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In the last few minutes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the French ufologist Claud Lacombe does 5 hand gestures in the presence of a single alien. The gestures are supposed to represent the 5 tones played throughout the movie. The alien does some similar hand gestures in return.

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I'm very curious if, within the movie, the alien was supposed to know that the hand movements represented the musical theme. Also, why would the alien have repeated those particular gestures, since humans were doing all kinds of motions with their hands prior to that? (To be fair, everyone except Lacombe was completely still during this exchange.)

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  • @steelersquirrel You might be right. But it sure looked like the alien knew that the hand signals translated to musical notes. (And I KNOW this is just a magical "suspend disbelief" kind of moment. I'm just wondering if Spielberg ever talked about this.)
    – BrettFromLA
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 20:33
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    The aliens knew how to transmit the lat and long for Devil's Tower and sending and receiving musical tones, possible they studied and therefore understood the hand signs. They mastered space travel after all.
    – user25738
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 21:33
  • @SiXandSeven8ths True, but I can't think of a time they would have seen the hand signs before that.
    – BrettFromLA
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 21:59
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    @BrettFromLA, I'm saying that there might be an assumption that the aliens have been observing and learning for quite some time, we know that they have been around and abducting people for at least 30 years by the time the movie takes place.
    – user25738
    Commented Nov 28, 2017 at 22:01
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    Did you check this - What is the point of the hand signals in “Close Encounters”?
    – J M
    Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 8:46

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