Within Saucers
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg makes flying saucers feel awe-inspiring not simply through visual effects, but through silence. Again and again, witnesses stop talking, hesitate, stare, or struggle to explain what they have seen. The film treats UFO sightings as experiences that temporarily overwhelm language.
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Introduction
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg makes flying saucers feel awe-inspiring not simply through visual effects, but through silence. Again and again, witnesses stop talking, hesitate, stare, or struggle to explain what they have seen. The film treats UFO sightings as experiences that temporarily overwhelm language. Instead of rushing to provide explanations, Spielberg creates pauses in which both characters and viewers must sit with uncertainty. That waiting becomes part of the wonder. The saucers seem larger than any immediate interpretation because the film repeatedly delays certainty, allowing astonishment to exist before understanding. This restraint helps transform UFOs from science-fiction objects into symbols of something closer to revelation. [Wikipedia]WikipediaClose Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind
Witnesses Staring Instead of Explaining
One of the film’s most distinctive choices is that its witnesses often react before they can describe. When Roy Neary encounters the UFO on a dark Indiana road, the scene is built around observation rather than exposition. He watches lights move impossibly through the night sky, and the experience leaves him unable to express what has happened in any satisfactory way. The encounter becomes meaningful precisely because it exceeds ordinary language. [Wikipedia]WikipediaClose Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind
Spielberg repeatedly returns to this pattern:
- Characters look upward for long stretches without explanatory dialogue.
- Faces become more important than information.
- Reactions arrive before interpretation.
- Questions linger longer than answers.
This technique shifts attention from the mechanics of the UFOs to the emotional effect they produce. The audience does not learn first what the saucers are. Instead, it learns what they feel like to witness.
The film’s recurring mountain vision works in a similar way. Roy and Jillian become obsessed with an image they cannot explain. Their inability to articulate its meaning creates extended periods of waiting and uncertainty. The audience experiences the same suspension, knowing that something matters but not yet knowing why. [Wikipedia]WikipediaClose Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind
Why Silence Feels More Powerful Than Spectacle
Many science-fiction films of the period explained their mysteries quickly through experts, military briefings, or technical dialogue. Close Encounters often does the opposite. Scientific investigation exists in the story, but Spielberg frequently delays explanatory scenes and gives priority to observation.
This restraint creates a productive tension. The UFOs remain visible, yet their meaning remains unsettled. Rather than filling every moment with information, the film allows silence to carry emotional weight.
Critics have often noted that Close Encounters is structured around anticipation. People are not merely seeing something extraordinary; they are waiting for it to make sense. One commentator described the film’s characters as people waiting for a form of awakening or transcendence, a condition that defines much of the film’s emotional atmosphere. [eNotes]enotes.comAn Event Sociologique: 'Close Encounters'Fairchild, Jr. argues that Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a cine…
The risk of this approach is obvious. Long pauses can frustrate viewers who expect immediate answers. Characters sometimes appear passive, simply watching events unfold. Yet Spielberg turns that potential weakness into a strength. By refusing to rush explanation, he preserves the feeling that the phenomenon exceeds human categories.
The UFOs therefore remain mysterious not because information is hidden forever, but because understanding arrives slowly.
Restraint Against Science-Fiction Noise
The film’s famous communication sequence demonstrates Spielberg’s commitment to restraint. Although audiences often remember the five-note musical exchange, the scene’s power depends on everything surrounding it. Before the musical dialogue begins, there are extended stretches of observation, waiting, and cautious response. Scientists and witnesses watch the sky, uncertain whether communication will occur at all. [Wikipedia]WikipediaClose Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind
The result is unusual for a spectacle-driven film. Instead of overwhelming the audience with constant action, Spielberg creates space between events. Every appearance of the UFOs feels significant because it emerges from anticipation.
Several artistic choices reinforce this effect:
- Long reaction shots encourage contemplation.
- Quiet intervals make sudden appearances feel monumental.
- Human hesitation mirrors the audience’s uncertainty.
- Dialogue often stops when the most important visual events begin.
The film’s awe therefore comes not only from what is shown but from what is withheld. Silence functions almost like negative space in a painting, enlarging whatever eventually enters it.
The Pause Before Certainty Returns
Perhaps the clearest example occurs during the final encounter at Devils Tower. By the time the mothership arrives, viewers have spent much of the film waiting alongside the characters. The climax does provide answers, yet even here Spielberg avoids immediate closure.
The enormous craft appears gradually. Communication unfolds in stages. Human observers spend long periods simply watching. Even after contact is established, pauses remain built into the sequence. The aliens do not rush forward. The humans do not instantly understand everything. The encounter unfolds as a series of careful recognitions. [Wikipedia]WikipediaClose Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind
A particularly revealing moment comes near the end, when one extraterrestrial briefly pauses before returning to the ship. The gesture is small, but it reflects the film’s larger philosophy. Meaning is found in hesitation rather than speed. The most memorable moments are often those in which action temporarily stops and attention intensifies. [Wikipedia]WikipediaClose Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind
This approach distinguishes Spielberg’s UFO imagery from stories built primarily on invasion, combat, or technological explanation. The saucers become symbols of awe because they occupy a space beyond immediate comprehension. The audience is asked not merely to observe them but to wait with them.
Silence as a Mechanism of Awe
The central mechanism is simple: silence enlarges the unknown.
When characters cannot immediately explain what they have seen, the UFOs seem bigger than any available interpretation. Waiting creates room for imagination. Hesitation prevents mystery from collapsing into information. The result is a form of cinematic awe built less on revelation than on suspension.
Within Close Encounters, the flying saucer becomes sacred not because it is worshipped, but because it repeatedly interrupts ordinary habits of explanation. Witnesses stop speaking. Experts pause before conclusions. Viewers wait alongside them. In those intervals of uncertainty, the saucers feel larger than dialogue, larger than science, and briefly larger than human understanding itself. [eNotes]enotes.comAn Event Sociologique: 'Close Encounters'Fairchild, Jr. argues that Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a cine…
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Further Reading
Books and field guides related to Silence Waiting Sigh 3 Acc 3 B. Use these as the next step if you want deeper reading beyond the article.
The UFO Experience
Hynek created the close-encounter framework that inspired Spielberg's film title and served as an adviser on the movie.
Passport to Magonia
One of the most influential books on UFO culture and the mystery-oriented approach echoed in Spielberg's work.
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Endnotes
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Source: Wikipedia
Title: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_Kind -
Source: enotes.com
Link: https://www.enotes.com/topics/steven-spielberg/criticism/spielberg-steven-vol-20/b-h-fairchild-jrSource snippet
An Event Sociologique: 'Close Encounters'Fairchild, Jr. argues that Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a cine...
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Source: sbiff.org
Title: close encounters of the third kind
Link: https://sbiff.org/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind/Source snippet
16 Apr 2020 — Spielberg explained, “I wanted to make Close Encounters a very accessible story about the everyday individual who has a sig...
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Source: fran-delpizzo.medium.com
Title: the artist and the obsession close encounters of the third kind e55b963ba1a4
Link: https://fran-delpizzo.medium.com/the-artist-and-the-obsession-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-e55b963ba1a4?source=———9—————————-Source snippet
Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind | MediumClose Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) demonstrates his willingness to project...
Additional References
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Source: medium.com
Link: https://medium.com/sci-fi-movie-reviews/review-3-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-a39c85179e1eSource snippet
Review #3: Close Encounters of the Third KindRoy has an obsession with UFOs, and keeps newspaper and magazine articles on UFO sightings a...
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Link: https://www.facebook.com/JoshHorowitzMTV/posts/this-is-important-this-means-somethingroy-neary-close-encounters-of-the-third-ki/1565700058731285/ -
Source: didyoublankthat.wordpress.com
Title: the meaning of the five music tones close encounters of the third kind
Link: https://didyoublankthat.wordpress.com/2020/05/04/the-meaning-of-the-five-music-tones-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind/Source snippet
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Source: itcamefromblog.com
Title: the incredible alternate possibilities of spielbergs close encounters
Link: https://itcamefromblog.com/2017/11/16/the-incredible-alternate-possibilities-of-spielbergs-close-encounters/Source snippet
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Source: cinephiliabeyond.org
Link: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-steven-spielbergs-gamble-that-paid-off-generously/Source snippet
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Title: tugging on the beard close encounters of the third kind
Link: https://chud.com/174/tugging-on-the-beard-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind/Source snippet
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND18 Feb 2008 — Roy Neary is Spielberg's Everyman, and the audience's window into the strange and amazing...
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Source: scottholleran.com
Title: movie analysis close encounters of the third kind 1977
Link: https://www.scottholleran.com/movies/movie-analysis-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-1977/Source snippet
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Source: facebook.com
Link: https://www.facebook.com/washingtonpost/posts/review-every-steven-spielberg-film-about-the-sky-has-felt-like-a-question-direct/1373678404624031/Source snippet
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Source: reddit.com
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/1f3nrfm/what_is_the_point_of_close_encounters_of_the/Source snippet
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Source: youtube.com
Title: Roy’s First UFO Encounter
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtuw0c3dJ4Source snippet
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