Steven Spielberg uses the concept of urban paranoia to dismantle it, to expose it and to denounce it. The intervention of extraterrestrials in our society starts a real panic among many people, and at the same type mesmerizes some who are invited in a way for the grand coming that is announced by this open show of power and benevolence. Then the film analyzes the reaction of authorities. Military authorities are obsessed by limiting the contact of these ETs with the population, hence they evacuate the area where the meeting is supposed to take place, they establish a whole fear and even fright process to convince the population that they must go away or stay away,and they constantly think of danger, instead of thinking of potential opening. On the other side the scientists, strangely dominated by a Frenchman, are jumping on the occasion to open their minds, to seize the day, the night and the new vistas that open up to them.