LOOK UP! NJ HAS BEEN PREPPING FOR
DISCLOSURE DAY LONGER THAN SPIELBERG
Garden State residents will recognize many of the locations in the summer blockbuster and also the UFO lore that has been spoken about for decades.
Written by Angela Matusik, Editor in Chief, Socko! and Sharon Adarlo
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
DISCLOSURE DAY LONGER THAN SPIELBERG
Garden State residents will recognize many of the locations in the summer blockbuster and also the UFO lore that has been spoken about for decades.
Written by Angela Matusik, Editor in Chief, Socko! and Sharon Adarlo
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
If you’re in the half of the population that believes in UFOs (according to PEW research) you’re about to have a very exciting weekend. Stephen Spielberg’s long awaited alien-reveal action movie, Disclosure Day is hitting theaters and the anticipation is thicker than a mysterious cloud formation. For the community of committed Garden State believers, many of whom are accustomed to spotting flying objects above our skies – from flashing lights to hovering orbs, or more likely these days, film production camera drones capturing footage – the film, and a real life disclosure day, could not come fast enough. “These things have been seen all over,” says Kathleen B. Covalt, Ed.D, owner of Pure Energy Presentations and Intuitive Guidance in Skillman, New Jersey. “There has been a lot that has not been resolved.”
Spielberg, who spent much of his boyhood in New Jersey, has had a career-long fascination with alien visitors, starting with his 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Then came the charming, harmless E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and the terrifying 2005 War of the Worlds (based on the Orson Welles radio saga) which was partly shot in Newark’s Ironbound district. “When I made Close Encounters,” said the director recently, “I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all this turned out to be true?”
New Jersey and its historic role as a hub of UFO activity is more than an inspiration for Disclosure Day, it’s where most of the film’s main locations were built. There’s a rustic farmhouse in Morristown, a convent in Mendham, and a heart-racing train action sequence in Cape May. The campus of the New Jersey Institute of Technology fills in for Kansas City’s KCXE television studio.
Sweeping and tense, the new film, written by David Koepp, centers around the unraveling of the government’s best kept secret: Aliens exist, and an intricate coverup has been keeping it from public knowledge for decades. The film follows two characters running for their lives in a desperate attempt to get the truth out to the world: meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) who suddenly has inexplictable empathetic clairvoyant abilities, and Dr. Daniel Kellner played (Josh O’Connor) a cybersecurity whiz who has snuck out nearly eight decades-worth of data.
Spielberg, who spent much of his boyhood in New Jersey, has had a career-long fascination with alien visitors, starting with his 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Then came the charming, harmless E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and the terrifying 2005 War of the Worlds (based on the Orson Welles radio saga) which was partly shot in Newark’s Ironbound district. “When I made Close Encounters,” said the director recently, “I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all this turned out to be true?”
New Jersey and its historic role as a hub of UFO activity is more than an inspiration for Disclosure Day, it’s where most of the film’s main locations were built. There’s a rustic farmhouse in Morristown, a convent in Mendham, and a heart-racing train action sequence in Cape May. The campus of the New Jersey Institute of Technology fills in for Kansas City’s KCXE television studio.
Sweeping and tense, the new film, written by David Koepp, centers around the unraveling of the government’s best kept secret: Aliens exist, and an intricate coverup has been keeping it from public knowledge for decades. The film follows two characters running for their lives in a desperate attempt to get the truth out to the world: meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) who suddenly has inexplictable empathetic clairvoyant abilities, and Dr. Daniel Kellner played (Josh O’Connor) a cybersecurity whiz who has snuck out nearly eight decades-worth of data.
Spielberg may be New Jersey’s best known alien enthusiast, but he is far from alone. The state is chock full of alien lore — both in news reports and fictional narratives — that give Roswell, New Mexico a run for its money. More recent news includes the rash of drone sightings in 2024 that made lots of people look up in the sky and wonder if the floating UFOs or UAPs extraterrestrials are trying to say hello.
The state’s first public brush with wonders from another planet was in 1938 when Orson Welles broadcast his famous radio play, War of the Worlds, set in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. In that quiet, historic town, a fictional alien spacecraft has crashed into a farm and sets off a mass invasion in which the US Military is helpless; Martians subsequently take over Earth and are only defeated when they are exposed to microbes. The radio play notoriously set off a panic among the listening audience, who thought it was real (and even THAT was the subject of a movie, a mockumentary called War of the Worlds the True Story). Grovers Mills continues to relish its star turn, displaying an eight foot tall bronze slab with a plaque commemorating Welles’ riveting story.
As for real accounts of mysterious flying objects, New Jersey residents have been privy to some strange sights over the years. In 1951, a radar technician in Fort Monmouth detected something flying more than 700 miles per hour, which was also seen by two jet pilots minutes later. They all described a silvery object traveling below their air crafts. A later investigation attributed the strange sight to two balloons being released from the Evans Signal Laboratory, where the military developed secretive radar technologies.
In 1952, George Sock took a bunch of photos in Passaic that seem to show a flying saucer over the tree line, but some people thought it was a hoax and the flying saucer was most likely a lady’s hat.
As for real accounts of mysterious flying objects, New Jersey residents have been privy to some strange sights over the years. In 1951, a radar technician in Fort Monmouth detected something flying more than 700 miles per hour, which was also seen by two jet pilots minutes later. They all described a silvery object traveling below their air crafts. A later investigation attributed the strange sight to two balloons being released from the Evans Signal Laboratory, where the military developed secretive radar technologies.
In 1952, George Sock took a bunch of photos in Passaic that seem to show a flying saucer over the tree line, but some people thought it was a hoax and the flying saucer was most likely a lady’s hat.
On January 11, 1966, New Jersey had its most famous UFO sighting in Wanaque Reservoir in Passaic County where many townsfolk noticed a white floating orb above the reservoir, according to accounts published by Weird New Jersey. “There was a light that looked bigger than any of the stars, about the size of a softball or volleyball,” said local police officer Joseph Cisco at the time. “It was a pulsating, white, stationary light changing to red. It stayed in the air; there was no noise. I was trying to figure out what it was.”
Others including Mayor Harry T. Wolfe saw this object, which they described as a low-flying oval-shaped object that was about two to nine feet in diameter; it changed colors from “white to red to green and back to white.” At one point, a few people saw a beam of light shoot down to the icy waters of the reservoir before vanishing. The object would be seen again the next day and in another instance in October — all witnessed by a large group of residents who jammed the phone lines wondering what the heck it was.
All of these alien sightings are not a surprise to Covalt, a UFO enthusiast, who holds two monthly meetings, one online and another in person in Hillsborough, to discuss these unexplained phenomena. In fact, she had her own strange encounter years ago when she and her husband were living in upstate New York in a cabin. She was busy heating up a TV dinner when she looked outside and saw a dark object hovering in the sky. She and her husband watched it for 30 minutes until it went up in the sky and disappeared.
These days, Covalt’s pleased that people are taking claims about UFO or UAPs seriously, especially with the government releasing documents relating to any sightings. “I mean, still today, people laugh, but less so than 20 years ago,” she says.
Others including Mayor Harry T. Wolfe saw this object, which they described as a low-flying oval-shaped object that was about two to nine feet in diameter; it changed colors from “white to red to green and back to white.” At one point, a few people saw a beam of light shoot down to the icy waters of the reservoir before vanishing. The object would be seen again the next day and in another instance in October — all witnessed by a large group of residents who jammed the phone lines wondering what the heck it was.
All of these alien sightings are not a surprise to Covalt, a UFO enthusiast, who holds two monthly meetings, one online and another in person in Hillsborough, to discuss these unexplained phenomena. In fact, she had her own strange encounter years ago when she and her husband were living in upstate New York in a cabin. She was busy heating up a TV dinner when she looked outside and saw a dark object hovering in the sky. She and her husband watched it for 30 minutes until it went up in the sky and disappeared.
These days, Covalt’s pleased that people are taking claims about UFO or UAPs seriously, especially with the government releasing documents relating to any sightings. “I mean, still today, people laugh, but less so than 20 years ago,” she says.
Just the other week, the federal government released documents that mention UAPs. We have learned about eerie reports of the Apollo 17 mission spying mysterious bright lights above the lunar landscape in 1972. Career Air Force pilots have testified before congress about UAPs tracked on radar. Treasured astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson just published a book called Take Me To Your Leader after reconsidering UAP evidence, and Spielberg himself has said in interviews (notably to the Associated Press) that his views have shifted from optimistic skeptic to sound believer. “I’m now willing to change my mind because the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming,” he said. Some within the UAP believer community on Reddit have even speculated that Spielberg’s flick is actually a government sponsored primer to get us ready for a real world disclosure day.
Covalt and her fellow UFO enthusiasts may soon be further vindicated; earlier this year, then Governor Phil Murphy signed into law establishing the country’s first “Center for the Study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” Grant money will be available to universities who want to study unexplained flying phenomena in our skies.
Till then, the only place we can all certainly see a UPA is at the movies. For the true believers, Spielberg’s Disclosure Day will be a validation, packed with references and Easter eggs to show how deeply embedded in the culture he is. They will love it.
And for the skeptics, well, they might even find themselves looking at the night sky a little differently after seeing the film. Especially in New Jersey.
Covalt and her fellow UFO enthusiasts may soon be further vindicated; earlier this year, then Governor Phil Murphy signed into law establishing the country’s first “Center for the Study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” Grant money will be available to universities who want to study unexplained flying phenomena in our skies.
Till then, the only place we can all certainly see a UPA is at the movies. For the true believers, Spielberg’s Disclosure Day will be a validation, packed with references and Easter eggs to show how deeply embedded in the culture he is. They will love it.
And for the skeptics, well, they might even find themselves looking at the night sky a little differently after seeing the film. Especially in New Jersey.
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This story appeared in the inaugural issue of Socko! Magazine [May, 2026]. Click here to subscribe
