE3K does not feature crop circles per se, the film popularized the idea that aliens leave physical marks on Earth as communication. The implanted visions of Devils Tower serve the same narrative function — patterns imposed on the landscape and the human mind as a message. The film sits at the origin point of the "aliens communicate through environmental patterns" trope.

The Super Bowl trailer shows massive crop circles appearing across farmland, clearly positioned as alien-made symbols. These crop formations are a visual communication method — the aliens are writing messages in the landscape itself. The imagery connects to the broader alien reveal in the trailer.

CE3K ends with a secret disclosure — the alien arrival at Devils Tower happens out of public view. Only a handful of witnesses are present. The world at large never learns the truth. The film's emotional arc is about Roy Neary earning his way to that private revelation, but humanity as a whole is kept in the dark.

Disclosure Day appears to be the public version of that same event. The alien contact happens on live television. The trailer's closing line — "People deserve to know" — is a direct rebuttal of the CE3K approach. If CE3K asked "What if aliens came and the government hid it?", Disclosure Day asks "What if everyone found out?"

CE3K opens with the discovery of Flight 19 Navy Avengers in the Mexican desert — planes that disappeared in 1945. The film establishes a decades-long timeline of alien activity on Earth, with the government quietly tracking encounters going back to the post-WWII era. The Roswell incident (1947) sits squarely in this timeline, even though the film does not name it directly.

Disclosure Day's IMDb page includes a credit for a "1947 Excavating Soldier" — a role that unmistakably references the Roswell crash site. This places Disclosure Day in the same 1947 timeline, suggesting the film includes flashback sequences to the original crash. This is the single most explicit link between the two films.

CE3K is a standalone original film written and directed by Spielberg. It was never officially connected to any other Spielberg project — until now. For 49 years, it has existed as its own self-contained masterpiece, one of the most celebrated science fiction films ever made.

When asked directly whether Disclosure Day is connected to Close Encounters, screenwriter David Koepp refused to confirm or deny it. This is not a "no." In Hollywood, a non-denial is almost always a confirmation — especially when the evidence is this strong. If there were no connection, a simple denial would cost nothing.

Much of CE3K takes place in rural Indiana and Wyoming. Roy Neary lives in suburban Muncie, Indiana, and the climactic encounter occurs at Devils Tower in remote Wyoming. The heartland setting is essential to Spielberg's vision — aliens appearing not in cities, but in the quiet American landscape.

Emily Blunt's character is a Kansas City meteorologist, and the trailer shows crop circles forming across rural farmland. While the Super Bowl trailer also reveals urban scenes with ships over cities, the rural heartland imagery — fields, farms, open sky — mirrors CE3K's visual DNA. Spielberg returns to the American middle.

Roy Neary undergoes a profound psychological transformation after his encounter. He becomes obsessed, sculpts compulsively, hallucinates, and is consumed by visions he cannot explain. His family thinks he is losing his mind. The film treats alien contact as something that rewires human consciousness — not just a physical event, but a mental and spiritual one.

Emily Blunt's character is literally possessed on live television — her body and voice taken over by an alien intelligence. The trailer breakdown reveals that Colin Firth's character is shown with electrodes on his head, suggesting experiments with consciousness. Both characters experience states that go beyond normal human awareness.