Group Grope at Esalen

In his 1978 review “The Third Coming,” Martin Gardner critically examines the rising tide of UFO enthusiasm in American pop culture, using Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a case study in what he calls a “quasi-religious” longing for cosmic salvation. Blending satire, skepticism, and cultural critique, Gardner dissects how belief in extraterrestrial visitors has become a substitute theology for a generation disillusioned with traditional religion and scientific rationalism alike. The film, he argues, offers not just spectacle but a spiritual fantasy—a modern-day Second Coming wrapped in sci-fi imagery. One particularly surreal moment in the film captures this fusion of religious awe and New Age sensuality:

“Tall creatures start to emerge. They are hard to see, silhouetted against a blinding white light, but we can make out enormous heads, long necks, and pipe-stem arms and legs of great flexibility. They are followed by their children—twittering, lovable little things who rush around touching everybody, ‘feeling human groins, human faces, human backsides.’ It’s a group grope at Esalen. ‘If the human didn’t like it, they moved on to someone who did…an orgy of touching, palpating, feeling, stroking.’”

As Gardner closes his review, he draws attention to the film’s final moments, where Close Encounters moves beyond spectacle and into a dreamlike expression of longing and hope. In place of dramatic dialogue or cosmic revelation, Spielberg turns to the quiet magic of childhood memory. As Roy prepares to leave Earth, a familiar tune from Disney’s Pinocchio rises in his mind—an invocation of belief, innocence, and the possibility that contact with the unknown may be less about conquest and more about transformation:

In the original film version of Close Encounters a song from Roy’s childhood floats into his head just before he boards the celestial chariot. You won’t believe it, but the song is from Walt Disney’s Pinocchio, and its stanzas still grace the last pages of the novel.

When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are,
Anything your heart desires will come…to…you.

As Roy, eyes shining, tramps like a Cub Scout into the Great Mystery, another stanza jogs through his mind:

Like a bolt out of the blue,
Fate steps in and sees you through.
When you wish upon a star your dream…comes…true.

Gardner, Martin. “The Third Coming.” The New York Review of Books, January 26, 1978. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/01/26/the-third-coming/.