Hollywood's Extraterrestrial Obsession: Stars Who Look to the Skies

Steven Spielberg, the visionary behind E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, recently told Stephen Colbert that he feels uniquely qualified to represent humanity should contact occur. Despite his lifelong professional immersion in alien narratives, the director noted with a hint of irony that he has never had a personal encounter. His desire for the role sparked a playful rivalry with former President Barack Obama, who has also expressed interest in the hypothetical diplomatic position.

Other industry heavyweights share this skepticism of human uniqueness. Tom Cruise, who starred in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, once dismissed the idea of our solitude as arrogance, pointing to the sheer scale of the universe. Similarly, Halle Berry has publicly defended her belief in extraterrestrial existence, calling the notion that Earth hosts the only life in the cosmos inherently egotistical.

The accounts turn more visceral when actors describe their own brushes with the unknown. Woody Harrelson recounted a formative experience from 1974 in Ohio, where he and his neighbors watched lights perform impossible maneuvers across the night sky before vanishing. Miley Cyrus reported a more harrowing encounter in San Bernardino, describing a glowing, plow-like object that pursued her vehicle. While Cyrus later allowed that a recent purchase of cannabis wax might have influenced her perception, she maintained that the sight left her profoundly shaken for days, forever altering her relationship with the night sky.