Note to others: This webpage was made for my Aunt and mostly my uncle who worked with Steven Speilburg on "Disclosure Day" and is meant to convince my uncle that there is good evidence for UFOs being "real" and that Speilburg knows more than an "average person" which is something he's claimed in the past. My Uncle's name professional name is William Ross if you're curious in what capacity he worked on "Disclosure Day."
This button would take you to my main UFO/UAP page. to get back here you would have to use the drop down menu at the top of the page
Bill and Carol. I made a webpage for you both. Bill seemed to like The Age of Disclosure per our phone conversation and so I thought I would put out info on more of one of my favorite topics/hobbies to research and try to learn about. Most of the videos are really just for documentation and I would only suggest watching the first tic-tac video and the Ariel School video (if you want to put in the time), with one must watch video as well. However, feel very very free to watch any of the other stuff too. The first section is about Spielberg's connection to 2 huge names in the UFO field during his making of Close Encounters and why I think he probably actually does know more than the average person, or has a very high opinion of what the average person in knows of this field. Once you understand who J. Allen Hynek was (he's passed) there is a must watch video in that section labeled as such. The second section is about the 2004 Tic Tac incident which is super interesting and well documented. I think it's probably the best modern sighting case of all because of the variety and quality of witnesses and observational methods. The third section is about Foo fighters, and other phenomenon with the point being that for quite some time now there have been craft outperforming our planes and our materials sciences such that it's hard to believe they are drones or advanced tech from some other nation, if they've been around since at least the 50s. The next section, #4, is another video I would suggest: the Ariel School Phenomenon which is about a bunch kids in Zimbabwe in 1994 and what they experienced out in the countryside of Zimbabwe away from most cultural influences of the modern world. None of those kids has ever recanted their story: none. The 5th section is a foundational case in the "abduction" phenomenon and an interesting parallel, I think, between the descriptions by the couple Betty and Barney and the kids in Zimbabwe. Enjoy and thanks. ........Of course there is so much more to this whole field, but I didn't want to overdo it.
Section 1: Spielberg
Maybe Spielberg doesn't know this about the UFO community, but it is well known (and celebrated) in UFO research circles that he collaborated with Dr. J Allen Hynek for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He was close enough to Hynek that there is a Cameo of Hynek in Close Encounters (see below).
J. Allen Hynek got his Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Chicago and worked at Ohio State, later at the Smithsonian Observatory and finally at Northwestern. In 1948 he was hired by the USAF to study UFOs and felt the subject was ridiculous staying on through Project Sign, Project Grudge, and finally Project Blue Book. By the 60s Hynek had started to come to terms that some UFO witness were credible and there was really some type of phenomenon. In 1973 (4 years before Close Encounters would come out) he founded the "Center for UFO Studies." He also, it should be noted that he recognized the phenomenon as something "intelligent" but maybe more than just extraterrestrial: something he would share with his collaborator and UFO research legend Jacques Vallee, whom the French scientist in Close Encounters is modeled after.
Here is the link to the article below: https://www.history.com/articles/j-allen-hynek-ufos-project-blue-book but I think the Wikipedia article is more interesting. (no need to read all that unless you're interested).
What this is all getting to is I that think Steven knows more than the average person (maybe a lot more), or at the minimum has a very high ideal of what an average person knows about this subject.
Here's Spielberg saying he was very influenced by J. Allen Hynek and going on about how Hynek found similar events all over the world and became a convert to the idea that the government was hiding something and Richard Dreyfuss also saying "Hynek was a disbeliever who became a believer." (a must watch)
An intereview from 1977: the year Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind was released, with Hynek as a technical advisor. At 1hr 22min 30 sec in he says "The solid cases are certainly in the minority, but they are there...Those do represent some form of intelligence."
Hynek's book: one of the first UFO books I ever read. Published 4 years before Close Encounters came out. The is a re-release version. You can buy on Amazon. I think he published other stuff as well.
Very importantly, Spielberg has worked with Dan Farah before on Ready Player One. Dan Farah produced a UFO film called "The Phenomenon" in 2020, and was the producer and director of "The Age of Disclosure " late 2025. Interestingly Spielberg is making a movie "Disclosure Day" coming out in June 2026. Some people even think this is all part of a plan of "soft disclosure" to get people ready for eventual government disclosure with as little ontological and existential despair as possible... (you might like watching this video not just for the Spielberg and UFO content, but also because you worked on this movie w/Steven and others, and you'll get to see what the UFO community is thinking and wondering. Also, if you watch this, maybe watch the Fravor video [see section #2] first as he's featured in this)
Dr. Jacques Vallee has too big and winding of an academic career to just write up quickly, so I'll just hit on a few notes. He was the manager of the Stanford Computer Center, helped compile NASAs first detailed map of Mars, and worked as a senior investigator for the National Science Foundation. He's written numerous journal articles on scientific subjects and books on the UFO topic, at least 10 books. He talks about his discussions with Spielberg about the making of Close Encounters in which he tried to get Spielberg to consider interdimensional options for Non-Human Intelligences. In this video he starts talking about working with Spielberg on Close Encounters at about the 1:33 min mark.
Here's a video of Spielberg talking to Steven Colbert. It seems he follows pretty closely the whole situation? Maybe no more than me, but he has had access to some of the greatest minds in the field, so I really don't believe his statement "I know nothing more than the average person," unless his idea of average is someone who is quite well-read and informed on the subject.
Section 2: The Tic Tac
Perhaps the best modern sighting of a UFO is the "tic-tac" incident off the California Coast in 2004. Commander David Fravor, an F-18 pilot of the Nimitz Carrier group, the commander officer of the Black Aces Squadron, and Top Gun graduate was sent to chase a radar contact from the USS Princeton Cruiser that it picked up using their top of the line SPY-1 radar. The Princeton had been tracking object(s) for a few days going from 80,000 feet to near sea level in under a second. They thought it might be an error and ran a diagnostic check. Later, when a fighter exercise was scheduled they sent Fravor and his wing person Lt. Alex Dietrich to investigate. They saw an object hovering over the surface of the water he described looking like a giant "tic-tac" with no control surfaces, inlets or any other surface features. He went down to investigate and the object mirrored his movements, climbing up seemingly to meet him, but then shot off reappearing 60 miles away in seconds. Fravor testified under oath to all of this in congress. Dietrich came out later and finally did some interviews, and since then both Princeton radar operators (now retired) have come out and testified to their tracking. An E-2 Hawkeye radar plane tracked the object as well, but the pilots remain silent (I think they're still active duty). More, both Fravor and Dietrich had backseat operators in their planes who saw what they saw and later, another F-18, piloted by Chad Underwood, came and took FLIR infra red video of the (or similar) object speeding along. The video to the right is the 60 Minutes segment with both Fravor and Dietrich speaking on the event. (suggest watching)
To Fravor's believability, he has never openly profited off his story, and his story is consistent over the years. However, Alex Dietrich also seems very believable and her initial reluctance and the way she comes across, along with the fact she is a formal naval aviator makes her a very believable witness and her story has also remained consistent over the years. This is a viddo of just Dietrich speaking on the event.
Just for documentation, here are both the radar operators of the USS Princeton which again uses one of the most advanced radars in the world talking about multiple contacts of objects moving in ways (acceleration and deceleration) that would tear apart any person or even materials we currently know of. Not uninteresting to me: but I just put it as documentation of them testifiying to what they saw.
Here is the famous "tic-tac" video taking by Chad Underwood from his FLIR pod.
Here is an interview of him speaking of what he encountered: https://news.sky.com/story/it-was-behaving-erratically-us-navy-pilot-speaks-out-about-ufo-sighting-15-years-on-11891191
It states: The pilot captured what Mr Fravor had described as a 40-foot long white, oblong shape on his FLIR (forward-looking infrared camera). Mr Underwood added the object was hovering somewhere between 15,000 and 24,000 feet in the air, while exhibiting no notable exhaust fumes from conventional propulsion sources...."Because, aircraft, whether they're manned or unmanned, still have to obey the laws of physics. They have to have some source of lift, some source of propulsion. The Tic Tac was not doing that. It was going from like 50,000ft to, you know, 100ft in like seconds, which is not possible."
Section 3: Foo Fighters
During WWII both Allied and Axis pilots saw "balls of light" and other shiny objects fly around their planes in formation. There were no drones then. The military took the sightings seriously, suspecting that the mysterious sightings might be secret German weapons, but further investigation revealed that German and Japanese pilots had reported similar sightings.[15] (if you click on this it will take you to the Wikipedia entry on Foo Fighters and from there you can easily check primary sources used if so inclined)
Here are two other wiki articles of UFO incidents in which radar contact was made, jets scrambled, visual contact was made and then the object significantly accelerated away as speed impossible for any man-made vehicle that's ever been built. Of course you can find articles and interviews with people from these incidents: but Wikipedia is a good overall telling and a lot of the best primary sources are linked and cited from Wikipedia's article. Of note they are both well before modern drone technology was possible and we still can't make anything the can do what these radars and pilots seemingly saw, just like Cmdr Fravor years later.
Here is a video from the History Channel about the Foo Fighters (the phenomenon, not the band), and the Wikipedia article on them.
Section 4: The Ariel School Phenomenon: Documentary (suggest watching)
Ariel Phenomenon (2022) 1080p WEBRip x265 An0mal1.mkvThis documentary on on The Ariel School Phenomenon. It was a mass sighting by a bunch of kids in Ruwa Zimbabwe in 1994 who claimed to have seen a UFO and ETs around the craft. I would suggest you watch the documentary (it's neat to see what the kids drew). It features John Mack, the head of Harvard's Psychiatry Department at the time a who went into the subject of UFOs thinking the people were suffering from a mental condition and concluded they really were having experiences so some type... Most importantly, none of the kids, now grown, have ever recanted their story. (suggest watching but only if you're down to watch a documentary: click the black box)
Section 5: Betty and Barney Hill
Betty and Barney Hill claimed in 1961 to have been "abducted" and communicated with by apparent aliens with big eyes and black uniforms . It's a very famous case. What's interesting is that beings they claimed to have seen are similar to the ones at the rural Ariel school in Zimbabwe and by girls and others in a small town in Brazil. It's highly almost impossible to think all these people had the same pop culture influences.
Video for information purposes.
Drawing by Barney hill under hypnosis.
Drawing by a kid in Zimbabwe who has almost for sure never heard of Betty and Barney Hill and probably hasn't much knowledge of the popular cultural idea of aliens. Notice their drawing of an alien with pupils and a black suite (just like Betty and Barney Hill described them).
This is a drawing created by a sketch artist of what 3 rural girls in Brazil said they saw. Now adults they haven't recanted. Some people who have come forward saw these beings too and all described them the same including the neurosurgeon who just came out recently after having a heart-attack and saying he didn't want to take the secret to his grave.
. This if the IMDB page for the Netflix show to be put out by the Obama's production company about the Betty and Barney Hill case. It's been seemingly lagging and maybe will come out in 2026? You can click to enlarge (I think)
The end....
