welcome back to offer on the show where
we talk about all things space
exploration and pop culture I'm Ariel
Waldman and I'm norm Chen I've got a
classic science fiction film for you
this week it's Spielberg's be second
best well-known Close Encounters of the
Third Kind yeah it's I don't know it's
delightful
you know it's delightful film in so much
as you know it's very much 1977 and it
it's a long film Scylla already elements
it's weird but you know it's a classic
it became a classic sort of unbeknownst
to the Spielberg I think at the time and
I I'm really excited to have our guest
today like dive into it and talk about
UF follow gee UFO culture language how
do we even communicate with aliens I
don't know is it was really fun to dive
into this movie finally well let's take
a listen okay so we're talking about
Close Encounters of the Third Kind I
actually hadn't watched this movie for a
while and I'm really excited to have
both of you on the show today at Rose
could you introduce yourself say a
little bit about what you do yeah sure
so I'm Rose I'm the host
flash-forward which is a podcast about
the future possible and maybe less
possible future scenarios this movies
probably more on the latter side the way
it plays out but um I also write column
for Wired and write other places but
mostly cover the future yeah yeah well
I'm excited to have you on the show and
Laura tell us a little bit about what
you do and and and who you are yeah well
my my background is in linguistics so I
was kind of trained as an academic
linguist but I am now in the world of
nonprofits and I work for the long now
foundation I'm the director of
operations there and I work out our
language programs at our library
programs I'm also on the board of
directors of many international yes
which I'm on the advisory board of I
believe yeah thanks for coming on the
show today so as I mentioned like we all
watched Close Encounters I think I think
for all of us maybe it had been awhile
since we watched it or watched it the
whole way through
film from 1977 definitely of its time I
would say definitely there
70s in more ways than one how do you
think you know our views of aliens and
extraterrestrial intelligence and just
extraterrestrials in general has changed
since 1977 or has it you know this is
like a pinnacle film of you know aliens
being you know little green men and and
I don't know lots of different concepts
to sort of dive into with it so so do
you think are our concepts sort of in
the mainstream of aliens from 1977 to
today has changed much or has it not
there's a whole thing with area 51 right
now right so I mean I think in that
respect maybe not so much I mean there's
still kind of this idea in our culture
of I think the same kind of aliens are
the gray aliens alien abductions kind of
the government doing secret things in
communication with aliens I think that's
very prominent but also I think you know
with the discovery of exoplanets and and
more I think awareness about SETI and
also many activities the idea that we
could potentially communicate or
establish some kind of contact seems a
little bit more kind of realistic but
within the realm of sort of scientific
reality rather than just kind of fiction
yeah what do you think Rose yeah I mean
right like in the last year or so there
have been more than one I think New York
Times articles about like government
reports about UFOs right which is like
central in many ways to this movie I
think that you know you see a little bit
more of a hopeful idea of what aliens
might be perhaps in this in that like
they're ultimately friendly and they
ultimately just like want to teach us
some notes right and tell us something
whereas you know I think there is now a
little bit more anxiety and there are
like prominent thinkers who have said
you know even if you believe there is
life out there we shouldn't necessarily
go looking for it because they'll
probably destroy us or whatever it is I
think they like that that's not really a
piece of it I mean alien obviously is
very scary in moments of this movie
wouldn't like it abducts a small child
and like there there are scary things
happening but ultimately at the end it
kind of winds up being this like
benevolent kind of like strange
misunderstood they're like childlike
and then they like smile and they do
little hand motions right it like
ultimately winds up being it's not
trying to destroy the earth whereas I
feel like now there's a little bit more
of a fear and I don't know if that's
because the world right now feels very
scary in general and so like of course
everyone or else must be but I think
it's a little bit different but yeah
we're still I mean obsessed with aliens
I think yeah and I don't I don't know if
we fully qualified you know Mehdi is all
about like messaging extraterrestrial
intelligence which is highly you know
contentious for some people and and you
know I thought it was interesting to
sort of look at this film from the lens
of you know if this film because this
film ended up being successful if it
sort of positively or negatively
impacted people's views of aliens and I
feel like it's you almost can look at it
through the lens positively or
negatively because you see them scaring
people you see them abducting people but
then it's like but it's okay and you
know so I feel like it might be one of
those movies where like depending on who
you are and sort of like you know how
you look at it you can sort of see both
sides do you feel like this movie made
an influence on people of how they view
aliens positively or negatively I have
to say at the end of the movie I was
actually scared for Richard Dreyfuss and
the other people going on to the ship I
like I just don't I don't trust them yet
hurry up people they've just kind of
delivered back a bunch of abductees but
while they're like you know contacting
us and trying to do this this swap you
know they're still abducting people and
you think they might ask the people that
came off how it was before sending
another person on like you know the
scene where they have that kind of
religious ceremony for the people who
are going onto the ship I'm like who
last rites man so that's kind of how I
was still kind of scared at the end
interesting interesting that's so
interesting yeah I mean like I you know
was not alive when this movie came out
so it's hard for me to necessarily say
like if it impacted things I do think
that it did very much play into this
conversation of like the government
covering up what they know right because
that's like a huge part of this they're
like you know giving sleep gas to these
animals to make it seem like there's
this big toxic spill to cover up the
fact that like
and that is the thing that has been with
us for a really long time talking about
aliens like of course the government
must know that this is happening and
they write and they like aren't telling
us and so I think maybe that I don't
think that this like quelled any of
those fears or like those ideas because
it does sort of show how they might do
that I love the scene where they're like
trying to figure out what to do like how
to evacuate that area where they're like
anthrax no we're gonna like we're gonna
flood it there's no water there's like
ultra and then the one guy when he
recommends antics are like I love it I
love it it's like so funny like they're
like little plotting at their math and
stuff but yeah I think it like that's
the main thing that I would think maybe
it had impacted where it's people are
like yeah probably does yeah well and I
mean something that was really
interesting about the the making of this
film or or how it came about is that you
know it's based off of this this French
researcher who is a UFO gist and is
trying to study people's experiences
with alien encounters and and this is
actually based off of a real person
who's still alive today is Jacques
Vallee in the movie he has a cameo at
the end I he might like smoking a pipe
at the very end when the aliens come I
may have missed it I should have looked
for it but yeah so it's based off of it
yeah Jacques Vallee and who has studied
you know people's experiences with UFOs
from the viewpoint of you know whether
or not they actually had an encounter
there are interesting things to learn
from it do you think there is a place
for UFOs in terms of like what we can
learn I guess
perhaps more about ourselves and then
aliens yeah you know what that reminded
me of you know cuz I looked up his scale
and Close Encounters are kind of like in
the middle of the scale and the scales
kind of been broader now but in
linguistics there's a there's an area of
linguistics where you study study like
narratives and stories that people tell
and sometimes they cohere in really
interesting ways like there's common
threads to the stories that people tell
here in the Bay Area about if they've
experienced the 1989 earthquake and you
can kind of kind of line them up and say
oh well this kind of fits a category and
it seems like I didn't read his original
work but it seems like he did this sort
of discourse and
of people's experiences of or you know
you know how they're narrating this
experience that they had you know real
or psychological and they kind of fit in
these buckets and he's kind of just kind
of categorizing them according to his
his sort of template to it but it felt
very much like a kind of a discourse
analysis study which is also kind of a
psychological study that's so
interesting right because like in the
movie they all have that same vision of
the devil's point which is like a sacred
place to many Native American tribes and
we probably shouldn't be like shooting
movies at but like they all have that
same thing it all is like kind of clumps
together almost in the way that you're
talking about and well and they probably
did have according to the the world of
the movie these shared experiences
because they when they were interviewing
Richard Dreyfuss and they said you know
did you get hives did you feel like your
body heat up have you you know like all
of these kind of whole kind of array of
symptoms and you can imagine I mean it's
probably in these narratives that are
people are telling about their their UFO
abduction experiences that they
basically similar kinds of things and
UFO culture is a whole thing you know
and it's been a thing that sort of been
it predated the Internet
certainly and now of course on the
internet there are a lot of different
cultures that are sort of around things
that may or may not have happened but
yeah I feel like UFO culture is is this
interesting thing to study do you get so
you probably get like letters from
people who believe that this has
happened to them I would imagine I
actually you know I don't I'm friends
with people who do I usually get emails
asking if I can send stuff into space
for people okay people think I have like
access to like a rocket launch like
anytime you like because you know if you
write about certain topics right you end
up getting mail from readers about those
topics right and like I do wonder if
folks like can see those same patterns
in just like the reader mail or like the
viewer mail that they get about things
like UFOs like I wonder if I see I don't
guy don't cover this very often so I
don't get those I get I get a different
bucket of like odd letters from people
but yeah I do wonder if there is like
pet if you can find patterns within that
as well yeah well I mean so if
something you have covered though is
been telepathy on your podcast so you
talked to experts about whether
telepathy is really in the realm of
science or possibility what what did you
learn about that and what do you think
does or doesn't apply to what was
depicted in the film yeah it's so
interesting to me you know I always
loved like learning the history of some
of these things and like telepathy is an
idea that we've wanted to believe in
it's for so long and the words lepa the
actually goes back to the early 1900's
this guy named Frederick Meyer and he it
was kind of the time when like a lot of
these scientists were grappling with the
fact that like science was starting to
explain things that they believed were
divine right it's like how do you both
believe in science and also believe in
God right like Darwin had the same
problem right these people are like
trying to grapple with this and so they
jump through these sort of like logical
hoops to like be like oh well we can
prove telepathy and therefore like we
can talk to dead people therefore their
will is an afterlife and therefore like
everything's time you know I'm sure all
of these experiments done and actually
like the field of telepathy was hugely
instrumental in science it basically
developed the double-blind study that's
like that's where it comes from and very
famous people Thomas Edison Alexander
Graham Bell Tesla they all basically
would write like as if it was like oh
yeah in just a couple of years we're
gonna prove to Levicy like it's a total
like the way the people today talk about
like we'll have self-driving cars
tomorrow or like whatever it is like
that's totally normal and natural and
it's still alive and well in 1977 and
the film yeah people are getting visions
of was it doubles doubles point and
they're sort of all of a sudden going
like I I just have this thing in my
brain that I have to make artwork around
a point and I asked yep yeah and like
now today we don't call it tool apathy
we call it brain to brain communication
because that sounds fancier which is
actually exactly what they did that's
what Frederik Meijer invented the word
telepathy because like saying
mind-reading was - whoo whoo so you
invented telepathy they also they also
they invented all these names for like
things - some make them sound scientific
so like they've renamed haunted houses
fantazmo genetic centers so that it
would sound scientific so now we call it
brain to brain communication and there
is like real research on this right like
and it's so funny because even in the
early nineteen hundreds they would say
things like well you know they had
discovered x-rays they were discovering
like you know the telephone like all
this invisible stuff
was happening and so they're like well
why wouldn't the body emit some kind of
signal that we can't see but like if you
can take an x-ray and like look into
your body like why wouldn't you be able
like it sort of seems natural and they
would write things like oh well the
brain probably like generates electrical
signals and then we could read them and
you're like well yes it does but like
not the strength at which you would need
but so today they actually do the
electrical signals they pick up in the
brain and they tried it there all these
interesting experiments where they try
to kind of like connect to people via
these brain connections and see if they
can play a game together or see if they
can direct something and there's a an
experiment where they try to drive a car
where they they're like using their
brain headset to like drive the car and
it's interesting from a linguistic
perspective they never it's never like
works that they're trying to get people
to picture or two like transmit it's
always either like images or just
frequencies because words are actually
really hard and complicated like to
figure out how that works where like
what they'll usually do is or they'll
like make people watch movie trailers
for like hours and hours and hours and
like look at their brain while they're
doing it and then try to kind of
reconstruct what they're watching so
there's just like lots of really
interesting research out there because I
think we do like it's such an alluring
idea that like you could I mean
everyone's had that experience where
you're like trying to explain something
and you can't if you could just like
beam the picture over it would just make
everything so much easier so it's super
like it is really alluring so there's
still like a lot of research in this
kind of world not related to aliens
giving us that but we'll get there well
and and you know so that's how the
aliens are communicating to us but what
we see in the movie that we try to do to
communicate to the aliens is use music
like I was really interested in your
thoughts on like using music as a
communication tool and like how much we
can actually convey to another species
really know that answer to that question
but but yeah what do you think about
using music as language or at least how
its depicted in the film yeah we use it
we use music for kind of communication
ourselves humans do right and it can
communicate some things that we can't
put into words the idea of using it as
like a kind of a structured language I
think is a lot trickier
I think on this podcast you had Doug
mccottry on this and he from many did he
talk about the the sonar MIDI message I
can't remember if you talked about the
sonar one or not yeah there might have
been it was around the time that we were
doing that transmission arrival yes yes
so the so I mentioned it because that
was a transmission that we sent out that
was structured to introduce a bunch of
music and so there there's a musical
component tune to it but the musical
kind of tutorial part of it was kind of
limited in terms of like if you wanted
to have a full conversation it was
mostly trying to say you know we're
going to be sending music and this is
how kind of worsening we're introducing
you to music by sending you like
digitally encoded frequencies at like
100 Hertz 200 400 800 1600 and then
sending combinations of them so like you
know prepare for combinations of you
know frequencies and in in this show it
was implied that there was a lot more
going back and forth with music and even
at the very end as yeah so there's this
like musical conversation that happens
you know and when kind of they they have
the heat the person who's controlling
the the keyboard stop and like the
computer takes over that's when the
conversation really gets heated up and
like it's kind of flying and the the the
spaceship is really kind of flying with
their music and back and forth so you
get this such the idea that a lot of
information is being kind of transferred
back and forth but at that point like
how much could they have really
established because like if you're going
to use it for language you need to have
established a whole bunch of different
reference right like what are all the
nouns what are all the verbs you know
how do you connect all of those things
you would need kind of a means of doing
that
and you know that that isn't elaborated
but at the end at the very end like I
think after just after the all look the
people walk on the spaceship that are
going to go up with them and the look
home Truffaut's character is out there
and and looking at the alien and then
Truffaut does the hand signals right I
remember exactly what they are you know
but he does and I counted them he does
seven and the alien that he's looking at
does five back to him and they're all
the symbols that we've seen before they
kind of map onto the pentatonic scale
the ones that the main theme is but
there's so there's clearly like somehow
the Lacombe character has sort of
intuited meeting and he's sending some
kind of communication to this alien and
getting like something in reply so it's
implied that there is more there but you
know whether it doesn't seem very
natural for humans to be able to use a
system like that it would need to be
mediated you know maybe if they get the
whales like there's the implication that
the researcher travels to India gets
music or sounds that are being used by
people there to seemingly communicate
with God and then uses that as like sort
of the chords to communicate with the
aliens and I guess maybe this is my
reading into it but the implication
being oh oh all this time we were making
all these chants and everything to God
but actually we've been talking to
aliens unknowingly and so of course
they're going to understand these chords
in these notes I don't know maybe I'm
like missing is a long movie but that
like because I was also like well wait
like you don't have any kind of like
rosetta stone type thing so like how are
you talking to each other if you've
never confirmed that you know what these
things mean but my partner was watching
with was like oh he had assumed that
like you know when there's that all
those shots of people looking at the
spaceship and they have all have that
like look on their face the same look
that you see from Richard Dreyfuss
character like when he kind of like gets
that like he's like doing the thing
he was sort of like oh the aliens are
like telepathy zhing into your brain and
like they're sort of giving you the
information as the things are playing
because you do see one moment where the
keyboard guy which I love that like they
instead of just like pre recording the
notes they like have a whole keyboard
and he's like blank you are it is
amazing there's a great story behind him
being there oh good okay I want to get
to that but like there is a moment where
he looks at the spaceship and he does
that you see that like the eyes that you
see and like the little kid and like all
that stuff I had not thought of that but
this is what my partner said my was like
that like it's kind of an explanation
that would maybe work but like I did not
read that into the movie but I watched
it yeah I didn't either yeah we don't
need the story so the background story
so first of all that um the keyboard
that they used was like a new model by
this company I forget the name of the
company but the model is like a RP 2500
or something and there were only it
wasn't commercially successful they only
made a hundred of them and one of them
is in this movie and it's it's an
analogue monophonic synthesizer so you
can only play one note at a time so like
at the end I should have gone back and
double-check this but I'm pretty sure
like when they're going it's just it's
one note at a time is no chords right
but the guy that they said it's like a
huge panel and they structured this
whole arena around it's like this big
like music light so right he's got this
giant thing that he's controlling and
somebody standing next to him going you
know like up a fifth down a third you
know do some equators and you know he's
basically just kind of punching in these
notes with with these military people
directing him but that guy was sent he
worked for the company that made the
synthesizer and he was the one to
deliver it to the Senate well you know
this moment of like wide-eyed wonder
yeah but yeah he was the tech yeah
that's really yeah well I mean you talk
about like the the actually the sort of
government setup that they have I wanted
to ask like you know in this scenario in
Close Encounters
the government has full knowledge of
everything wants to keep the public
completely out to the point that they're
killing them and also gaslighting them
and you know telling that man nothing
this is happening but they don't seem
freaked out and they're just like we got
this we're gonna communicate to them
it's gonna be awesome
he's like walk underneath the IP party
you know with alien if we discovered
something that was as close as we can
get to definitive of extraterrestrial
intelligence that was anywhere near
Earth what is your hope for how we would
handle that like you know just I guess
in terms of like you know should the
government lead the way it should it be
grassroots should it be nonprofits who
are dead I don't know how would you wish
we would handle it so one thing I was
thinking about is that I think you know
I think the scientists would be more
involved I think it international
scientists right I think you would get
lots of people listening both amateurs
and professional scientists lots of
confirmations around the world that they
were actually getting communication I
mean weird I'm not talking about like
the math telepathy er was like blasting
images into people's heads but but if
you got like a radio singing other
people would be hearing it and trying to
confirm it so I think the scientists
would know I think the scientists would
be interacting with the governments this
this showed I mean there was Truffaut's
character who's French but other and
then I think in the is that the Gobi
Desert when they find the ship and the
trucks that are driving it I think those
were UN flags on those trucks so it
seems like there's some sort of
international cooperation but you only
ever see Truffaut is that like the only
other person who isn't American
apparently so you would think that there
would be like and presumably people were
being abducted from all over the world
right so the the world has an interest
in this but it's only you know Americans
that are kind of running the show and
kind of setting up the stage for this
encounter which i thought was a little
odd I'd I don't imagine it would be the
same way today and I think probably the
world would know about it because the
scientists would know about it and would
be
talking about it yeah I mean it's in the
context of this movie in particular like
it's hard to imagine I mean in 1977
which I think is the year this movie
came out you know so the year that the
Voyager missions launch right thank you
you know the idea that you know it's
just I loved that like there's that
point that um two foes characters
character makes where he's like these
are only the people who's happened to
see that thing on TV right that like
they had this vision of this structure
they just happened to have the TV on at
the time whereas now like there's the
internet and like people can share
things and like people would immediately
find other people right these are like
there's also this idea that like these
people have these visions and they
haven't they can't connect to each other
they all think they're individually kind
of like losing their minds but like
online you can find all the other people
who are losing their mind in the same
way that you are very quickly and like
that is a thing that happens and that is
sometimes that's good and sometimes it's
not good but like you know it feels like
today it would just be so much harder
and I unbelievable to me as you say that
like how they would be able to keep it
that this would work as it did in the
movie but particularly now it just feels
like completely impossible that they
would be able to like keep all these
people in the dark and gas like them as
you said and be like all this isn't
happening just it's so much easier to
like check things and like connect with
each other and be like well if thousands
of people have the same exact image in
their mind and not just the three
charcoal drawing so he has but like all
of them it's much harder to be like no
nothing is happening yeah well and I
mean I think that gets me into to my
final question for both of you because
this film was interesting that it even
took off because I think Spielberg
himself sort of viewed this as his weird
art school sort of film like a weird
arty film and it I mean you can tell us
very long and there's a lot of like
human emotion in it and then you can
tell yeah this is a weird art film but
it took off and it was massively
successful and it became a mainstream
film and and you mentioned the stuff
from the internet and everything so my
final question for both of you is really
you know what would you like to see in a
modern iteration of this film because we
have had films like arrival and
everything that are more modern and a
very different sort of vibe but they
still don't really incorporate the
Internet very
you know if there was a modern film that
was sort of mainstream like Close
Encounters of the Third Kind like what
what aspects are things would you like
to see depicted but I really loved when
they wouldn't got the whole globe
because I needed to figure a
geographical coordinate of the world I
mean I think some of the old technology
was just so much a part of the charm of
this for me my favorite is the dog gas
mask when the mom picks up the phone
like the old kind of dumbbell phone and
she yeah so in modern version I would
like to see them incorporate more of we
were talking about the marine mammals I
mean there there are analogs on earth
where where other species are using
music very much for communication there
are people studying those and trying to
understand them like bringing that into
like still focusing on the music I love
that like it's sort of like John
Williams did the score and it's just
like if he could do it again and
incorporate all these modern things into
it we would just like if he could I
don't know has John well he's ever done
anything with whales that would be
awesome
I read that he wrote like 300 versions
of that one all thing before they like
landed on the one that they went with I
would love to hear all 300 just like
know what they were like ah not that one
yeah I mean it's great I mean they did a
great job um I think that sort of
similar what you said earlier like the
international aspect I feel like it's
something that's often missing from
these movies and I get that like as a
narrative it's hard to like to talk
about the whole globe right but like we
have you know it's not just the u.s. is
looking for aliens right like lots of
countries have really powerful systems
that are trying to look for this
everyone's interested everyone has also
like different cultural assumptions
about what we should be sending and how
we should send it and like what kind of
music gets sent and like all of this
stuff is like all sort of mired and like
who we are as like a people and who is
sort of behind the program and all of
this stuff and I think you know like
something that really does get at
yeah that like this is a global search
for a like a you know in out in the
universe and that it's like the chances
of it happening in the US are actually
like not high right like it they might
it might land in the middle of ocean or
like in another place and like how does
it how do other people kind of like deal
with that and I mean I actually loved
arrival I thought it was really great
and I love the linguistic element of it
like right like how do you actually try
to do this
yeah I think like some of the like
international relations around this like
what happens if you know India does make
a discovery like this like how do you
like who leads the charge and like how
to and like there are some protocols
that I'm sure you know about more than I
do but like what does that look like in
reality and also like people are messy
and like when they have something
exciting like this nobody really wants
to follow like all the rules cuz it's
like you're so excited so just seeing
like how that would work and how like a
non-white Western audience might like
react to these aliens because it's all
like associating like US films that's
like all we ever see so I'd love to see
them thing a little bit we're
international yeah absolutely well thank
you both so much for being on the show
today
thanks thank you yeah can you play can
you play it yeah so um yeah so I should
say this is a this is a keyboard
calculator and this yes this kit was
invented well it came out on the market
in late 1979 and I have to say I'm older
than this this is old but I am older
than this but when it came out it was
just so cool and it's featured and a
bunch of you know popular music like
Devo you know the da da da song huh you
don't use this so and I sort of know how
to play it but so it so I switched it on
to its keyboard not it's a calculator
function which is y'all know so um so
the pen the pentatonic scale goes like
this for C
and so the the main theme just uses
those notes a little differently so
oh so if you know a keyboard this is
your C and that's D so d e C octave down
1/5 up okay I'm gonna just go by the
numbers cuz I'm the worst musician in
the entire world huh don't this my said
nope do okay
you failed communicate okay my nieces
and nephews can I have your finger yes
yeah okay I gotta make a little stiffer
there okay
okay amazing
good air all that was really fun
something that as I was listening to it
made me wonder they never really
explained what why it's called Close
Encounters of the Third Kind and that's
because that there is a leveling up
there was a close encounter of the first
kind or the second kind being a visual
sighting of UFOs or some type of
physical interaction you know
interference radio interference and of
course then the Third Kind is is first
contact yes so yeah third base with
aliens means actually going to talk with
them and interact with them and ya know
the movie doesn't really explain it to
my knowledge but I explained a whole lot
else and it was really cool to talk with
rose and Laura about yeah just about all
the different weird aspects of it and
what they found interesting and
especially what they would like to see
in a modern take on it
it may be communication with whales who
knows I mean sensibilities have changed
in the thirty years and as we were
narrowing on this film we even discussed
the fact that the whole culture of
ufology of people thinking like they've
had these shared experiences or even
identifying like a certain kind of
stereotype for an alien a lot of that is
this feedback loop between science
fiction and and mainstream culture and
which then through this film gets turned
back into science fiction and it kind of
influences everything that's come after
it I love that you effect that you
mentioned arrival and the illusions of
things like Star Trek it's all part of
popular culture and it's started close
to here absolutely well we have more fun
conversations like that on other
episodes of off world you can listen to
the show as a podcast as well just go to
test comm slash offworld or watch it as
a video if you're doing that right now
and we'll see you at the next episode
you
