Steven Spielberg Confirms Reagan Extraterrestrial Comment

Originally posted by cripmeister
Reagan was an actor before he got into politics. It sounds like he just made a joke.

Something about this whole story just seems really fishy to me. From Spielberg's retelling of the story, it seems like nothing in Reagan's mannerisms when delivering the line made it seem like a joke. I would expect Spielberg, being a director and therefore a student of human mannerisms, to be quite good at determining a person's true intentions.

But in the article, Spielberg gives no explanation for why he thinks Reagan was joking. The only logic I'm seeing for why it was a joke is:

1. The President would never make a comment like that in seriousness (this is implied, not stated)
2. People laughed afterwards (which would be driven by point 1 anyway)

It probably was a joke, but I'm not seeing overwhelming evidence beyond 'come on, really?' for why this is the case.

Considering Spielberg's past works, and now with Super 8 being released, one wonders if he's more than just "a little bit of a ufologist".

I wouldn't have thought much of it until I remembered Reagan's "alien threat" remarks in at least five of his speeches. I don't know what it will take to get people to believe in UFOs. The problem is if a credible person says they are real, people just say the person is joking. Seeing an alien in person wouldn't do it because people would say its a child in a costume or something. There will never be enough proof for some skeptics


Of course there have always been rumors that Spielberg got ideas for some of his movies from "people in the know" in fact the 1977 movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is said to have been based on a real event. The USAF and NASA declined to cooperate on the film which raises red flags in my mind

Here is the list of the people that attended the screening with President Reagan , and may have been the people in the know according to Reagan , If it wasn't a joke .

Astronauts, Colonel Joseph Engle and Captain Richard Truly

There are no records of either of these gentlemen having any knowledge of UFOs or extraterrestrials, unless you assume all astronauts are aware of such things. Although, of the two, Truly is the most likely to have possibly been later “read in” to such programs, as he eventually retired a Vice Admiral of the Navy was the first commander of Naval Space Command, and the eighth Administrator of NASA (1989-1992).

NASA Administrator James Beggs
Deputy Director of the CIA 1972 to 1976 ..Vernon Walters
Reagan’s Chief of Staff .. James Baker.
USAF Colonel and astronaut..Col. Joseph Engle
Aviator, and Astronaut ..Captain Richard Harrison Truly

FOI List ...pdf
www....(nolink)/wp-content/uploads/WH-ET-Movie-1982-list.pdf
Source

Originally posted by thedeadwalkk
If only Spielberg did this when Reagen was alive

Before or after Reagen's alzheimers?

reply to post by gortex


So, he told a joke, but because he did not laugh or smile as he told it, it must have been serious? You guys realize he was an actor right? Lots of actors and especially comedians, tell jokes that way.....

Even I do... Hell, Sometimes I give people a hard time for laughing at their own joke.

It has been said for a long time that Close Encounters was based on a true story, not the Dryfuss character, but the meeting. Stevie is one of the few that gets to put out the coded stuff, Kubrick did, Cameron does. His influence on certain kinds of movies is far greater than you might think, especially concerning a couple of summer movies/programs that have a certain theme, I know this to be the case as fact. He is, was, very insistent on the story lines and themes being a certain way, very....

I say this because Reagan's comment wasn't news to him.