112-562: Asteroid City is a 2023 American comedy drama film written, directed, and produced by Wes Anderson , from a story he wrote with Roman Coppola . It features an ensemble cast , including Jason Schwartzman , Scarlett Johansson , Tom Hanks , Jeffrey Wright , Tilda Swinton , Bryan Cranston , Edward Norton , Adrien Brody , Liev Schreiber , Hope Davis , Steve Park , Rupert Friend , Maya Hawke , Steve Carell , Matt Dillon , Hong Chau , Willem Dafoe , Margot Robbie , Tony Revolori , Jake Ryan , and Jeff Goldblum . Its plot mostly follows
224-561: A Pew research poll found that 51% in the United States thought that UFOs reported by people in the military were likely to be evidence of intelligent life from beyond the Earth. In August 2021, Gallup , with a question not specific to military reports, only found that 41% of adults believed some UFOs involve alien spacecraft from other planets. This Gallup poll showed 44% of men and 38% of women believed this. This average of 41% in 2021
336-479: A retro-futuristic version of the 1950s, a television host introduces a documentary about the creation and production of Asteroid City , a play by the famed playwright Conrad Earp. The play's events are depicted in widescreen and stylized color, while the television special is seen in black-and-white Academy ratio . In the play, a youth astronomy convention is held in the fictional desert town of Asteroid City. War photojournalist Augie Steenbeck arrives early to
448-540: A weighted average , assigned the film a score of 76 out of 100, based on 60 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 78% of filmgoers gave it a positive score, with 51% saying they would definitely recommend it. In The Guardian , Peter Bradshaw called Asteroid City "terrifically entertaining and lightly sophisticated". and wrote: "The movie rattles cleverly and exhilaratingly along, adroitly absorbing
560-517: A 1969 USAF document, known as the Bolender memo, along with later government documents, revealed that non-public U.S. government UFO investigations continued after 1970. The Bolender memo first stated that "reports of unidentified flying objects that could affect national security ... are not part of the Blue Book system," indicating that more serious UFO incidents already were handled outside
672-428: A 1996 poll by Newsweek , 20% of Americans believed that UFOs were more likely to be proof of alien life than to have a natural scientific explanation. In December 2017, a new round of media attention started when The New York Times broke the story of the secret Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program that was funded from 2007 to 2012 with $ 22 million spent on the program. Following this story, along with
784-505: A UFO and reported recovered memories of their experience that became ever more elaborate as the years went by. In 1966, 5% of Americans reported to Gallup that "they had at some time seen something they thought was a 'flying saucer'", 96% said "they had heard or read about flying saucers", and 46% of these "thought they were 'something real' rather than just people's imagination". Responding to UFO enthusiasm, there have always been consistent yet less popular efforts made at debunking many of
896-540: A Wes Anderson coming-of-age movie about stargazing in the desert would". Asteroid City premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2023. It was given a limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles in the United States on June 16, 2023, expanding to a wide release on June 23, 2023. It had an earlier premiere in Sweden and a limited number of other countries on June 9, 2023. Asteroid City
1008-473: A daily occurrence with one particularly famous example being the Roswell incident in 1947 where remnants of a downed observation balloon were recovered by a farmer and confiscated by military personnel. UFO enthusiasts in the early 1950s started to organize local "saucer clubs" modeled after science fiction fan clubs of the 1930s and 1940s, with some growing to national and international prominence within
1120-562: A decade. In 1950, three influential books were published— Donald Keyhoe 's The Flying Saucers Are Real , Frank Scully 's Behind the Flying Saucers , and Gerald Heard 's The Riddle of the Flying Saucers . Each guilelessly proposed that the extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis was the correct explanation and that the visits were in response to detonations of atomic weapons . These books also introduced Americans to, as Eghanian puts it, "the crusading whistleblower dedicated to breaking
1232-407: A familiar object." The regulation also said UFOBs were to be investigated as a "possible threat to the security of the United States" and "to determine technical aspects involved." The regulation went on to say that "it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB's when the object is positively identified as a familiar object" but added: "For those objects which are not explainable, only
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#17328009572531344-538: A lower joke rate than sitcoms . In the very influential Greek theatre , plays were considered comedies or tragedies. This concept even influenced Roman theatre and theatre of the Hellenistic period . Theatre of that era is thought to have long-lasting influence, even in modern narrative works. Even today, works are often classified into two broad buckets, dramas and comedies. For instance, many awards that recognize achievements in film and television today, such as
1456-454: A movie it's for Anderson die-hards only, and maybe not even too many of them." In his review for The New Yorker , Anthony Lane highlighted Johansson's performance as what "cracks the movie's ordered surface", and wrote: "Even if you regard the latest movie as a box of tricks, you have to admire the nerve with which Johansson, as Midge, delves into that box and plucks out scraps of coolly agonized wit. More deftly than anyone else, she traffics in
1568-427: A phenomenon could, in fact, occur". The research was "being conducted with the thought that the flying objects might be a celestial phenomenon," or that "they might be a foreign body mechanically devised and controlled." Three weeks later in a preliminary defense estimate, the air force investigation decided that, "This 'flying saucer' situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something
1680-722: A play about a Junior Stargazer convention in a retrofuturistic version of 1955, but it becomes metatextual because the making of the play is the subject of a television documentary. The story is about extraterrestrials and UFOs witnessed in the American Southwestern desert in close proximity to atomic test sites after World War II. The project was announced in September 2020 as an untitled romance film , with Anderson writing, producing and directing, alongside Jeremy Dawson of American Empirical Pictures and Steven Rales of Indian Paintbrush . In February 2021, it
1792-654: A point to all this indulgence. Anderson's obsessively constructed dioramas explore the very human need to organize, quantify, and control our lives in the face of the unexpected and the uncertain [...] Asteroid City might be the purest expression of this dynamic because it's about the unknown in all its forms." Owen Gleiberman of Variety found the film similar to the "fussy, top-heavy, narratively batty yet stretched-thin concoctions" he saw in The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou , and concluded: " Asteroid City looks smashing, but as
1904-622: A professor of philosophy and religion at the University of North Carolina, says that what is seen on a screen, "if it conforms to certain criteria, is interpreted as real, even if it is not real and even if one knows it is not real" and that "screen images embed themselves in one's brain and memories" in ways that "can determine how one views one's past and even determine one's future behaviors". The most notable cases of UFO sightings in France include: UFOs have been subject to investigations over
2016-401: A romance blossoms between Montana and June, who assure the students that the alien is likely peaceful. The Stargazer honorees use Dr. Hickenlooper's equipment to attempt to contact the alien. Tricking the guard watching the pay phone, Ricky calls his school newspaper to relay the quarantine details and cover-up to the outside world. The Asteroid City events become national news. A furious Gibson
2128-467: A series of sensationalized Pentagon UFO videos leaked by members of the program who became convinced that UFOs were genuine mysteries worth investigating, there was an increase in mainstream attention to UFO stories. In July 2021, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb announced the creation of his Galileo Project which intended to use high-tech astronomical equipment to seek evidence of extraterrestrial artifacts in space and possibly within Earth's atmosphere. This
2240-526: A short promotional film trailer. Principal photography, originally planned for Rome, took place in Spain between August and October 2021, with COVID-19 safety precautions in place. Several sets were built in Chinchón, including a vast diorama resembling a desert landscape with the eponymous town of Asteroid City, including its train station, a diner, a garage and an observatory. Cast member Fisher Stevens said
2352-514: A story, even as his most ardent fans triple down on their devotion to the idea that he’s somehow expressing an arch humanity. This one, we kept hearing, is actually an aria of 'grief,' though the only grief I felt was that of being trapped in a stylized panorama so insistent it’s become a form of OCD." A review in the Alton Telegraph entitled, "'Asteroid City' script lacks direction and plot," said, "'Asteroid City' made no sense. The script
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#17328009572532464-442: A threat to national security. Officials were concerned about the "risk of false alerts", of "falsely identifying the real as phantom", and of mass hysteria caused by sightings. In 1947, Brigadier General George F. Schulgen of Army Air Corps Intelligence, warned "the first reported sightings might have been by individuals of Communist sympathies with the view to causing hysteria and fear of a secret Russian weapon." In November 2011,
2576-476: A trail, occasional formation flying, and "evasive" behavior "when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar", suggesting a controlled craft. It was therefore recommended in late September 1947 that an official Air Force investigation be set up. It was also recommended that other government agencies should assist in the investigation. Project Sign's final report, published in early 1949, stated that while some UFOs appeared to represent actual aircraft, there
2688-430: A variety of sources. A BBC review was entitled "Even Wes Anderson fans may be irritated by this 'empty' and 'cartoonish' film," stating, "...at no point does [Anderson] allow us to settle into any narrative in particular." Variety Magazine labeled Asteroid City as one of the worst movies of 2023, saying " ...[in this] claustrophobic dud of a movie, Anderson triples down on his fetishistic yet oppressive way of engineering
2800-529: Is Halley's Comet : first recorded by Chinese astronomers in 240 BC and possibly as early as 467 BC as a strange and unknown "guest light" in the sky. As a bright comet that visits the inner solar system every 76 years, it was often identified as a unique isolated event in ancient historical documents whose authors were unaware that it was a repeating phenomenon. Such accounts in history often were treated as supernatural portents, angels , or other religious omens . While UFO enthusiasts have sometimes commented on
2912-432: Is LESS to these stories than meets the eye". People have always observed the sky and have sometimes seen what, to some, appeared to be unusual sights including phenomena as varied as comets , bright meteors , one or more of the five planets that can be readily seen with the naked eye , planetary conjunctions , and atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds . One particularly famous example
3024-765: Is a movie or program that balances the elements of a drama and a comedy. Also known as a comedy drama, this hybrid genre often deals with real life situations, grounded characters, and believable situations. The ratio between the drama and comedy can vary, but most of the time there is an equal measure of both, with neither side dominating. Abreu also adds that dramedies often deal with relatable and serious topics such as divorce, illness, hardship, and heartache. Examples of comedy dramas in American film include: Examples of American television comedy dramas include: Unidentified flying object An unidentified flying object ( UFO ), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon ( UAP ),
3136-559: Is about to be forced to end the quarantine when the UFO reappears, dropping the meteorite back into its former position; the General sees new markings on it and deduces that it has been "inventoried." Gibson then reinstates the quarantine; the children, scientists, and parents revolt, using the honorees' inventions to overpower the military. In the play's epilogue, Augie and his family are the last to leave Asteroid City after Gibson officially lifts
3248-569: Is any perceived airborne, submerged or transmedium phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained. While unusual sightings have been reported in the sky throughout history, UFOs became culturally prominent after World War II , escalating during the Space Age . Studies and investigations into UFO reports conducted by governments (such as Project Blue Book in
3360-515: Is certainly familiar to historians of religion, a domain of human existence marked by deep divisions over interpretations of belief", and science too has found itself engaged increasing amounts of "boundary work" (which is "asserting and reasserting the borders between legitimate and illegitimate scientific research and ideas, between what may and what may not refer to itself as science") with regard to UFO questions. Eghigian points out our current "stark divide did not happen overnight, and its roots lie in
3472-452: Is occasionally a bit unfocused, and always a bit indulgent. If you don't like The Wes Anderson Film, you won't like this. But we others must hope he keeps making it." In his review for Vulture , Bilge Ebiri wrote: "To the casual observer, Wes Anderson might seem like someone who either refuses to read his own press or has bought into his press to an absurd degree", alluding to criticism of Anderson's filmmaking style, but later argued: "There's
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3584-520: Is really flying around." A further review by the intelligence and technical divisions of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field reached the same conclusion. It reported that "the phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious," and there were disc-shaped objects, metallic in appearance, as big as man-made aircraft. They were characterized by "extreme rates of climb [and] maneuverability", general lack of noise, absence of
3696-595: The AAAS , James E. McDonald said he believed science had failed to mount adequate studies of the problem and criticized the Condon Report and earlier studies by the USAF as scientifically deficient. He also questioned the basis for Condon's conclusions and argued that the reports of UFOs have been "laughed out of scientific court". J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer who worked as a USAF consultant from 1948, sharply criticized
3808-639: The Brazilian Air Force 's 1977 Operação Prato (Operation Saucer). France has had an ongoing investigation (GEPAN/SEPRA/ GEIPAN ) within its space agency Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) since 1977; the government of Uruguay has had a similar investigation since 1989. On October 31, 2008, the National Archives of Brazil began receiving from the Aeronautical Documentation and History Center part of
3920-867: The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI , CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), as well as military intelligence agencies of the Army and U.S. Navy , in addition to the Air Force. Following the large U.S. surge in sightings in June and early July 1947, on July 9, 1947, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) intelligence, in cooperation with the FBI, began a formal investigation into selected sightings with characteristics that could not be immediately rationalized, such as Kenneth Arnold's. The USAAF used "all of its top scientists" to determine whether "such
4032-788: The Falcon Lake incident in Manitoba and the Shag Harbour UFO incident in Nova Scotia. Early Canadian studies included Project Magnet (1950–1954) and Project Second Storey (1952–1954), supported by the Defence Research Board . U.S. investigations into UFOs include: In addition to these, thousands of documents released under FOIA also indicate that many U.S. intelligence agencies collected (and still collect) information on UFOs. These agencies include
4144-567: The Kenneth Arnold incident . "Unidentified flying object" (UFO) has been in-use since 1947. The acronym, "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt , for the USAF. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO". The term UFO became widespread during
4256-721: The Primetime Emmy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards segregate several award categories into these two classifications. The 20th century saw a rise in film and television works that could be described as comedy-dramas. The term is a translation from the French "comédie dramatique". The portmanteau "dramedy" came to be in the 1980s. In January 2022, Rafael Abreu, writing for the StudioBinder filmmaking blog, defined this genre as follows: A dramedy
4368-494: The White House released an official response to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited this planet and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. According to the response: The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of
4480-408: The portmanteau dramedy , is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and drama . In films, serious dramatic themes (such as death, illness, etc.) are dealt with realism and subtlety, while preserving a humorous tenor. In television, modern scripted comedy dramas tend to have more humour integrated into the story than the comic relief common in drama series but usually contain
4592-443: The '80s and '90s "the floodgates opened, and with them a new generation of UFO advocates". Leaders among them were the artist Budd Hopkins , horror writer Whitley Strieber , historian David Jacobs , and Harvard psychiatrist John Mack . They all defended the "veracity of those claiming to have been kidnapped, examined, and experimented upon by beings from another world", writes Eghigian, as "new missionaries who simultaneously played
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4704-409: The 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. Unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) first appeared in the late 1960s. UAP has seen increasing usage in the 21st century due to negative cultural associations with "UFO". UAP is sometimes expanded as "unidentified anomalous phenomenon". While technically a UFO refers to any unidentified flying object, in modern popular culture
4816-559: The 1980s and 1990s, UFO stories featured in such pulp "true crime" serials as Unsolved Mysteries while the 33 Volume Time-Life series Mysteries of the Unknown which featured UFO stories sold some 700,000 copies. Kloor writes that by the late 1990s, "other big UFO subthemes had been prominently introduced into pop culture, such as the abduction phenomenon and government conspiracy narrative , via best-selling books and, of course, The X-Files ". Eghigian notes that, by this point,
4928-510: The Air Force issued a statement to the effect that the book was outdated and cadets instead were being informed of the Condon Report 's negative conclusion. Controversy surrounded the report, both before and after its release. It has been observed that the report was "harshly criticized by numerous scientists, particularly at the powerful AIAA ... [which] recommended moderate, but continuous scientific work on UFOs." In an address to
5040-638: The Arnold incident, reported that over 25% of the U.S. public "believed unidentified flying objects could be from outer space". The cultural phenomenon showed up within some intellectual works such as the 1959 publication of Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky by Carl Jung , a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Starting in 1947, the U.S. Air Force began to record and investigated UFO reports with Project Sign looking into "more than 250 cases" from 1947 to 1949. It
5152-536: The CIA Director (DCI) in December read that "the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention ... Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such a nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or any known types of aerial vehicles." The matter
5264-942: The Chilean Committee for the Study of Unidentified Space Phenomena, supported even by the Chilean Scientific Society. Currently, the organization changed its denomination to SEFAA and its a department of the DGAC (Chile) which in turn depends on the Chilean Air Force . In Canada, the Department of National Defence has dealt with reports, sightings and investigations of UFOs across Canada. In addition to conducting investigations into crop circles in Duhamel, Alberta , it still considers "unsolved"
5376-530: The Condon Committee Report and later wrote two nontechnical books that set forth the case for continuing to investigate UFO reports. Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book, a USAF investigation that preceded Condon's. According to a 1979 New York Times report, "records from the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and other Federal agencies" ("about 900 documents—nearly 900 pages of memos, reports and correspondence") obtained in 1978 through
5488-556: The Freedom of Information Act request, indicate that "despite official pronouncements for decades that U.F.O.'s were nothing more than misidentified aerial objects and as such were no cause for alarm ... the phenomenon has aroused much serious behind‐the‐scenes concern" in the US government. In particular, officials were concerned over the "approximately 10%" of UFO sightings which remained unexplained, and whether they might be Soviet aircraft and
5600-504: The Harvard Medical School initiated a review of his position which allowed him to retain tenure. However, after this review, as the review board chairman Arnold Relman later put it, Mack was "not taken seriously by his colleagues anymore". Claims of alien abduction have continued, but no other clinicians would continue to speak of them as real in any sense. Nonetheless, these ideas persisted in popular opinion. According to
5712-535: The Junior Stargazer convention with Woodrow, his intellectual teenage son, and his three younger daughters. When their car breaks down, Augie phones his father-in-law, Stanley, asking for his help. Stanley, who dislikes his son-in-law, persuades him to tell the children about their mother's recent death, which Augie had concealed. Augie and Woodrow meet Midge Campbell, a famous but world-weary actress, and her daughter Dinah, who, like Woodrow, will be honored at
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#17328009572535824-411: The UFO problem had become "far more interesting to ponder than to actually solve." Interest was particularly fevered in the 1990s with the publicity surrounding the television broadcast of an Alien autopsy video marketed as "real footage" but later admitted to be a staged "re-enactment". Eghigian writes that "there had always been outlier abduction reports dating back to the '50s and '60s" but that in
5936-480: The US in over 50 years. Another Congressional hearing took place on July 26, 2023, featuring the whistleblower claims of former U.S. Air Force (USAF) officer and intelligence official David Grusch. A Harris Poll in 2009 found that 32% of Americans "believe in UFOs". A National Geographic study in June 2012 found that 36% of Americans believe UFOs exist and that 10% thought that they had spotted one. In June 2021
6048-602: The United States and Project Condign in the United Kingdom ), as well as by organisations and individuals have occurred over the years without confirmation of the fantastical claims of small but vocal groups of ufologists who favour unconventional or pseudoscientific hypotheses, often claiming that UFOs are evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence , technologically advanced cryptids , demons , interdimensional contact or future time travelers . After decades of promotion of such ideas by believers and in popular media,
6160-472: The United States and Canada on September 7, 2023. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 75% of 356 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's consensus reads: " Asteroid City is unlikely to win Wes Anderson many new converts, but those who respond to his signature style will find this a return to immaculately arranged form." Metacritic , which uses
6272-506: The attendees at the Asteroid City crater where the teenagers are to receive awards for various inventions. A UFO suddenly appears above the crater; an alien emerges and steals the remnant of the meteorite that created the crater. Augie manages to photograph the creature. Gibson, with instructions from the president, places the town under military quarantine, and everyone is subjected to medical and psychiatric examinations. Meanwhile,
6384-550: The best known government studies are the ghost rockets investigation by the Swedish military (1946–1947), Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge , conducted by the USAF from 1947 until 1969, the secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951), the secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by the Battelle Memorial Institute , and
6496-465: The century. By most accounts, the popular UFO craze in the US began with a media frenzy surrounding the reports on June 24, 1947, of a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold who described seeing "a group of bat-like aircraft flying in formation at high speeds" near Mount Rainier that he said were "moving like a saucer would if skipped across water" which led to headlines about "flying saucers" and "flying discs". Only weeks after Arnold's story
6608-444: The claims, and at times the media was enlisted including a 1966 TV special, "UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?", in which Walter Cronkite "patiently" explained to viewers that UFOs were fantasy. Cronkite enlisted Carl Sagan and J. Allen Hynek , who told Cronkite, "To this time, there is no valid scientific proof that we have been visited by spaceships". Such attempts to disenchant the zeitgeist were not very successful at tamping down
6720-501: The convention. Augie and Midge, and Woodrow and Dinah, gradually fall in love throughout the play. The other convention participants arrive: five-star General Grif Gibson, astronomer Dr. Hickenlooper, three additional teenaged honorees (Clifford, Shelly, and Ricky) and their parents (J.J., Sandy, and Roger), a busload of elementary-school children chaperoned by young teacher June Douglas, and a cowboy band led by singer Montana. A local motel provides everyone's accommodations. Gibson welcomes
6832-402: The decision, and the film was re-rated PG-13 "for brief graphic nudity, smoking, and some suggestive material". Asteroid City grossed $ 28.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $ 25.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $ 54 million. In its limited opening weekend, it made $ 853,382 from six theaters, finishing in tenth. Its per-venue average of $ 142,230
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#17328009572536944-721: The distances involved." On June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on UAPs. The report found that the UAPTF was unable to identify 143 objects spotted between 2004 and 2021. The report said that 18 of these featured unusual movement patterns or flight characteristics, adding that more analysis was needed to determine if those sightings represented "breakthrough" technology. The report said that "some of these steps are resource-intensive and would require additional investment." The report did not link
7056-597: The documentation of the Brazilian Air Force regarding the investigation of the appearance of UFOs in Brazil . Currently, this collection gathers cases between 1952 and 2016. In 1968, the SEFAA (previously CEFAA) began receiving case reports of the general public, civil aviators and the Chilean Air Force regarding the sightings or the appearance of UFOs in Chile , the initial work was an initiative of Sergio Bravo Flores who led
7168-532: The existential terror of nuclear war to foreign enslavement to loss of bodily control". American entertainment has explored both "hostile aliens" as well as the "benevolent, world-expanding encounters" seen in films such as Steven Spielberg 's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial . In her research on the relationship of media to UFO beliefs, Diana Walsh Pasulka ,
7280-506: The fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved." A public research effort conducted by the Condon Committee for the USAF and published as the Condon Report arrived at a negative conclusion in 1968. Blue Book closed down in 1970, using the Condon Committee's negative conclusion as a rationale, thus ending official Air Force UFO investigations. However,
7392-590: The film would include "the wildest cast since The Bridge on the River Kwai " and that the cast and crew "were all bubbled together in a hotel, which was an old monastery". Scarlett Johansson was paid $ 4,131 a week for her two months of work. The film's title was revealed by Bill Murray to be Asteroid City at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2021. Alexandre Desplat composed
7504-467: The human race...no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye.... The response further noted that efforts, like SETI and NASA's Kepler space telescope and Mars Science Laboratory , continue looking for signs of life . The response noted "odds are pretty high" that there may be life on other planets but "the odds of us making contact with any of them—especially any intelligent ones —are extremely small, given
7616-437: The hypothesis that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft and responded to the "onslaught of credulous coverage" in books, films and entertainment by teaching his students to apply critical thinking to such claims, advising them that "being a good scientist is not unlike being a good detective". According to Fraknoi, UFO reports "might at first seem mysterious", but "the more you investigate, the more likely you are to find that there
7728-448: The implications of pathos and loneliness without allowing itself to slow down. It is tempting to consider this savant blankness as some kind of symptom, but I really don't think so: it is the expression of style. And what style it is". John Nugent of Empire commended the film's unique visual and narrative style, writing: "[Anderson] remains cinema's most astonishing stylist, the rigour and detail in every frame never better", but warned: "It
7840-468: The kind of evidence required to solidly support such claims has not been forthcoming. Scientists and skeptic organizations such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry have provided prosaic explanations for UFOs, namely that they are caused by natural phenomena, human technology, delusions, and hoaxes. Beliefs surrounding UFOs have inspired parts of new religions even as social scientists have identified
7952-505: The last fifty years, the mutual antagonism between paranormal believers and skeptics has largely framed discussion about unidentified flying objects" and that "it often gets personal" with those taking seriously the prospect that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin dismissing those who consider UFOs to be worth studying as "narrow-minded, biased, obstinate, and cruel" while the skeptics brushed off "devotees" as "naïve, ignorant, gullible, and downright dangerous". Such "mudslinging over convictions
8064-504: The longest ongoing government-sponsored investigation. About 22% of the 6,000 cases studied remain unexplained. The official opinion of GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN has been neutral, stating on their FAQ page that their mission is fact-finding for the scientific community, not rendering an opinion. They add they can neither prove nor disprove the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), but their Steering Committee's clear position
8176-537: The mania. Keith Kloor notes that the "allure of flying saucers" remained popular with the public into the 1970s, spurring production of such sci-fi films, as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien , which "continued to stoke public fascination". Meanwhile, Leonard Nimoy narrated a popular occult and mystery TV series In Search of... while daytime talk shows of Mike Douglas , Merv Griffin , and Phil Donahue featured interviews with alien abductees and people who credulously reported stories about UFOs . In
8288-691: The material and the mental dimensions [of UFOs] are incredibly important to get a sense of the full picture". As Adrian Horton writes "from The X-Files to Men in Black , Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Star Wars to Marvel , Hollywood has for decades provided an engrossing feedback loop for interest in the extraterrestrial: a reflection of our fears and capaciousness, whose ubiquitous popularity has in turn fueled more interest in UFOs as perennially compelling entertainment tropes not to be taken seriously". Horton observes that these "alien movies have generally reflected shifting cultural anxieties, from
8400-424: The motel manager, but had to drop out of the role due to being infected with COVID-19, leading to Carrell playing the part instead. However, after his recovery, he arrived at the film set in Spain, and while Anderson could not add another role to the film, he gave Murray the role of Tab Whitney, the actor playing Jock Larkings, business titan of the company bearing his name, which was an additional character created for
8512-612: The narrative similarities between certain religious symbols in medieval paintings and UFO reports, the canonical and symbolic character of such images is documented by art historians placing more conventional religious interpretations on such images. Some examples of pre-contemporary reports about unusual aerial phenomena include: In the Pacific and European theatres during World War II , round, glowing fireballs known as " foo fighters " were reported by Allied and Axis pilots. Some explanations for these sightings included St. Elmo's fire ,
8624-518: The new moniker "unexplained aerial phenomenon" (UAP) to avoid associations with past sensationalism . On 17 May 2022, members of the United States House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation held congressional hearings with top military officials to discuss military reports of UAPs. It was the first public congressional hearing into UFO sightings in
8736-557: The ongoing interest and storytelling surrounding UFOs as a modern example of folklore and mythology understandable with psychosocial explanations . The U.S. government currently has two entities dedicated to UFO data collection and analysis: NASA's UAP independent study team and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office . During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often called " flying saucers " or "flying discs" based on reporting of
8848-522: The phenomenon include the MUFON , a grassroots organization whose investigator's handbooks go into great detail on the documentation of alleged UFO sightings. Air Force Regulation 200-2 , issued in 1953 and 1954, defined an Unidentified Flying Object ("UFOB") as "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as
8960-489: The planet Venus , hallucinations from oxygen deprivation , and German secret weapons (specifically rockets ). In 1946, more than 2,000 reports were collected, primarily by the Swedish military, of unidentified aerial objects over the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. The objects were referred to as "Russian hail" (and later as " ghost rockets ") because it
9072-426: The play", and asks Green if he is "doing him right". Green tells Hall to keep playing Augie the same way despite being uncertain, and that he is doing him right. After that interaction, while taking a smoke break on a balcony, Hall runs into the actress who was cast to play Augie's wife before her only scene was cut. She recites the deleted scene's text to him, and he appears to gain new insight from it. Six months into
9184-440: The play's run, Conrad Earp dies in an automobile accident. In September 2020, it was reported Wes Anderson would write and direct a romance film, which he would produce with Jeremy Dawson of American Empirical Pictures and Steven Rales of Indian Paintbrush . By February 2021, Michael Cera and Jeff Goldblum entered negotiations to star; the film was then described as being about a "group of brainy teenagers". Tilda Swinton
9296-479: The postwar decades, in a series of events that—with their news coverage, grainy images, celebrity crusaders, exasperated skeptics, unsatisfying military statements, and accusations of a government cover-up—foreshadow our present moment". UFOs have been taken up by religious studies scholars in various scholarly books. Jeffrey Kripal, chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University , has said that "both
9408-491: The public Blue Book investigation. The memo then added, "reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose." In the late 1960s, a chapter on UFOs in the Space Sciences course at the U.S. Air Force Academy gave serious consideration to possible extraterrestrial origins. When word of the curriculum became public, in 1970,
9520-462: The quarantine. Woodrow reveals he has won the fellowship funding, and Midge leaves Augie her mailing address. Augie and his family quietly drive away. Throughout the film, the play's creation is interspersed with the play itself in the television documentary. Some time after Conrad Earp started writing, he meets with actor Jones Hall, who performs an audition in Earp's home and is immediately cast. During
9632-415: The role of investigator, therapist, and advocate to their vulnerable charges". Eghigian says that Mack "signaled both the culmination and end of the headiest days of alien abduction". When Mack began working with and publishing accounts of abductees—or "experiencers", as he called them—in the early 1990s, he brought a sense of legitimacy to "the study of extraterrestrial captivity". By the late 1990s, however,
9744-415: The role of the motel manager. A teaser poster for Asteroid City was released on March 28, 2023. The first trailer was released the following day, which featured a rendition of Johnny Duncan 's 1957 song " Last Train to San Fernando ". Jazz Monroe of Pitchfork called the trailer "extremely Andersonian", while Charles Pulliam-Moore of The Verge wrote that the film "looks and feels exactly how you'd think
9856-413: The same interaction, Earp and Hall kiss, establishing their relationship as lovers. Earp writes the play with help from a local acting school and recruits most cast members from it, including Mercedes Ford, a temperamental yet talented actress who plays Midge. During the recorded performance of the play, Hall, who plays Augie, confronts the play's director Schubert Green, saying he "still doesn't understand
9968-467: The score, his sixth collaboration with Anderson. Costume design was by multiple Academy Award winner Milena Canonero . In July 2022, it was announced that Focus Features would distribute the film, reuniting them with Anderson after Moonrise Kingdom (2012). It was also revealed that Murray would not be in the film as initially reported, as a result of contracting COVID-19 before he could shoot his scenes, leading to him being replaced by Steve Carell for
10080-459: The sightings to extraterrestrial life. The Uruguayan Air Force has conducted UFO investigations since 1989 and reportedly analyzed 2,100 cases of which they regard approximately 2% as lacking explanation. In March 2007, the French space agency CNES published an archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online. French studies include GEPAN/SEPRA/ GEIPAN within CNES (French space agency),
10192-562: The silence over the alien origins of unidentified flying objects". Media accounts and speculation ran rampant in the U.S., especially in connection to the 1952 UFO scare in Washington, D.C. so that, by 1953, the intelligence officials ( Robertson Panel ) worried that "genuine incursions" by enemy aircraft "over U.S. territory could be lost in a maelstrom of kooky hallucination" of UFO reports. A Trendex survey in August 1957, ten years after
10304-402: The study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge" and that further time investigating UFO reports "cannot be justified". From the 1960s to 1990s, UFOs were part of American popular culture's obsession with the supernatural and paranormal . In 1961, the first alien abduction account was sensationalized when Barney and Betty Hill underwent hypnosis after seeing
10416-962: The term UFO has generally become synonymous with alien spacecraft . The term "extra-terrestrial vehicle" (ETV) is sometimes used to separate this explanation of UFOs from totally earthbound explanations. Studies show that after careful investigation, the majority of UFOs can be identified as ordinary objects or phenomena. The 1952–1955 study for the USAF used the following categories: "Balloon; Astronomical; Aircraft; Light phenomenon; Birds, Clouds, dust, etc.; Insufficient information; Psychological manifestations; Unknown; and Other". The most commonly found identified sources of UFO reports are: An individual 1979 study by CUFOS researcher Allan Hendry found, as did other investigations, that fewer than one percent of cases he investigated were hoaxes and most sightings were actually honest misidentifications of prosaic phenomena. Hendry attributed most of these to inexperience or misperception. Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi rejected
10528-478: The to-and-fro between the real and the imagined". Adam Mullins-Khatib of the Chicago Reader hailed the film as "a true achievement from one of America's most unique cinematic voices", complimenting Anderson's direction and screenplay, as well as the cast's performances. Asteroid City received a wide variety of negative reviews, including one article on Screen Rant which collated negative sentiments from
10640-618: The years that varied widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or independent academics in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Peru, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union are known to have investigated UFO reports at various times. No official government investigation has ever publicly concluded that UFOs are indisputably real, physical objects, extraterrestrial in origin, or of concern to national defense. Among
10752-615: Was called off after the Robertson Panel's negative conclusions in January 1953. Project Sign was dismantled and became Project Grudge at the end of 1948. Angered by the low quality of investigations by Grudge, the Air Force Director of Intelligence reorganized it as Project Blue Book in late 1951, placing Ruppelt in charge. J. Allen Hynek , a trained astronomer who served as a scientific advisor for Project Blue Book,
10864-514: Was considered so urgent that OS/I drafted a memorandum from the DCI to the NSC proposing that the NSC establish an investigation of UFOs as a priority project throughout the intelligence and the defense research and development community. It also urged the DCI to establish an external research project of top-level scientists, now known as the Robertson Panel to analyze the problem of UFOs. The OS/I investigation
10976-558: Was described as being about a "group of brainy teenagers". Originally set for Rome, filming took place in Chinchón , Spain, between August and October, 2021, with cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman . Several sets resembling a desert landscape and a mock train station were used. Post-production included editor Barney Pilling and a musical score composed by frequent Anderson composer Alexandre Desplat , featuring country and western songs from many artists. The official title for Asteroid City
11088-432: Was followed closely by the publication of Loeb's book Extraterrestrial , in which he argued that the first interstellar comet ever observed, 'Oumuamua , might be an artificial light sail made by an alien civilization. Two government sponsored programs, NASA's UAP independent study team and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office were charged in part by Congressional fiat to investigate UFO claims more fully, adopting
11200-418: Was initially skeptical of UFO reports, but eventually came to the conclusion that many of them could not be satisfactorily explained and was highly critical of what he described as "the cavalier disregard by Project Blue Book of the principles of scientific investigation". Leaving government work, he founded the privately funded CUFOS , to whose work he devoted the rest of his life. Other private groups studying
11312-440: Was mind-numbing. I saw several people nod off because they were bored." Time Magazine 's review was titled "Asteroid City Is Too Stiff and Stylized—Even for a Wes Anderson Movie, " saying "Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is what happens when a filmmaker’s world of wonder and whimsy becomes a prison." The film appeared on multiple critics' lists of the best films of 2023, including: Comedy drama Comedy drama , also known by
11424-477: Was not enough data to determine their origin. The Air Force's Project Sign was created at the end of 1947, and was one of the earliest government studies to come to a secret extraterrestrial conclusion. In August 1948, Sign investigators wrote a top-secret intelligence estimate to that effect, but the Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg ordered it destroyed. The existence of this suppressed report
11536-467: Was not universal in the CIA, however, as fellow NICAP official Donald E. Keyhoe wrote that Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter , the first director of the CIA, "wanted public disclosure of UFO evidence". Official U.S. Air Force interest in UFO reports went on hiatus in 1969 after a study by the University of Colorado led by Edward U. Condon and known as the Condon Report concluded "that nothing has come from
11648-501: Was released digitally on July 11, 2023, two and a half weeks after its theatrical premiere. A DVD and Blu-ray were released on August 15, 2023. It began streaming on Peacock on August 11, 2023. It is available on Prime Video with the default subscription. In the United States, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) initially gave the film an R-rating "for brief graphic nudity". Focus Features successfully appealed
11760-407: Was replaced by Project Grudge up through 1951. In the third U.S. Air Force program, from March 1952 to its termination in December 1969, "the U.S. Air Force cataloged 12,618 sightings of UFOs as part of what is now known as Project Blue Book ". In the late 1950s, public pressure mounted for a full declassification of all UFO records, but the CIA played a role in refusing to allow this. This sense
11872-515: Was reported in 1947, Gallup published a poll asking people in the United States what the "flying saucers" might be. Already, 90% had heard of the new term. However, as reported by historian Greg Eghanian, "a majority either had no idea what they could be or thought that witnesses were mistaken" while "visitors from space were not initially among the options that anyone had in mind, and Gallup didn't even mention if anyone surveyed brought up aliens. Within weeks, reports of flying saucer sightings became
11984-572: Was revealed by several insiders who had read it, such as astronomer and USAF consultant J. Allen Hynek and Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of the USAF's Project Blue Book. Another highly classified U.S. study was conducted by the CIA's Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I) in the latter half of 1952 in response to orders from the National Security Council (NSC). This study concluded UFOs were real physical objects of potential threat to national security. One OS/I memo to
12096-482: Was revealed in October 2021 at the BFI London Film Festival . Asteroid City premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2023, where it competed for the Palme d'Or . It began a limited theatrical release through Focus Features in the United States on June 16, 2023, expanding to a wide release a week later. It grossed $ 54 million worldwide on a $ 25 million budget, and received generally positive reviews. In
12208-532: Was the best total since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the largest since La La Land in 2016. Expanding to 1,675 theaters in its second weekend, it was projected to gross $ 7–8 million. It made $ 3.8 million on its first day of wide release, including $ 1.1 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to make $ 9 million, finishing sixth. It also had the highest opening for a Wes Anderson film in wide release. Asteroid City completed its theatrical run in
12320-407: Was the first person to officially join the cast, in June 2021. In May 2023, Anderson talked about how the COVID-19 pandemic inspired the film and its story, saying: "I don't think there would be a quarantine in the story if we weren't experiencing it. It wasn't deliberate...Writing is the most improvisational part of the whole process. It relies on having nothing." Bill Murray was originally cast as
12432-427: Was thought the mysterious objects were possibly Russian tests of captured German V1 or V2 rockets , but most were identified as natural phenomena as meteors. Many scholars, especially those arguing for the psychosocial UFO hypothesis , have noted that UFO characteristics reported after the first widely publicized modern sighting by Kenneth Arnold in 1947 resembled a host of science fiction tropes from earlier in
12544-433: Was up from 33% in a 2019 Gallup poll with the same question. Gallup further found that college graduates went in 2019 from being the least likely educational group to believe this to being on par in 2021 with adults who have no college education. An October 2022 poll by YouGov only found that 34% of Americans believe that UFOs are likely to involve alien life forms. Historian Greg Eghigian wrote in August 2021 that "over
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