Steven Spielberg's "DISCLOSURE DAY"
“Brilliantly brings modern physics to life! Opens our minds to the existence of God.”
Stephen Meyer
Return of the God Hypothesis, The Story of Everything
The Invisible Everywhere: Believing Is Seeing presents the modern scientific evidence that shattered my lifelong atheism and opened my eyes to the existence of God.
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Movie Plot
In recent years Mr. Spielberg has not enjoyed the kind of phenomenal blockbuster dominance he did throughout the first three decades of his career. I loved ET and Schindler’s List. Filmmaking masterpieces.
His upcoming sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day offers us his vision of what would happen if suddenly humanity learned beyond any doubt that we are not alone.
The movie begins when meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) has a life-changing extraterrestrial encounter. As strange events spread across the globe, cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) uncovers evidence that governments have concealed the truth about ETs for decades. Together, the pair race to reveal this bombshell truth while being chased by people desperate to keep it hidden.
It’s not an original plot - in fact, it’s downright hackneyed - but the movie’s sure to make a fortune. Especially since Mr. Spielberg, who’s currently making the rounds hyping the movie, is shrewdly releasing it this weekend - right when the Trump administration is releasing long-concealed UAP sightings reports, which have ignited the public’s imagination.
In this letter I briefly explore the movie’s three main premises from the perspective of a scientist and Christian. And then I finish by telling you whether I plan to watch this big-budget summer flick.
I. Life Exists On Other Worlds?
In my own movie, The Invisible Everywhere, I explain the shocking discovery modern science has made regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial life: Against all odds, our universe - not just Earth - is tailormade for life. That means it’s absolutely possible - some argue, absolutely certain - there’s life on other worlds out there somewhere.
For more than 30 years, astronomers worldwide have searched for and currently claim to have identified more than 5,900 extraterrestrial planets (exoplanets). Only a few dozen, however, are roughly Earth-sized and have orbits within their star’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist - making them candidates for ETs.
All things considered - including our observations using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope - astronomers estimate our Milky Way alone might contain billions of potentially habitable planets. While we can’t actually determine if any of them harbors life - a virtually impossible task - this estimate suggests ETs might not be rare, but quite common.
II. We’ve Been Visited by ETs?
Even if ETs are everywhere, what’s the likelihood we can detect them and/or that any of them has actually visited our astronomically tiny orb? This is where fantasy (and wishful thinking) tends to come unglued from reality.
I had the rare privilege of being a grad student at Cornell right when the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (SETI) movement was launched. Its two principal founders, Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, were among the professors from whom I took classes. Frank was even on my PhD thesis committee.
In one of my exobiology classes, Frank taught us about “Drake’s Equation.” Mathematically, it looks like this:
N = R* × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L
Where:
N = Number of detectable civilizations currently existing in the Milky Way
R* = Average rate of star formation in the Milky Way (stars per year)
fₚ = Fraction of those stars that have planets
nₑ = Average number of potentially habitable planets per planetary system
fₗ = Fraction of habitable planets where life actually arises
fᵢ = Fraction of life-bearing planets where intelligent life evolves
f꜀ = Fraction of intelligent civilizations that develop detectable communication (or propulsion) technology
L = Average length of time such civilizations remain detectable (or viable)
In class, Frank estimated that N ≈ 1.
Based on decades of observing and theorizing about the heavens, we can take reasonable stabs at numerical values for these three parameters:
R* ≈ 1–3 new stars per year
fₚ ≈ 0.8–1.0 (i.e., most stars appear to have planets)
nₑ ≈ 0.1–0.5 (i.e., habitable-zone planets might be common)
Honestly, though, we have no real clue about what numerical values to assign to the other four parameters:
fₗ - How often does life arise?
fᵢ - How often does intelligence evolve?
f꜀ - How often does technology arise?
L - How long do technological civilizations survive?
Consequently, N can have any value from essentially zero to tens of thousands in our galaxy alone - which means many, many, many more than that throughout the universe as a whole.
However … some years ago I wrote a Fox News Op Ed on the Drake Equation, in which I explain that a group of Oxford University researchers make a compelling case for N = 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 (one hundredth of one trillionth trillionth trillionth) of a detectable civilization within our galaxy.
In plain English, they conclude:
“We find a substantial probability that we are alone in our galaxy, and perhaps even in our observable universe.”
In a universe tailormade for life, therefore, cool-headed scientific analysis leads a person to doubt that we’ve come into actual contact with ETs - either by our detecting their signals or by their visiting us in person.
My brilliant, legendary, pointedly open-minded professors Drake and Sagan agreed:
"No tangible evidence exists to suggest that we’ve ever been visited by an alien spacecraft. As strongly as I believe that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, I maintain that UFOs are not extraterrestrial visitors. They are the products of intelligent life on this planet."
Is Anyone Out There? (Delacorte Press, 1992; p 126)
"UFOs: The reliable cases are uninteresting and the interesting cases are unreliable."
Other Worlds (Bantam Books, 1975; p 114)
III. Do ETs Undermine the Bible?
Like everyone else on the planet, Christians wonder what it would mean if ETs actually do exist. Would it in any fundamental way clash with the Bible and the Christian worldview?