|
Readers of
The UFO Chronicles
will have heard of, or already seen, Disclosure Day, Steven
Spielberg's latest feature film. It has started streaming online and is
likely to be watched by millions of viewers this year. |
By David Marks
The UFO Chronicles © All Rights Reserved 8-7-2026 |
Critical reception has been largely favorable. Reviewers have described the film as a blockbuster that manages emotional and thematic depth without sacrificing entertainment. Several have singled out Emily Blunt's performance and the film's underlying faith in human goodness as its strongest elements. On craft alone, that praise is earned — the film is entertaining, visually impressive, and portrays extraterrestrial contact as benevolent. But that same benevolence is where it goes astray: the film feeds myths that don't serve the cause of genuine disclosure.
Disclosure Day broaches some important themes, offering plenty of food for thought about the intentions and effects of alien intervention on Earth. Yet it isn't a documentary — questions remain about how the film handles key elements of its plot — topics that the warmest critical responses have not scrutinized.
Consider its portrayal of a single individual as antagonist, leading a lone corporate entity that tries to stop the disclosure effort. Numerous whistleblowers and reports indicate that several large defense contractors have been handed responsibility for keeping information and evidence secret, under the direct supervision and involvement of the military and US government agencies. In the film, this company appears to operate on a US Air Force base with barely a uniformed officer in sight.
Military figures appear briefly; their concerns are summarily dismissed by assurances from corporate leadership that all is under control. This blurring entrenches the misconception that government officials and secret military operations aren't at the center of efforts to limit what the public is told. That's not a minor distinction — it's the government that protects the corporate entities it has empowered.
Spielberg also revives the mythology of the Men in Black films, though he inverts their premise. Where those films had the Men in Black protecting Earth from the worst of alien influence, in Disclosure Day their role is to stop the noble effort to release information about alien activity. This might be excused as dramatic license, but it flattens a topic that in reality has many shades of gray into a simple, polarized story.
Other liberties taken with the plot look like deliberate production choices rather than oversights. One is the film's minimization of the close relationship between UAP activity and Earth's nuclear weaponry. The story is set in the near future, where nuclear saber-rattling dominates the news — but this is never overtly connected to the disclosure effort. There's an acceptance that the visitors are benevolent, but the urgency for disclosure is dominated by humanity's right to know, not by any more pressing concern. In the few scenes that weigh the risks of disclosure, no one emphasizes the possibility that learning we're not alone might reverse the planet's headlong course toward self-destruction. Of all the film's omissions, this is the hardest to excuse — the connection between UAP activity and nuclear weapons is not speculative, but well documented.
Despite the best efforts of those trying to suppress the information, Disclosure Day celebrates its release to the public — but here again there's a strange twist: corporate television is the vehicle for that release. The storyline conveniently ignores the more likely reality that information of this magnitude would surface through the internet, rather than through the very institutions that have spent decades repressing and belittling the topic. Spielberg surely knows how few people still trust network news.
It's unlikely that any real disclosure event will resemble this film — it is, after all, only science fiction. That's not to say Disclosure Day isn't worth seeing, or that the critics praising its craft and heart are wrong to do so. But its seemingly minor liberties, taken together, raise questions about intent and add up to real disappointment for anyone hoping the film might rehearse an actual reckoning.
The film does contribute to an atmosphere of acceptance — but disclosure by files and footage and one word from an alien is easily dismissed. Genuine disclosure will mean live broadcasts of UAP landings and comprehensive interviews with those aboard, about their intentions and their understanding of reality.
Journalists are standing by for that moment — with a sense of responsibility to the truth.
–David Marks is a veteran investigative reporter and documentary producer and director; much of his work was for the BBC. His written series, “Are UFO’s, UAP’s Nuclear Sentinels?” for The UFO Chronicles and the Albuquerque Journal, covers the ongoing incursions into nuclear facilities.
For the past 79 years everyone is hoping for Disclosure by the government, so far it has not happened and never will. David Crusch & Elizondo are just wagging tongues but never show any evidence of UAPs.
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