Disclosure Day | 2026

Steven Spielberg is back on familiar territory with another movie about alien visitation, now set around 'Kansas', but filmed entirely in New Jersey and New York State.

Yes, the title says "what", but the story is when, how and whom. If you've not seen the film yet, I'm avoiding spoilers but there are necessarily plot details. Go see the film first.

As you might expect, there are links with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, particularly in the theme of two complete strangers, impelled by forces they don't understand, destined to meet up for some great event. It's no spoiler to reveal that the story involves the efforts of a bunch of people bent on revealing to the world the US government's dealing with aliens, while a secretive agency, known as WARDEX, is willing to go to any lengths to prevent them.

The film kicks off with Daniel (Josh O'Connor) being abducted by a WARDEX team from the audience at an AEW wrestling event. The match was filmed in the Paramount Theater, 370 New York Avenue, Huntington in Long Island, New York. The 1,555-capacity live entertainment venue in downtown hosts over 150 events annually, including concerts, comedy and boxing.

The film uses real AEW fighters (sorry, but being British and not a fight fan, I don't recognise them) and if the enthusiasm of the spectators feels real, that's because the casting call for extras in Long Island specifically requested fight fans.

The resourceful Daniel gets away (he does a lot of that in the film) and WARDEX chief Noah (Colin Firth) returns to the company facility in 'Virginia', which is the Pfizer research facility in Pearl River, a town in New York State about 20 miles north of Manhattan. Originally called Muddy Creek, at some point the town wisely opted for rebranding.

To avoid detection, Daniel, along with partner Jane (Eve Hewson), needs to lay low in a place he's never been to before, and Jane guides him to the 'Monastery of St Clare of the Dawn' where, to Daniel's surprise, Jane reveals she had once been a novitiate.

The convent is the Community of St John Baptist, 82 West Main Street in Mendham, New Jersey. The Community originated in the UK in the mid-19th century as a very worthy Anglican order devoted to helping women who were then marginalised, such as single mothers, the homeless and sex workers.

On leaving the monastery next day Daniel and Jane are taken to a safe place – an abandoned 'West Virginia' farmhouse seemingly in the middle of nowhere. As you might have guessed that when it was wrecked by the car, the house was built from scratch for the movie. It stood in the grounds of Fosterfields Living Historical Farm a 213.4-acre farm and open-air museum of farming life and techniques plus traditional animal breeds of th early 20th century. It can be quite hands-on and you can help with some of the tasks if you like. Find it at 73 Kahdena Road in Morristown, on I-287, just over 20 miles northwest of Newark, New Jersey.

Of course WARDEX soon tracks them down and once again they escape, evading their pursuers by running their (empty) car off a cliff, which is at Dibbles Quarry, in Elka Park in the Catskills, a 19th-century bluestone quarry which once furnished rock for New York's sidewalks.

Meanwhile in the story's other thread, TV weather presenter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), who works for TV station KCXE 4 in 'Kansas City', begins acting strangely after a visit from a Red Cardinal bird. It unexpectedly flies in the window of her apartment at 38 Mercer Street, in the Van Vorst Park district of Jersey City. This is actually a decommissioned fire station now used an events space.

And the TV studio, where Margaret suddenly begins to emit weird alien sounds on air, was filmed at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. The set here was almost entirely practical, with cameras relaying live feeds into the control room.

Admitted to 'Jackson County Hospital' for a check up after the on-air episode, Margaret intuits that FBI agents who want to speak to her are not what they seem, and it's now her turn to sneak away.

In reality, that 'hospital' is Greenburgh Public Library, 300 Tarrytown Road, Elmsford, north of White Plains, New York.

She hits the road with her partner Jackson (Wyatt Russell) but with no clear destination.

The gas station in 'Decatur' at which they briefly stop, where the local folk are panic-buying supplies as a potential war with North Korea looms, is the Exxon station at 391 Main Road (Route 202), Montville in Morris County, New Jersey.

Back to Daniel and Jane, now holed up in the convincingly punning 'Inn-Di-Ana Motel' where Hugo (Colman Domingo), organiser of the proposed disclosure, assures Daniel he has a vital task in Kansas City. Far from 'Indiana' of course, the motel is Catskill Motor Court Motel, 5100 NY-32, Catskill, up towards Albany, New York.

Like their counterparts in Close Encounters..., Daniel and Margaret eventually get to meet up and, yes, they get away from WARDEX once again only to be followed again. In a terrific Spielberg action sequence (which recalls Spielberg's Duel), a WARDEX agent rams their car into a moving train. The stunt was filmed on a real crossing of the Cape May Seashore Lines railroad at Mill Road, just south of Tuckahoe Station, Tuckahoe, southern New Jersey. It's a short line railroad operating freight trains and excursion trains.

Jane, now on her own and having a bit of a crisis of faith phones the monastery for a bit of theological advice while she's briefly stopped at Selena's Diner & Pizzeria, 5701 Route 23A in Haines Falls, Catskills, New York.

The huge warehouse, where Margaret's childhood home has been meticulously recreated, was in the Bronx. And then it's back to 'KCXE 4' studio for the finale.