To “be your own person” has been what we have been told for decades; at least the whole of this writer’s life. A person is to “self-actualise”, that is, to become the ultimate version of themselves. Motivational speaker, Tony Robbins has told people that they can “awaken the giant within”. But you can’t be your own person, unless you know what person you are, you can’t “self-actualise” unless you have an inkling of what the “self” is and you can’t awaken the giant unless you have an understanding of what sort of giant you might awaken and what it might do.

You found it odd that there was no immigration officer checking passports at Dublin ferry port. You have, after all, just entered the EU from a Britain that has left, but it was as if you’d just driven from Chigwell to Epping; no one cared. A suspicion flashes through you that Great Britain and Ireland are one and the same. It was not long before you were driving along the Liffey, where glass buildings were announcing themselves proudly along the waterfront.

Steven Spielberg has tried to make aliens cool again. It hasn’t worked. Perhaps in Disclosure Day he intended to use extraterrestrials as a meditation on faith in a secular age. Perhaps he meant to challenge Christianity with demonstrations of science. But what’s he’s actually given us is a film about child abduction, bodily possession and psychological manipulation. Disclosure Day is the latest in the many media properties about visitors from beyond the stars.