Steven Spielberg just revealed Disclosure Day aliens echo the haunting descriptions from Zimbabwe’s Ariel School sighting. Spielberg has spent his career turning humanity’s hopes and fears about “visitors” into cinema, from the wonder of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to the awe and dread of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the chaos of War of the Worlds.

Few directors are as closely associated with the idea that we are not alone, or as skilled at making those encounters feel intimate and plausible. Now, with Disclosure Day, he is returning to alien territory once again, and this time he says his designs are rooted not just in imagination, but in real-world UFO testimony.

Speaking with Rachel Abrams on The Daily, Spielberg explained that he wanted Disclosure Day’s aliens to feel grounded in what people actually claim to have seen.

“I had to base our aliens on what people have reported who claim to have had close encounters of the third kind. And there is a consistency in the reporting.”

Instead of inventing an entirely new creature, he combed through decades of accounts from around the world, looking for recurring details that could anchor his designs in something that felt eerily familiar to believers and skeptics alike. In the interview, he referenced the work of Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack, who investigated that case on the ground.

“He went to Zimbabwe to the aerial school where 65 school children saw a craft land and saw beings come out of that craft and they all described the eyes that were completely hypnotic and the eyes were wraparound eyes.” Spielberg recalled on The Daily podcast.

Those descriptions, especially the unsettling “wraparound” eyes, fed directly into how he conceived the beings in Disclosure Day, blending his long-standing fascination with close encounters with some of the most haunting real-world UFO testimonies on record.

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That blending of testimony and storytelling feeds directly into how audiences are now responding to the film.

Despite mixed reviews, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day has arrived with a strong global debut, quickly becoming the number one movie worldwide. In North America, the film opened to about $44 million, topping the domestic box office and marking one of Spielberg’s strongest openings for an original project in recent years. The performance aligned with expectations while comfortably leading the weekend.

International markets pushed the film even higher. Disclosure Day earned roughly $48.8 to $48.9 million across 73 territories, bringing its global total to around $ 92.8 to $ 92.9 million. It claimed the top spot in countries including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Brazil, and Australia, and emerged as the leading Hollywood release in China.

While the numbers do not reach the scale of Ready Player One, industry observers view the result as a solid win for a more restrained alien thriller. Early tracking had suggested a lower opening range, making this performance a positive surprise. With steady word-of-mouth and Spielberg’s enduring pull, the film is positioned to remain a major presence through the summer.

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What do you think about Spielberg using real UFO accounts to shape Disclosure Day? Let us know in the comments.