Perhaps I can throw in a bit re: the Close Encounters issue.
In 1980, I was a Super 8 filmmaker in high school and joined the local filmmakers club in Redlands, CA. The president of the club was a guy named Keith Shartle, whose friends from college days included the three guys who started an effects house called DreamQuest. I used to visit their studio occasionally and get tours. Anyway, the guys at DreamQuest, specifically Hoyt Yeatman and, as I recall, Scott Squires, got their start being hired to work for Douglas Trumbull on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I first met Yeatman and Squires when they were speaking at the first film club meeting I attended, bringing with them plenty of photos as well as a couple of matte paintings from Star Trek:TMP which their associate, Rocco Gioffre (also there with them) brought to display. A couple of years later, Keith quit his job as manager of redlands Camera and went to work with the guys at DreamQuest.
Subsequent to the film club days, I went to see a movie in Westwood Village with my high school filmmaking friend, also in the club, and Keith Shartle. I recall that day. We had seen The Pope of Greenwich Village. After the movie, as we were in the car, Keith told us a story he had heard from a guy who had worked on the accounting for Close Encounters. He said that federal money had gone into the production. We all thought that was rather interesting. Federal government money in the budget for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. That was all he could tell us, all he apparently knew about it, a comment, really.
What may make this more interesting, or not, is that Keith Shartle's father was Paul Shartle, who was the civilian chief of the USAF audio-visual command aka AVIS, at former Norton AFB in San Bernardino, CA (which I can see from my house). Paul Shartle's name turns up in the Holloman UFO film story.
For what that's worth.
Unfortunately, Keith passed away unexpectedly after a surprise illness, about 17 years ago, otherwise I'd ask him if he was just pulling our legs.
That's what I have to add to the conversation. That's all there was to it. Maybe if someone pulled that thread they'd find something. I don't know.