Disclosure day: If ET made contact, how would we handle the news?

Click for next article Navy pilots have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). (Image credit: DOD/U.S. Navy) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Get the Space.com Newsletter Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter The truth is reportedly out there. But in the case of flying saucers and unidentified anomalous phenomena, what's truly going on seems elusive. Making it all the more intriguing is U.S. President Donald Trump's recent directive "to begin the process of identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life , unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects ( UFOs ) and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters." But "disclosure" — in whatever form it takes — could ignite a powder keg of implications. And discussions of disclosure are particularly timely these days, given that Steven Spielberg's highly anticipated film " Disclosure Day " is set for release this June. Space.com reached out to a diversity of experts on the topic, obtaining a wide swath of swing and sway. Steven Spielberg's "Disclosure Day" will be released this June. (Image credit: Universal Pictures) Appetite for disclosure Greg Eghigian is a professor of history and bioethics at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. He is author of "After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon" (Oxford University Press, June 2024). Eghigian said that, if you look at the history of the UFO phenomenon, all government gestures aimed at disclosing and declassifying UFO-related information have generated two basic responses. "There have been those who insist that the materials published definitively show there to be nothing out of the ordinary in sightings and reports," said Eghigian. But these folks are invariably balanced out by others who point to what the documents redact, or don't include, and insist that the government is still keeping vital secrets about UFOs, he added. "The existence of secrecy means even apparent openness can be suspected of disguising more secrecy," Eghigian said. "The appetite for disclosure is likely to never be satisfied." Get the Space.com Newsletter Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! Keep an open mind Steven Dick has written a book on the impact of discovering life beyond Earth : "Astrobiology, Discovery, and Societal Impact" (Cambridge University Press, 2018). It doesn