Guillermo Del Toro: ‘My whole family has UFO sightings stories’

Pacific Rim director Guillermo Del Toro’s family gatherings are often all about UFO sightings.
Alien beings are all the rage for the cult Mexican filmmaker and his relatives as many of them have had out of this world encounters – and there isn’t a sceptic in sight when someone opens up about visitors from other planets.
“In Mexico, if you’re having dinner and you say the ghost of my grandmother came to me last you night, someone says, ‘Really? Tell me more!'” he says. “Most of the people I know in Mexico have had extraordinary experiences with ghosts or apparitions. I myself have had my share of weird stuff happen. I’ve had stuff happen to me.
“I saw a UFO, for sure, when I was 16. A friend and I were on the highway and we saw a light on the horizon moving super fast. I said (to my friend), ‘Honk and flash your lights’, and it (UFO) went from there to 1,000 meters away in less than a second.”
Guillermo admits the design of the alien spaceship wasn’t anything to be impressed by.
He continues, “It was exactly as we do it in the movies. I wish I could say it was a great tale, a great design of something, but it was so crappy. It was a flying saucer with lights and circles! If I was lying I would make a better design. But it was just like they show it in the TV series.
“We were very scared and we jumped in the car and drove away. It followed us for a few seconds and then I looked back and it was gone. I told everybody immediately after and they believed me, because most everybody in my family has seen a flying saucer! My father, who is the most boring man around, talks about flying saucers coming out from the water and sea in Puerto Vallarta in the ’70s or ’60s and going into a mother ship.”