There are places on Earth that seem torn from another world. Devils Tower, in Wyoming, United States of America, is definitely one of them. A huge block of rock, almost 265 meters high, suddenly rises from the green plain as if someone planted it there by hand. There is nothing else like it around: no mountain ridge, no transition. Before 1977, it was already a geological curiosity and a sacred place for Native American tribes. After that year, it became something more: the place on Earth where aliens might have chosen to land. That, in no small part, thanks to Steven Spielberg.
How Devils Tower became world famous
When Steven Spielberg was preparing the film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (Third Degree Encounter), its location designer Joe Alves was given a clear mission by the production studio: to find “a very strange-looking mountain”. He chose Devils Tower, the oldest national monument in the United States, designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
What followed was, by the standards of the ’70s, a real invasion. Fortunately, a peaceful one. Helicopters, RVs, famous actors, film crews arrived in Wyoming. Most of the filming took place in the hay meadow of the Driskill family, who still live today at the foot of the monolith. The father and mother of Ogden Driskill — now a senator — slapped Spielberg for the sum of $20,000, reports CNN. A good deal, as it turned out.
The film was released in 1977 and grossed over $300 million worldwide. Richard Dreyfuss played the role of Roy Neary, an ordinary American who, after seeing a UFO, becomes obsessed with a mysterious shape, which he reproduces in a huge sculpture in his house. That shape was Devils Tower.
The effect was immediate and spectacular. Before the movie, the national monument received around 153,000 visitors a year. After the film’s release, the number jumped to over 270,000.
“People still come to the park today because they saw the movie. About 12 minutes of the movie was filmed here in 1976, but the impact lasted for decades.”said Brian Cole, interpretive ranger at Devils Tower National Monument, in an interview with CNN.
The film literally put the place on the world tourism map.
A 50 million year old rock
But what exactly is Devils Tower? Geologists do not have a unanimously accepted answer, which paradoxically adds to its mystery. According to the National Park Service, the formation originated about 50 million years ago from magma that rose from the ground, cooled, hardened, and then cracked to form those massive, often hexagonal columns that give it its unique appearance.
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It is made of a rare rock called phonolitic porphyry and is the largest example of columnar jointing in the world. Some of the columns are up to three meters wide and stretch hundreds of meters high. Up close, the monolith looks as if someone has stuck thousands of giant pencils vertically up to the sky.
Climbers love these columns. Every year, about 5,000 people climb the formation, the only way to reach the top.
Today’s tourists come with varied expectations. Some hope, half-seriously, to find traces of the aliens in the film. Others come for the memory of their childhood cinema experience and are not disappointed.
The national park offers five trails. The most popular is the Tower Trail, a 2 kilometer paved circuit around the base of the monolith, with views from all angles. At sunset, the route is the most beautiful.
At the entrance to the park, over 600 specimens of prairie moles on about 16 hectares offer a different show. However, no UFOs were reported.
A sacred place, not just a tourist attraction
Before Steven Spielberg and President Roosevelt, Devils Tower was – and remains – a deeply spiritual place for many Native American tribes. Tribes such as Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho or Crow have their own legends and names for this formation. According to one legend, its vertical cracks were furrowed by the claws of a giant bear trying to reach two little girls on top. That is why many call place “Bear Lodge” (The Bear’s Hut).
The trees in the park are decorated with prayers left by the tribes, and visitors are asked not to touch, photograph or disturb them.
Even the name “Devils Tower” has a controversial story. According to the National Park Service, it may be the result of a mistranslation in which the native word for “bear” was mistaken for “evil god.” Petitions for the return to the name “Bear Lodge” have circulated in recent years.
Spielberg returns: “Disclosure Day” in June 2026
The story does not stop here. Steven Spielberg is preparing a new alien-themed film, “Disclosure Day”, which is set to hit theaters on June 12, 2026. The actors have suggested that the new production will answer some questions left open from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and on the internet is circulating the theory that it might even be a sequel to the 1977 classic.
If the speculations are true, Devils Tower could experience a new wave of notoriety and tourists who will come to see with their own eyes the place where, in the collective imagination, the first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization took place.
