Retro Trailer For Steven Spielberg's Great 2002 UFO Saga Miniseries TAKEN
With Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day hitting theaters this weekend, aliens and government cover-ups are back at the top of everyone's watchlist.
With that movie out and the conversations around UFOs going crazy right now, it's worth revisiting the last time he went all-in on UFO mythology, and it was a 10-episode, Emmy Award-winning television event that most people have completely forgotten about.
Long before Disclosure Day was even a concept, Spielberg executive-produced one of the most ambitious alien abduction sagas ever committed to television. Steven Spielberg Presents: Taken aired on the Sci-Fi Channel from December 2–13, 2002, and it was unlike anything on TV at the time.
The miniseries spans over 50 years, from 1944 all the way to 2002, following three interconnected families whose lives are irrevocably tangled with extraterrestrial contact.
The families include The Crawfords, a shadowy military family committed to burying the truth about the Roswell crash at all costs. The Keys, ordinary people subjected to repeated, terrifying alien experimentation across multiple generations. And the Clarkes, who harbored a surviving alien from the crash and paid the price for their compassion
It's a sweeping, multigenerational epic part Close Encounters, part The X-Files, and part prestige TV drama. Written entirely by Leslie Bohem across all 10 episodes, the series was filmed in Vancouver with a rotating roster of directors that included Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and X-Files veteran Bryan Spicer.
This wasn't some campy late-night Sci-Fi Channel schlockfest, it was prestige television produced by DreamWorks, backed by one of the greatest filmmakers alive, and it delivered.
The show tackled the full breadth of American UFO mythology including Roswell, Men in Black, alien-human hybrids, government disinformation, and grounded it all in great emotional storytelling.
It asked the same question Disclosure Day is clearly asking in 2026: What happens to the people caught in the crossfire between humanity and something we can't explain? But I think the show did it better than Disclosure Day.
If you’ve never seen it, or don’t remember it, you should watch it! Here's the trailer to jog your memory, or see for the first time if you’ve never seen it.