While Steven Spielberg's sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind is renowned for its sense of cinematic mystery and awe, the meta-fiction that surrounds it was just as intriguing. Conspiracy theories. Unusual storms. Warnings from NASA. And in 2005, information posted to the internet by a group of US Defense Intelligence Agency insiders gave rise to the notion that Close Encounters could actually be portraying real events. It's certainly one of those instances where the truth is just as strange, and engaging, as the fiction. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Close Encounters, the film is getting a 4K remaster re-release - so it's a good time to delve into the stories that surround it. Spielberg's dream - based on reality? Spielberg had wanted to make an alien film since he was a boy, when he and his father watched a meteor shower in New Jersey. He had dealt with the subject matter before - with 1964's low-budget Firelight, written and directed when he was just 17 - but the