Spielberg at SXSW 2026 talks Obama & UFOs

Steven Spielberg was speaking at a seminar today in Austin as part of the Film portion of the 2026 South By Southwest festival.

The filmmaker is well known for his interest in the alien genre having made E.T., Close Encounters and War of the Worlds. He was also promoting his upcoming sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, about the global impact of UFO revelations.

Spielberg was asked about the recent comments by President Obama regarding the existence of UFOs and his own feelings on the subject.

“When President Obama made that comment, I thought, oh my God, this is so great for Disclosure Day,” exclaims Spielberg.

“And then two days later, he stepped back the comment and said, what he believed in was life in the cosmos, which of course, everybody should believe in, because no one should ever think that that we are the only, we are the only intelligent civilization in the entire universe.

“So I've always believed, even as a kid, that we were not alone.The big question is, are we alone now? And have we been alone over the last 80 years? And really, have we been alone over the last 3000 years?

“But my feeling is that what reinvigorated me in wanting to make the first UFO movie almost 50 years since Close Encounters was released in 1977, was when The New York Times came out in 2017.

“It was an article about the Navy pilot who was flying a Navy FA 18 F fighter jet off the Nimitz. The aircraft carrier Nimitz, and had seen something and essentially recorded it and reported it.

“It was leaked to The New York Times, and they wrote this very serious article about. Is there a cover up? Has the government or the military air force, the Navy been covering this up? It was just a fascinating story. And it completely rekindled my interest in this subject matter.

“And then, of course, there was a subcommittee hearing in 2023,” Spielberg continued. One person worked in intelligence, one was a Navy pilot and two were Navy were in the military. And it was a fascinating Q&A under oath.

“My feeling right now is this, I don't have any information exclusive to me that all of you here, if you read about this and have seen the plethora of documentaries about this dating back to 2018, with these documentaries really started to roll out, I don't know any more than any of you do, but I have a very strong sneaking suspicion that we are not alone here on earth right now. Maybe even today. And I made a movie about that.”

Disclosure Day is released June 12, 2026.