Oh wow, I have always considered this scene a blight on an otherwise perfect movie. I have often speculated over the years that it wasn't in the original script

Oh wow, I have always considered this scene a blight on an otherwise perfect movie. I have often speculated over the years that it wasn't in the original script and was a pickup after test screenings or inserted because a producer was scared audiences couldn't handle the ambiguity. One way of reading the film is as an epistemological exploration of modern society and how one character evolves their belief systems in the face of both ordinary and extraordinary events. I love the movie far more than the book because it doesn't neatly resolve the "truth" of what Ellie experiences, and it leaves the audience, minus this scene, in the same place as the protagonist.