Disclosure Day

Earlier this week, Nora and I went to see the new Steven Spielberg movie, Disclosure Day. If you haven't seen it and are planning to, you may not want to read the rest of this post, as I will be discussing the plot and ending.

For those of you who don't plan on seeing it, or at least not for a while, the essential plot of the story is that aliens have indeed visited Earth, and that the evidence of these visits has been purposely kept secret for many decades.

The movie focuses on four people, the man who leads the organization that has maintained the alien secret, a man who works for that organization but has decided that the secret needs to be revealed, and two people who were abducted by the aliens when children. Interestingly, while the movie kind of alludes to the fact that there may be others who were taken by the aliens, it is the two people mentioned above who are the focus of the search by the man who seeks to reveal the truth, because they are special.

Margaret, played by Emily Blunt, is a weather girl who, as we slowly learn, has been searching for something but has not known what it was, only that she would know when she found it. Noah, played by Colin Firth, is the head of the organization keeping the secret. Hugo, played by Colman Domingo, is the man who seeks to make public the alien secret. Daniel, played by Josh O'Connor, is a mathematician who also works for the secret organization (named Wardex). As the movie progresses, we learn that Hugo specifically recruited Daniel to work at Wardex because he suspected his incredible mathematical acumen was imbued (the word they use in the movie) by the aliens precisely so he could translate their math based language into English. 

As we quickly learn, Daniel has stolen the archival videos which prove alien presence on Earth. 

Additionally, Hugo suspects there is another person he needs to find, and when Margaret speaks an alien language during a weather report, Hugo realizes she is that other "special" person.

Anyway, lots of action as Noah's team seeks to kidnap Daniel and Margaret to silence them, while Hugo's team seeks to hide them. Eventually, it all comes down to the final scene where Margaret and Daniel take over her TV station to reveal the secret by playing the archival videos that Wardex has been hiding which prove not only aliens arrival (At Roswell, New Mexico), but also that the government has been reverse engineering their technology to drive many new advances, has tortured the aliens for information, and (as the last scene reveals) has kept one alien alive all these years.

A few interesting aspects of the movie. The main reason behind keeping secret that aliens have visited Earth seems to be the fear that such knowledge, which challenges all sorts of beliefs, religion based especially, would prove to be too disruptive for average people to handle, would cause chaos and societal breakdowns. 

In fact, Daniel's girl friend, a woman we find out was once training to become a nun, makes just that point. Curiously, when she flees to the monastery where she once lived, she has a conversation with the mother superior in which she asks, straight out, if knowledge of aliens, and the corresponding belief that we are not alone in the universe, would challenge her faith that man is the pinnacle of God's creative work since the revelation of the alien's superior intelligence could be said to contradict that tenant. 

When the mother superior answers that in Genesis, man is referred to as the pinnacle of God's creative work on Earth, the young woman is satisfied, and eventually helps Daniel reveal the alien secret. When I googled this assertion, I didn't find that distinction, although, depending on which bible version you read, there is mention of Earth in the genesis story, as well as the universe. 

But, then again, this is a Hollywood production so....

Another interesting point is the emphasis on empathy in this movie. In fact, it appears that, contrary to Elon Musk's assertion that empathy is ruining/will lead to the downfall of Western Civilization, the movie makes it very clear that without empathy, humanity may not only not survive, but that we can't hope to achieve the level of advancements that have been attained by the aliens.

Once Margaret's power is revealed to her and us, the ability to (metaphorically) walk in the shoes of anyone she encounters, she becomes a positive force to all those people, in one case telling one of her associates at the TV station to go to her sister and protect her from her abusive husband. Later, the woman thanks Margaret for the advice, telling her that her sister, and her children, are safe.

Empathy. 

I posted about this topic last September. Here is a link. 

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2025/09/empathy-revisited.html  

Oddly, after just reading it, I state as clearly as Disclosure Day, that I believe that without a strong sense of empathy, both individually and nationally, humanity is doomed to remain in a state where the strong brutalize the weak, a prospect I believe interferes with the advancement of our communal spirituality, and hence our humanity. Or to put it more bluntly, imagine all the great achievements that do not occur, simply because the people who might make them happen are dismissed due to their skin color, country of birth, gender identification, or whom they choose to love. Talk about leaving a lot on the table!

It is not surprising that Spielberg would present aliens visiting Earth as a positive event, and that man, specifically men who represent our government, would be cast as the antagonists. Still, he allows for some doubt to be expressed by those on the periphery of revealing the "truth", while presenting solid reasoning for why those who wish to suppress the presence of aliens, are ultimately wrong in their belief that humanity couldn't handle the revelation. He seems to illustrate this realization at the end when Hugo, after spending his entire life keeping secret alien presence on Earth, simply sits by while the last few scenes unfold, perhaps finally realizing he has been wrong all along.

As the final scene plays out, the scene where the alien who had been kept alive all these years, is displayed, live, on TV for all to see, who then stands before the two people who had been imbued with the unique traits that would culminate in this very scene, there our multiple views of random people throughout the world, watching the scene, calmly, almost reverently, as they absorb the meaning of the reality of alien life on Earth, as well as the interplay between the two Earthlings and the alien.  

I am sure that at many points in my past writings, I would have agreed with this premise, would have high fived such a conclusion, that we can handle the truth about not being alone in the universe. In fact, I believe than many people do concur, that the Creator would not have fashioned such a huge existence, literally trillions of light years large, and only placed one planet within it capable of sentient life. Of course, understanding the unfathomable, the big why of life and the motive behind our creation, let alone that of the universe, is by its definition not possible. Only conjecture, somewhat like two fleas discussing the small area in which they exist on the body of a large mammal, or two fish ruminating about their situation while in the bowels of a humpback whale.

Still, perhaps that is part of the point, that we can't really know why, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use the brains we were given to speculate.

Sadly, as I see the most powerful nation on Earth being led by someone who actively denies the destruction we are causing on our home, who pretends that out of control wild fires, scorching heat domes, melting ice caps, are all fake news, added to the fact that we knew all this about him yet elected him anyway, makes me wonder if knowledge of aliens on Earth would fall into the same news spins that occur with every topic discussed, and that the two divergent view points that always emerge with any discussion, would be repeated again. 

No unity, no understanding that many of our foundational concepts need to be rethought, no coming together to evaluate who we are and why we exist. Just further division, further us vs them, further declarations of who to blame or who to kill. Further proclamations by the man who would be king as to what to think.

The very last scene of the movie, after the alien appears to communicate, non-verbally with Margaret and Daniel, Margaret strolls to a point in front of the cameras, a portal to virtually all those around the world who have been entranced by the meeting of her, Daniel and the alien, opens her mouth and says

"Listen."  

The movie ends, leaving us to reflect on what she might say, what she might impart from what was told to her by the alien.

Again, Spielberg asks us to use a trait that is not necessarily a strong point for our culture. To put aside our own egos, to stop telling others what they need but instead, to listen to what they say. Or, even harder, to acknowledge that all the accumulated knowledge of Earth, may be insufficient for understanding the big why.

Then again, maybe there is nothing after "listen". That the word itself is the key to bridging the gaps, to reducing the partisanship rhetoric, to uniting the 8 plus billion people who reside on this blue ball floating in space within one of billions of solar systems within one of billions of galaxies.

That we are both minuscule within this cosmos and also unique, but that we can succeed, if only we would listen, listen to each other and listen to Mother Earth as she repeatedly warns us about the damage we are doing to our planet.

Listen.