June 12, 2026
Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
Emily Blunt stars in 'Disclosure Day,' the new Steven Spielberg movie about alien encounters.
The majority of "Disclosure Day," the latest alien escapade from Steven Spielberg, takes place in the Midwest. The sci-fi movie follows a whistleblower (Josh O'Connor) hopping from hiding places in Indiana and a newscaster in Kansas City (Emily Blunt) discovering her newfound clairvoyance as shady government contractors chase them both across the heartland.
But the film, out Friday, also weaves Pennsylvania into its extraterrestrial story. A bizarre bit of Keystone State history appears in the new movie through a trove of recordings of real-life phenomena that many have interpreted as proof of alien life. The incident happened over six decades ago in a small town in Westmoreland County, where some residents say they saw a UFO crash into the woods.
The strange series of events began around 5 p.m. on Dec. 9, 1965. People in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and even California reported seeing a blazing light flashing across the sky. Several residents of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, said the object had crashed into their woods, emitting a trail of smoke. Later in the evening, some witnesses claimed they saw blue light emanating from the area.
Theories flew as state police, Air Force officials and Kecksburg volunteer firemen searched wooded acres off the highway for the unidentified object. Many maintained a fireball had dropped out of the sky. Others suggested it was a falling Russian satellite or a plane crash. Still more thought something stranger was going on.
Bill Bulebush, who had been tinkering with his car when the flare appeared, claimed he got a closer look at the wreckage before authorities descended.
"It was burnt from the front, clear to the back," Bulebush told the History Channel. "And I could see this ring around the back of it, and it looked like Egyptian writing on the back of it. There was no windows in it, no seams, no rivet marking. It was just a solid piece."
Conspiratorial whispers about UFOs only got louder after the search party ended its investigation around 2 a.m. the next morning. The police and military said they had found no evidence of a crashed object, and detected no radiation on their Geiger counters. They said it was probably a meteor, a conclusion that multiple astronomers also backed.
Kecksburg did not agree. The community continued to share stories of lights, garage-shaking thuds and feds carting off an acorn-shaped object under a tarp. NASA didn't help matters when, in response to a 2003 lawsuit demanding the release of Kecksburg documents, it admitted it had lost boxes of papers.
The incident continues to be a source of intrigue, inspiring multiple television specials and investigative episodes. "Unsolved Mysteries" created a model of the object that's now proudly displayed by the Kecksburg fire department. The town has also embraced its "Pennsylvania's Roswell" nickname with an annual UFO festival, which returns next month.
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