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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
