One of my favorite gossip sub genres is when famous people talk about their belief in the supernatural, like ghosts, hauntings, or aliens. Whoopi Goldberg, Kumail Nanjiani, Goldie Hawn, Post Malone, Demi Lovato, and Chris Colfer all either believe in aliens or claim to have had UFO encounters. We can add Demi Moore to the list of people who are, at the very least, curious about aliens. Earlier this week, Demi popped up on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote the new season of Landman. Demi is from Roswell, New Mexico, which is ground zero for alien conspiracies in the US. (A quick refresher of Roswell lore: In 1947, debris was found in the area. The government said it was a downed military balloon, but that didn’t stop rumors from spreading over the next few decades that it was in fact a crashed spaceship.)
Stephen has long been fascinated by the potential existence of extraterrestrials and has talked about it on the show before. During the interview, Demi mentioned Stephen’s interest in aliens and reminded him of her hometown. She then obliged his curiosity and confirmed that growing up in Roswell made her believe that “something definitely happened” there.
As a native of Roswell, N.M., Demi Moore has a lot of thoughts about extraterrestrials. All of which she was happy to share with Stephen Colbert, much to his — and our — amusement.
During an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in support of her role on the series Landman, Moore told the host that she learned recently of his “fascination with aliens,” which she thought was perfect because her own children often tell her “they think I’m part alien.”
When Colbert asked why her daughters — Tallulah, 31, Rumer, 37, and Scout, 34 — think that about her, Moore replied, “I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I was born in Roswell.”
The town, of course, is most famous for the 1947 “Roswell Incident,” when the debris of a crashed military balloon was recovered, fueling decades of conspiracy theories of aliens, UFOs, and a rumored crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. Roswell has since leaned into its identity, with annual events such as the UFO Festival, the opening of the International UFO Museum, and other related tourist attractions.
When Colbert first brought up the topic to Moore, she said, “Something definitely happened. But when I was a kid, it was never spoken about. Never. It just was not ever ever talked about, not even in passing. It was as if it was a secret.”
She added that when Hollywood came calling, with documentaries and the popular WB show, Roswell, now all of a sudden in town, “there was a museum, and now there’s a somewhat comprehensive museum discussing how they shut all communication down about it.”
When Colbert pressed her on what she meant when she said something definitely happened, she demurred, “I don’t know. Well, you know, the largest landing strip in America is in Roswell, so there’s a lot of testing that goes on.”
When she didn’t elaborate further, Colbert teased, “Legally, you can’t say anything or they’ll take you out,” to which she joked back, “It’s possible.”
Moore then turned the tables on the late-night host, asking what his fascination with aliens is. “What is not to be fascinated about?” he replied. “The possibility there are aliens, or a branch of the military that’s been putting out these videos of unexplainable pill-shaped things that go into the water and come out and go from like 0 to 6,000 miles an hour with absolutely no g-force impact — I mean, what? I am not the one with the problem.”
Moore shared with Colbert that she is taking her own alien fascination to the big screen with her upcoming film Strange Arrivals, which is based on the true story of Betty and Barney Hill’s alleged alien abduction. Colman Domingo will play Barney, and Moore will play Betty.
I love this conversation so much. You can tell the moment that Demi realizes that while she believes in an alien conspiracy based on vibes she got as a kid, Stephen has done the research and knows quite a lot about the topic. She probably heard that he asked Sen. Mark Kelly about aliens being real and thought it would be a fun subject to bring up. She was clearly not prepared for his actual, serious answer on why he was fascinated by their possible existence. Personally, I go back and forth. I can totally believe that something happened at Roswell that’s beyond the official story. I want to believe that it was aliens, but, really, it could have been anything. Maybe it’s something so top secret in terms of national security that officials prefer that the public believes in an extraterestrial conspiracy. (Can you tell I grew up watching The X-Files?) Or, maybe it really was just a crashed military spy balloon.
Photos credit: Barbara Hine/Future Image/Cover Images, M10s/TheNews2/Cover Images
There are so many things about Demi that just make me roll my eyes.
But I respect people who are curious about mysterious things, rather than just choosing to believe something against the evidence (Kim) or without any evidence.
And that clip of her monologue was good!
I’ve always liked the Roswell conspiracies. Sadly, no extra terrestrials were involved. It’s pretty well established that the government conducted covert weapons testing in the desert states.
Demi looks fantastic.