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Hello Wednesday!
Hello, Curse and Coffee friends,
Today, we explore Spielberg’s UFO return.
Hit reply and let us know what you think (we read all of your kind words).
Coffee at the ready…
The Big Sip
The take: The man who invented cinematic first contact is returning to a genre that became a government programme.
What happened: Steven Spielberg released the first trailer for "Disclosure Day" on Tuesday. A UFO film starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, and Colin Firth, set for June 12, 2026.
Why it matters: In 1977, Close Encounters was fiction. In 2025, "disclosure" is a Congressional agenda item. Whistleblowers testify under oath. The Pentagon stood up AARO in 2022 to investigate sightings. Spielberg built the template. Reality filled it in.
What to watch: The film releases in June 2026. Congress shows no signs of stopping its UAP hearings. Spielberg's fiction and Washington's investigations will run in parallel.
The tagline is "all will be disclosed."
Sponsor Break
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Here’s Your Brew
Spielberg's very first feature was a 1964 student film called Firelight—shot for $500, about scientists investigating strange lights in the sky. He was 17.
That became Close Encounters. Close Encounters became E.T.
E.T. became the template for every "what if they're already here" story Hollywood has told since.
Now the genre has a real-world counterpart.
In July 2023, a Pentagon whistleblower told Congress the U.S. government has recovered craft with "nonhuman origins."
In September 2025, an active-duty Navy official testified publicly about a "Tic Tac-shaped object" that emerged from the ocean with "no sonic boom or conventional propulsion signatures."
The Pentagon denies the extraterrestrial claims. Congress keeps scheduling hearings anyway.
Does wonder work the same way when the unknown has a classification level?
Two Sides, One Mug
Pro: Spielberg's cumulative box office exceeds $10 billion worldwide. No one alive is better at making audiences feel awe on cue.
Con: The Congressional hearings have their own footage now—Navy infrared videos, pilot testimony, Pentagon task forces. Fiction has to compete with sworn testimony.
Our read: Spielberg's job is to make sense of reality. Close Encounters was about obsession. This one's about what happens after the secret gets out.
Receipt of the Day
[Primary] House Oversight Committee hearing, July 26, 2023
"The technology that we faced was far superior to anything that we had. I'm not a UFO fanatic. But what we saw with four sets of eyes, we have nothing close to it."
Why it matters: That's retired Navy Commander David Fravor, describing a 2004 encounter with a "Tic Tac"-shaped object off the San Diego coast. The Pentagon released the video in 2020. Spielberg's fiction now has government footage for reference material.
Spit Take
John Williams is 93. This is his 30th Spielberg score. Their partnership has outlasted the Cold War. — Azat TV
Your Coffee Break Links (and water cooler chatter)
Variety: The logline: "If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?"
NPR: Pentagon insider Luis Elizondo at the November 2024 hearing: "We are not alone in the cosmos."
Wikipedia: Spielberg wrote the initial story treatment himself—this one's personal.
Join your team of caffeinated skeptics.
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