How Close Does Steven Spielberg’s New Movie Come to the Real Disclosure Day Protocols?

Spoilers follow for Disclosure Day.

In the new Steven Spielberg movie, Disclosure Day, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to expect that there is some sort of disclosure. In fact, the closing act of the movie is all about how Kansas City meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) and cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) blow open a nearly century-old conspiracy by the US government to suppress the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life among us. But did you know there are actual protocols for the real Disclosure Day?

It’s true! Spielberg didn’t come up with the title out of thin air — Disclosure Day is a real thing that organizations like the SETI Institute (which stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) have been preparing for all these years. Not only that, but for the first time since 2015, the SETI Institute recently released an updated version of their protocols (on June 5, 2026) for how to reveal the existence of alien life. In a document dated June 1, 2026, and ratified by the International Academy of Astronauts (IAA), the new protocols take extra precautions for our modern world that is steeped in AI fakery, and will be taken to the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Türkiye this October. If approved there, they’ll “establish a permanent Post-Detection Sub-Committee to address legal, ethical, and societal implications of a confirmed discovery.”

Meanwhile, Margaret and Daniel blab the whole thing on Kansas City television, live on the air. Look, Disclosure Day is an action movie (mostly) that has good guys, bad guys, and in-between guys. There’s a vast difference in what the SETI Institute is dealing with, which is a possible signal from an alien civilization making its way to Earth. By comparison, the movie has aliens walking around, experimenting on people, and getting dissected and experimented on themselves. One is fact, the other is fiction.

But that’s no fun. So instead, let’s have some fun, why don’t we, and break down how close Disclosure Day (the movie) compares to the protocols for Disclosure Day (the real thing).

(Note: For organizational purposes, we’re going to go through “Position Paper on Declaration of Principles Concerning the Conduct of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) – (2026 Update)” which lays out the before, during, and after of Disclosure Day — the real event, not the movie. It would be pretty annoying if they spoiled the whole movie the week before it came out.)

Handling Candidate Evidence

According to this section of the SETI protocols, if there is “putative detection of extraterrestrial intelligence,” the first step is that the discoverer needs to authenticate it themselves using any resources they have on hand. However, those resources can include multiple “facilities” and “more than one organisation using different instrumentations and methods.” In addition, any information needs to be “handled with extreme care” and “uphold the highest standards of scientific responsibility and integrity.” That includes conveying the “importance and significance… to non-specialist audiences.”

This gets into a murky area with the movie, because we only really get the highlights of first contact thanks to the footage from the 1947 Roswell crash that’s broadcast on TV once Daniel dumps the complete files on the worldwide media (we’ll get to that in a second). Also, it’s important to note before we get any further that Spielberg began developing Disclosure Day in 2023 and filmed it in 2025. So despite the movie coming out after these revised protocols, the film isn’t able to incorporate them because that’s not how time works.

Anyway, there’s actually a good chance that the first part of this was accurate, though much more hands-on than SETI is likely expecting. We see multiple scientists carefully gathering and cataloguing evidence of the crash, and clearly they’ve built an entire organization (called Wardex) to handle the continued study of aliens and alien artifacts.

The second part? Not so much, as the whole plot of the movie is based on first the US government, then Wardex independently, keeping the existence of aliens secret. Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) argues that he’s thinking of Humanity’s interests by keeping this secret, but that’s definitely not what SETI is implying or saying in their protocols.

Communicating and Sharing Information

Here’s where things fall apart big-time as far as Spielberg’s movie goes. In this section, the IAA lays out that “SETI practitioners” should feel free to present reports both publicly and in private settings. While they can decline to engage with both media and social media, they will do their best to provide updates, thinking first of the “safety of their researchers.” In addition, they should respond to “reasonable requests from news organizations” and should be “prompt, accurate and honest.”

While there is “no obligation to disclose verification efforts until a discovery is confirmed,” the document urges scientists to provide accurate and verified info in order to dispel rumors. Basically, they are told to cut off the conspiracy theories at the knees, and if there are “speculative or unconfirmed statements and conclusions,” they “should be clearly identified as such.”

Er, whoops! Wardex has been lying to the public for decades about this, and assuming that Disclosure Day takes place in the “real” world, there are uncountable alien theories, websites, conventions, etc. While these protocols have been laid out over 80 years since “we” made contact, if Wardex and company had followed them, there’d be a lot less wild theorizing going on in the world at large. And no, Wardex — and Scanlon — are not honest, which is what spurs Kellner and company to want to reveal the info they’ve been holding in the first place.

Communicating Verification

Similar to the above, this point comes after the scientists involved have confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are communicating with an alien intelligence. If so, they are told to “promptly report this conclusion in a full, complete and open manner to the public, the scientific community, and the Secretary General of the United Nations.” In addition, the report should be peer-reviewed, providing “open access publication of the verification data” and sending it to multiple relevant organizations.

Haha, no, that doesn’t happen in Disclosure Day! In fact, beyond Wardex holding the info for decades, Daniel and the other defectors make no attempt to bring this info to independent scientific organizations or the United Nations at any point. The movie lays out that the US President was initially looped in/in charge of the alien investigation efforts, implying that A) aliens only landed in America, and B) info was not shared with the rest of the world. But it’s not explicit about that.

So while without peer reviewing the data (i.e., asking Steven Spielberg), we can’t say with certainty that the United Nations was not informed in the world of Disclosure Day, it sure seems like most of this stuff was ignored entirely, and on both sides. It’s not just Wardex at fault here, but the rebels fighting against them too. They could have just gone to the UN! Instead, Daniel’s compatriot, Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), builds a 1:1 reproduction of Margaret’s childhood home so she can remember the night aliens abducted her, which seems way more complicated than taking a trip to New York City.

Monitoring, Archiving, and Data Accessibility

The short version of this is that not only should all data be “preserved and disseminated,” but that all the data should be “recorded, and securely stored… in at least two repositories in different geographic locations.”

While one could quibble that Daniel’s backpack — which holds all the info he’s stolen from Wardex — is not what’s laid out here, the underlying philosophy of the Wardex rebels is in line with the IAA. They believe this data belongs to all of Humanity, and the IAA agrees. Perhaps uploading it to every news organization versus every scientific organization is not the right way to go about things, but by the end of the movie, everyone has access to all video footage available.

There is another aspect that’s not referenced in the movie, which is that Daniel, Hugo, and company seem to be releasing video evidence, not scientific data. Wardex has decades of research studying the visitors, their crafts, and their artifacts, and all that is still held by Wardex. Likely the global outcry (which we don’t get to see in the movie) will lead to further disclosures on subsequent days, but while the overall “this belongs to the people” philosophy is right, they’re sort of releasing the wrong things to the wrong people.

Data and Frequency Protection

Again, what they’re uploading is footage of alien autopsies, not data. But Daniel also uploads the footage to every news organization while tossing the drives in a pile on the desk in the KCXE news station control room once he’s done with them. So yeah… not very well protected.

Post-Detection Protocol

We can mostly skip this section, as it’s more about how the IAA will make themselves available to help with the continued dissemination of the information after it's revealed to the public. That takes the form of a “Post-Detection Sub-Committee,” and is much more applicable for members of the IAA (who do not appear in the movie) versus rogue computer programmers or possessed meteorologists.

Communication with ETI Following Confirmed Detection

Here’s the sort of thing that might have been helpful to put at the beginning of the instruction manual rather than in the back where you’re already like, “I got this,” and then suddenly you’re getting electrocuted by your new 4K TV while you insert the wrong plug in the wrong socket: “No reply should be sent.”

Got that? All of the steps laid out above are about verifying the alien signal and disclosing it to the scientific community and public at large. This seventh step is about how you should not, under any circumstances, text back “u up” to the aliens until consulting with the United Nations and other “international bodies.” How to handle that response is still to be outlined in a separate document, or as laid out in footnote number two, “this Declaration does not address the separate and distinct subject of messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence in advance of a confirmed detected extraterrestrial signal (METI).”

While we don’t get to see first contact necessarily, some of the footage revealed in the movie shows aliens walking with folks from the US government/Wardex though an encampment, and Richard Nixon giddily showing an actor friend one of the alien bodies they have in storage. Also, one of the rogue aliens who escaped Wardex’s facility is wheeled into KCXE so he can whisper “listen” in an alien language to Daniel, who can then translate it to Margaret, who can then say “listen” to the entire world like she’s Navi from Ocarina of Time.

Again, these protocols are coming out decades after first contact is made in the continuity of the movie. The Roswell crash was in 1947, which is two years after the founding of the United Nations, so they could have told the international community. But yeah, Nixon wanting to party with the aliens seems the opposite of “no reply should be sent.”

Ethical and Legal Consideration

The final bullet point of the declaration deals with urging scientists to work with ethicists to make sure the “dissemination of information” follows proper ethical standards, both locally and globally. If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ll know that’s ignored entirely in this movie on both sides. While there’s a lot of discussion about what is ethically and religiously the right move with releasing the alien info, nobody consults with an ethicist; it’s all about going with your gut.

To sum up? Disclosure Day, you may not be shocked to learn, is more concerned with the drama of the movie and the personal stakes than following advised recommendations of the International Academy of Astronauts. Oh well, perhaps in Disclosure Day 2: Resurgence?

You can chat with Alex Zalben on BlueSky @azalben.bsky.social, or find him regularly yapping on the Comic Book Club podcast.

Top collage image credit: Universal Pictures / Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images