Steven Spielberg tells Michelle Obama alien life must exist

Steven Spielberg told Michelle Obama on Wednesday that he believes life exists beyond Earth while discussing his upcoming UFO thriller "Disclosure Day," which examines whether aliens are already here.

"Barack was right when he said that he believes there is life out there," Spielberg said on Obama's podcast, "IMO."

"I think it’s mathematically and scientifically impossible that there isn’t life out there," the filmmaker added.

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Steven Spielberg joined Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson on their "IMO" podcast to discuss his upcoming UFO film "Disclosure Day" and his belief that life exists beyond Earth. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Spielberg said the larger question behind "Disclosure Day" is not only whether life exists beyond Earth, but whether advanced civilizations have already reached Earth.

"The big question remains, have they ever come here?" Spielberg said. "Or the other question is, are they here now? And that’s the question that my movie tries to answer."

Spielberg said the film marks a return to a subject he first explored in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," his 1977 movie about humanity's first contact with an advanced civilization from beyond Earth.

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Spielberg said his new movie explores what could happen if information about UFOs and possible alien contact were revealed to the public all at once. (Getty Images)

"I haven’t really visited that particular subject matter for close to 50 years," Spielberg said.

The filmmaker said "Disclosure Day" is less speculative than "Close Encounters," pointing to his interest in real-life UFO reports and the modern government term UAP, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.

"There’s a lot of ‘Close Encounters’ that I made up," Spielberg said. "But there’s a lot in ‘Disclosure Day’ that I don’t really feel I needed to make up."

Spielberg said his curiosity intensified after reports involving Navy pilots and footage captured on infrared systems.

"It was a story about what Navy pilots had photographed on their FLIR systems, their infrared systems, their forward-facing infrared systems of a UFO, now called a UAP," Spielberg said.

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The "Close Encounters" director said real-life reports involving Navy pilots and unexplained aerial phenomena helped fuel his return to the UFO genre. (Guvendemir/Getty Images)

The director said he still prefers the older term.

"I kind of like Unidentified Flying Objects," Spielberg said. "I know I like UFO better than [UAP]."

Spielberg said the film imagines what would happen if the public learned everything at once.

"Our movie is about what would happen if all this information was disclosed all at the same time," Spielberg said. "How would that affect everything?"

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Director Steven Spielberg directed and produced the 1982 hit classic "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." (Mark Sennet/Getty Images)

"The story really is about the attempt to stop any disclosure from ever taking place," Spielberg said. "And that’s why a lot of this film is a wild, wild, relentless chase."

When asked by the former first lady about his interest in life beyond Earth, Spielberg said the project grew out of curiosity.

"The truth is out there," Spielberg said. "And I think the truth is now here."

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"Disclosure Day" hits theaters June 12, 2026, starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo. Reuters reported in April that Spielberg told CinemaCon the movie has "more truth than fiction" and was inspired by real-life UFO reports from 2017.