Jordan Peele continues to work with mystery in Nope, starring Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, leaving fans with more questions than answers.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Jordan Peele's Nope!

Just like Get Out and Us, Jordan Peele's Nope builds its plot around an aura of mystery - so much so that even after the credits have rolled the director leaves fans with more questions than answers. Peele leaves narrative elements intentionally vague so that when unexplainable phenomena begin to happen around the Agua Dulce ranch, viewers are as bewildered as siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood.  By the time the pair realizes they may be dealing with an extra-terrestrial (which they dub "Jean Jacket") and immediately hatch a plan to get an "impossible shot" of it, audiences are engrossed and waiting for a payoff.

Whether the payoff comes as expected is open to interpretation, and it's clear that while Peele definitely has themes and symbolism inherent to his third movie, it's designed to pose questions and incite dialogue.

At the beginning of Nope, a radio report indicates 11 hikers have disappeared, and it's strongly implied that their screams can be heard during the attack on Otis Haywood Sr. Was this Jean Jacket's first attack, or had it been on Earth some time?

An apex predator of its size and speed would need to eat quite a bit, and wouldn't be able to hide for long after consuming herds of cattle or groups of people like the audience of the Star Lasso Experience. Perhaps it was simply a scout, intent on turning Nope into an alien invasion movie until its movements were scrutinized.

OJ and Emerald discover that Jean Jacket hides in clouds and is able to cloak itself when it chooses, but it's large enough even in saucer form to be noticed when it soars through the air. It would give off a large enough electromagnetic signal to be detected by at least some form of a satellite.

Satellite studies would have to reveal through data some form of anomaly that showed up more than once over time, yet a few ranch owners are able to detect it before the government.

During the massacre on the set of Gordy's Home! young Ricky is an intelligent enough character to hide under a table, his eyes trained on the carnage as well as...an upright shoe? A shoe stands on end, seemingly held up by unseen forces, and is kept by an adult Ricky in a place of honor in his office. Nope offers no explanation for the shoe's curious placement.

Did it signal the presence of an alien reminiscent of Jean Jacket?  Does it represent an absurd detail Ricky was focusing on to distract himself from the horrific display in front of him? Or was it simply a "bad miracle" like the one that killed OJ and Emerald's father? OJ keeps the nickel that went through his father's eye pinned to his wall, a reminder of the cost of something spectacular.

Gordy kills and/or disfigured the entire cast of Gordy's Home! except for Ricky, who manages to avoid the chimp by hiding under the kitchen table. That is, until Gordy discovers him and attempts to make contact by engaging in their classic "fist bump" from the show. Was it just fondness for Ricky that kept Gordy at bay?

Gordy's eyes are partially obscured by the plastic table cloth, suggesting that perhaps because he couldn't make direct eye contact with Ricky, he didn't misconstrue it as an aggressive stance. Gordy is shot before he can make contact with Ricky, thus leaving the scene open for interpretation. Did the fist bump simply delay the inevitable?

As an adult, Ricky "Jupe" Park tries to combine family-friendly entertainment and spectacle at his Western amusement park Jupiter's Claim with the Star Lasso show. He offers a horse to Jean Jacket in the hopes that it will be unable to resist a free meal and make an appearance for paying spectators. If he's had access to Jean Jacket for six months, with a steady stream of horses provided by OJ, why didn't he try to take a picture of the alien?

While it disables phones and cameras that require electricity, he has access to the camera in the well that Emerald uses in the finale to get the "Oprah shot" she wants. It's possible that to Jupe, a mere picture could never take the place of live entertainment, but in the end Jean Jacket behaves just like Gordy, an unpredictable animal that cannot be tamed by humans to do parlor tricks.

Antlers Holst, a legendary cinematographer known for getting the "impossible shot" agrees to help the Haywood siblings because he can't resist the allure of capturing an alien on film. He risks his life to get the shot by standing on a ridge and getting sucked up into Jean Jacket with his camera still rolling.

Did he represent a cautionary tale of being consumed by his art? By the beast that is Hollywood and the desire to be famous? More importantly, did he do so because he knew Jean Jacket would regurgitate any non-organic matter in its digestive tract, thus ensuring whoever found his camera would see the culmination of his life's work?

Unlike other alien movies like Nope with flying saucers, Jean Jacket doesn't spin or rotate, it zips around almost like a stingray in the ocean. When it stops in mid-air, it doesn't flap wings like a bird, it simply hovers. How is this possible?

It clearly releases some kind of energy to levitate, while at the same time being able to inhale its prey. There aren't many creatures in the animal kingdom to use as examples to justify how it maneuvers itself.

The Haywood siblings aren't the only ones investigating the mysterious things happening at Agua Dulce ranch. Someone from TMZ arrives at one point because the area shows up as "fuzzy" on Google Earth. Where did he come from, and how does he know to arrive just as they're about to film?

Did someone leak information to the tabloids? Was it just a coincidence that he showed up right when the "impossible shot" was about to be taken? It seems more likely that he would have told Emerald he was investigating the disappearance of the visitors to Jupiter's Claim.

Peele flips the script on flying saucer movies by envisioning that rather than Jean Jacket being a ship piloted by sentient extra-terrestrials it is one itself. It finally takes its "true form" in the final scenes of the movie, and Emerald is able to capture it resembling a quasi-aquatic and celestial entity.

Why did it wait so long to change into that form? Was it more efficient as a flying saucer when it came to maneuvering? It's possible that it changed form to be more intimidating, the way some predators display more plumage or grow larger to heighten their attack. These sorts of questions are why Nope is a creature feature that can be rewatched again and again.

One of the biggest questions in Nope has to be where did Jean Jacket come from? Has the alien visited Earth on different occasions, providing fodder for the curious to theorize about flying saucers and spacemen?

Peele keeps Jean Jacket's origins a mystery, simply alluding to the fact that the alien behaves like a wild animal, unable to be tamed or anthropomorphized like an animal trained to be part of the entertainment. Identifying it as an organism instead of a vehicle makes it even more difficult to explain where it came from, considering it would have had to somehow travel millions of lightyears to come to Earth.

NEXT: 10 Best Social Commentary Horror Movies Like Jordan Peele's Nope

Kayleena has been raised on Star Wars and Indiana Jones from the crib. A film buff, she has a Western collection of 250+ titles and counting that she's particularly proud of. When she isn't writing for ScreenRant, CBR, or The Gamer, she's working on her fiction novel, lifting weights, going to synthwave concerts, or cosplaying. With degrees in anthropology and archaeology, she plans to continue pretending to be Lara Croft as long as she can.