title: Disclosure Day
date: Wed Jul 01 2026

# Disclosure Day

I saw Disclosure Day last night--Steven
Spielberg's new alien film.  The crux of
the film is whether humanity could be
trusted with the truth if it were
proveable that aliens exist and have
visited us.

In the film there is a character called
Jane, a Catholic, and ex-novitiate.  Her
part in the central question of the film
is first to give the religious side of
the argument: there is one God, and if
people found out about advanced aliens
they would lose faith in Him.  Then, and
you can feel Spielberg putting his own
beliefs into the mouths of the
characters here, through some
conversations with a Nun, she decides
that humanity is just one of many of
God's creations and so ultimately the
presence of aliens is nothing to worry
about.

A big part of the film relies on this
tension between faith and truth, and
what value we place on each.  On the
other side of the faith argument is the
online-conspiracy beliefs which I gather
from interviews with Spielberg he is
sympathetic to.  Summed up, these people
believe: aliens have visited the Earth;
governments, particularly the US
government, cover this up to hide the
truth; that aliens may shape events on
Earth to some extent; that aliens take
some humans on board their ships and
experiment on them.

Spielberg gives all this stuff extra
credence in the film by making it true.
But, thinking about people who believe
these things in real life, I was struck
by how much this is not in any tension
with faith at all--the basic conspiracy
idea is almost a perfect image of the
Christian faith.

The alien abduction experience is the
rapture experience; there is a great
place in the sky (except literally now)
where, if we could only get there, we
would be happy; forces on Earth hide
this truth from us; there is someone (an
alien, not Jesus now) who, when they
arrive, may lead us to that happy place
in the skies.  You see Spielberg's
belief in the healing power of the alien
conspiracy, where it is implied that the
revelation will stop the wars and
political strife which is going on in
the background of the film.

The conspiracy theorist is a religious
man, just one step removed.  Not
surprising then that people who engage
in conspiracy theories seem so ready to
bounce off ancient aliens and into the
occult, or personality cults.

Anyway, back to the film.  The first
scene where Emily Blunt's character is
able to read minds is played very well.
It would be easy for it to read like a
kind of trick she is pulling off--she is
great at getting across a sense that
what is happening to her is *strange*;
that it is something *other*.  That was
the best moment for me--a lot of the
rest sometimes stretches your ability to
suspend your disbelief.

In a film where aliens possess people,
the hardest thing to believe was that a
squad of agents could not see or hear a
man panting behind a wooden fence five
metres behind them.