Close Encoun­ters: 50 years of UFO cinema

Ear­li­er this year, three ex-mil­i­tary offi­cers pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny to U.S. Con­gress detail­ing sight­ings of Uniden­ti­fied Anom­alous Phe­nom­e­na (“UAPs”, as UFOs are now called). Just like the one sparked by the Roswell inci­dent in the 1950s, we could be about to see a surge in films about UFOs (let’s face it – it’s catch­i­er than UAPs). Far from being pure escapist fan­ta­sy, sci­ence fic­tion has always been a way of talk­ing about the times we live in – what might our endur­ing inter­est in the propo­si­tion of alien vis­i­tors reveal about ourselves?

With Close Encoun­ters of the Third Kind (1977) Spiel­berg gave the world one of the defin­i­tive UFO movies. What’s curi­ous about this take – a work­ing-class fam­i­ly man becom­ing obsessed with fly­ing saucers – is the rel­a­tive lack of mil­i­tary involve­ment. When we aren’t fol­low­ing elec­tri­cian Roy Neary (Richard Drey­fuss), we’re watch­ing sci­en­tists scram­bling to inves­ti­gate the phe­nom­e­na, ready­ing to greet the vis­i­tors in peace. This is a film about excite­ment, not hos­til­i­ty. Roy races towards the aliens, not away. The UFOs them­selves are toy­like – mul­ti­coloured, bright and round, com­mu­ni­cat­ing through song, chil­dren chas­ing after them. In a con­ver­sa­tion between Roy and his wife, they are com­pared to com­fort food: ice cream cones, tacos and cook­ies. Con­sumerism looms large, ​‘60s opti­mism con­gealed into ​‘70s cap­i­tal­ist hum­drum, with Roy des­per­ate to escape the sub­urbs and per­pet­u­al day­time TV for a more stim­u­lat­ing life. ​‘It’s like Hal­loween for grown-ups’, says fel­low obses­sive Jil­lian (Melin­da Dil­lon) as they gaze up at the sky.

Spielberg’s next for­ay into sci­ence fic­tion, this time penned by Melis­sa Math­i­son, gave us anoth­er icon­ic sto­ry framed by UFOs. In E.T. the Extra-Ter­res­tri­al (1982), the alien ship resem­bles those from Close Encoun­ters, as charm­ing as the child­like beings that call it home, paint­ing rain­bows in its wake. It arrives to col­lect plants, steer­ing clear of humans and for­est fau­na. When a shad­owy mob caus­es E.T. to become strand­ed from his space­ship, it’s clear that UFOs aren’t the threat here, we are. With the excep­tion of Elliot’s moth­er, it’s an hour and 20 min­utes before we clear­ly see an adult’s face – their motives are cryp­tic and not to be trust­ed, with Elliot (Hen­ry Thomas) and E.T. form­ing a clos­er bond than the boy ever had with his absent father. Shots of exhaust pipes are con­trast­ed with E.T.’s veg­e­tar­i­an­ism and heal­ing pow­ers, show­ing adults to be igno­rant and less evolved. When Elliot shows E.T. the trea­sures in his room, he unknow­ing­ly gives exam­ples of war, the food chain, mon­ey and cars, echo­ing society’s mis­guid­ed val­ues. The gov­ern­ment is moti­vat­ed by own­er­ship rather than excite­ment or curios­i­ty, encap­su­lat­ing the ​‘80s ​“greed is good” men­tal­i­ty at the expense of liv­ing things.

In the ​‘90s, all inno­cence went out the win­dow. So far, nobody had dis­cussed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of inva­sion – in Roland Emmerich’s Inde­pen­dence Day (1996) it goes with­out say­ing. The first shot is an Amer­i­can flag plant­ed firm­ly on the Moon, before we move to sci­en­tists por­trayed much less favourably than in Spielberg’s films. The Pen­ta­gon is where the real work takes place and the mil­i­tary is very much in charge, with advi­sors rush­ing to brief the Pres­i­dent (Bill Pull­man) – an ex-fight­er pilot him­self. The Sec­re­tary of Defense lob­bies to blow up the space­ships, and who can blame him when these UFOs are omi­nous black slabs 15 miles in diam­e­ter, trail­ing storm clouds, block­ing out the sun? Para­noia is jus­ti­fied and ​“might is right” (the most cel­e­brat­ed part of the movie is when Will Smith punch­es an alien in the face). This is a UFO film made at ​“the end of his­to­ry” – West­ern lib­er­al democ­ra­cy emerg­ing from the Cold War triumphant.

By the time M Night Shya­malan made Signs (2002), things had shift­ed again in the Amer­i­can con­scious­ness. The sabre-rat­tling fades as we focus on the per­spec­tive of an ordi­nary fam­i­ly in rur­al Penn­syl­va­nia. The char­ac­ters are vul­ner­a­ble and con­fused, with nobody real­ly sure what the crop cir­cles are, or why 14 lights have appeared in the sky. Maybe it’s a hoax, maybe it’s the end of the world. The rea­son almost doesn’t mat­ter – in Signs extrater­res­tri­als are inci­den­tal. More impor­tant is the cen­tral ques­tion about faith: is it hol­low com­fort, or an essen­tial ingre­di­ent for sur­vival? In one of the film’s most chill­ing scenes, Gra­ham (Mel Gib­son), a priest who left the church after the sense­less death of his wife, tells his fright­ened younger broth­er Mer­rill (Joaquin Phoenix) ​‘There is no one watch­ing out for us, Mer­rill. We are all on our own.’ In a post‑9/​11 land­scape, this is less a sto­ry about vis­i­tors from out­er space and more about grief, faith through adver­si­ty, and com­ing togeth­er in a world turned upside down.

With Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016), UFOs were no longer part of an invad­ing force, with sci­en­tists (or rather aca­d­e­mics) back in the driver’s seat. Humans are now their own worst ene­my – what­ev­er war hap­pens will be of our own mak­ing. From the moment the ​“shells” arrive, peo­ple lose their minds. Fight­er jets roar over­head, cars crash as peo­ple rush to get home. The pub­lic loots shops and pan­ic buys gas, water and food. A group of rad­i­calised, alt-right sol­diers plant a bomb in one of the ships. It all seems quite like­ly, and close to the bone. Arrival came out at a time when Trump was in the ascen­dant, and Brex­it was on the hori­zon. There was a short­age of com­mon sense and good­will, and it felt as though some­thing of this mag­ni­tude was need­ed to make us coop­er­ate. With the arrival of the shells – crafts that omit no waste or radi­a­tion, which at first appear to resem­ble eggs or seeds – the world is able to see itself as a unit­ed plan­et for the first time, all nations agree­ing to put aside their dif­fer­ences to exchange knowl­edge for the bet­ter­ment of humankind. If only.

Jor­dan Peele’s Nope (2022) brings us more or less to the present day, with a film about show busi­ness, fame and our rela­tion­ship with nature. Suc­cess doesn’t come eas­i­ly for OJ (Daniel Kalu­uya) and Emer­ald (Keke Palmer), and the only hope of escap­ing the dai­ly grind is to become ​‘rich and famous for life’ with a UFO video – some­thing they’re pre­pared to risk their lives for. But this time we’re not deal­ing with a space­craft, the UFO the char­ac­ters are hunt­ing is a growl­ing, ter­ri­to­r­i­al ​‘ani­mal’ that ​‘thinks this is its home’. For once, the uni­verse doesn’t revolve around humans. This UFO hasn’t come to study us, attack us or save us from our­selves. Yes, it eats their hors­es and inad­ver­tent­ly kills their father, but cru­cial­ly this is a thing in itself, a zoomor­phic being lash­ing out at a species try­ing to exploit it. ​‘Any­thing with a spir­it can get broke,’ says unhinged cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Holst (Michael Win­cott), and break its spir­it they do, but not before Emer­ald tri­umphant­ly gets the evi­dence she needs to go on Oprah. Is this a hap­py end­ing or an indict­ment of our self-serv­ing, self-cen­tred inter­net age?

Sur­pris­ing­ly, the 2023 con­gres­sion­al hear­ing on UFOs didn’t hang around for long in the news cycle, swift­ly replaced by more earth­ly con­cerns. In the end, tes­ti­mo­ny about fly­ing saucers failed to bring excite­ment, pan­ic or even intro­spec­tion to a cyn­i­cal pub­lic. This indif­fer­ence also runs through the heart of Nope: when Angel (Bran­don Perea) makes an impas­sioned speech about the poten­tial won­ders and hor­rors of UFOs, OJ gives a dis­in­ter­est­ed one-word reply: ​‘Cool.’