Steven Spielberg has a theory about the recent spate of UFOs

For the past half-century, Steven Spielberg has graced the big screen—and occasionally the small screen—with fantastical visions of the offbeat. Something the guy who did Close Encounters of the Third Kind Do you remember an event similar to that in this film, namely the recent spate of UFOs? As luck would have it, he has a suitably outlandish theory on the subject.

During a recent career-spanning interview with Stephen Colbert, the Oscar-winning filmmaker asked his thoughts on these unidentified flying objects, including the mysterious balloon from China. He got a little conspiratorial.

“I’ve never seen a UFO,” Spielberg admitted. “I wish I had! I’ve never seen anything I can’t explain. But I do believe certain people who have seen things they can’t explain. I think what’s come up lately is fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And I think the secrecy surrounding all of these sightings and the lack of transparency… I think there’s something going on that just requires exceptional due diligence.”

He added: “I don’t think we’re alone in the universe. I think it’s mathematically impossible that we are the only intelligent species in the cosmos. I think that’s totally impossible. At the same time, it also seems impossible that anyone from 400 million light-years away would visit us – except in movies, of course – unless it finds a way to sort of jump the shark and get here through wormholes. ”

Spielberg then theorized what they might be. “The most optimistic thing I think about these things we’re seeing in the sky that the Army, Navy and Air Force are recording with their gun cameras is what if it’s not from an advanced civilization 300 million light years from here removed?,” he theorized. “What if it’s us coming back 500,000 years in the future to document the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century because they’re anthropologists? And they know something that we don’t know for sure that happened, and they’re trying to trace the last hundred years of our history.”

Of course, this theory hinges on the notion that mankind will still be frolicking 500,000 years from now, which Colbert joked might be off-putting. “Yes, we survive,” Spielberg said. “Or at least a certain percentage of us survive so future generations can thrive.”

Spielberg’s theory — which is far more reassuring than Tucker Carlson’s — sounds a bit like the last half-hour of his 2001 sci-fi film AI Artificial Intelligencewhich [SPOILER] finds humanity slowly being wiped out by the effects of climate change. However, her robotic creations seem to have evolved, using the droid boy, played by Haley Joel Osment, to learn about humanity before their behavior wiped them off the planet.

You can watch the full interview in the video below.

(Above IndieWire)