Dr. Ellie Arroway, after years of searching, finds conclusive radio proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, sending plans for a mysterious machine.
Astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) has long been interested in contact with faraway lands, a love fostered in her childhood by her father, Ted Arroway (David Morse), who dies when she was nine-years-old, leaving her an orphan. Her current work with SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is based on that love and is in part an homage to her father. Ever since funding from the National Science Foundation (N.S.F.) was pulled from the project, which was referred to as "more science fiction than science" by some, including her N.S.F. superior David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), Ellie and her rogue scientist colleagues have looked for funding from where ever they could get it to continue their work. When Ellie and her colleagues hear chatter originating from the vicinity of the star Vega, Ellie feels vindicated. But that vindication is short lived when others, including politicians, the military, religious leaders, and rival scientists, such as Drumlin, try to take over her work. After the mysterious messages from space are decoded by her anonymous millionaire donor, S.R. Hadden (Sir John Hurt), the project takes on a whole new dimension, which strengthens for Ellie the quest for answers.—Huggo
The skeptical scientist Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) researches extraterrestrial life with her team in Puerto Rico. When David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt) shuts-down the project, Ellie seeks for private funds to reopen her research in New Mexico. An anonymous millionaire provides the necessary funds and Ellie proceeds with her work. Four years later, she is contacted by alien forms from Vega that send a coded message. The millionaire, S.R. Hadden (Sir John Hurt) that is financing the research deciphers the message and gives to Ellie the design of an intriguing machine. Ellie concludes that the equipment might be to transport a passenger to Vega. Now she needs to convince a commission formed by military, politicians, scientists, and religious leaders that she is the best candidate for the journey.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
After having lost her faith in God irrevocably, the esteemed astronomer, Dr Ellie Arroway, develops a different approach towards the existence of life outside the Earth's confined boundaries. Under those circumstances--as an active member of a dedicated scientist group dealing with radio waves--Dr Ellie hopes that one day, she will confirm her noble expectations by finding proof of extraterrestrial life. Unexpectedly, a cryptic message from deep space containing the blueprints of a puzzling machine rewards her faith and perseverance; however, can she decode its full meaning? In the end, after all this time, is this a direct invitation for an incredible first contact with elusive alien life forms?—Nick Riganas
This is the story of a free thinking radio astronomer who discovers an intelligent signal broadcast from deep space. She and her fellow scientists are able to decipher the message and discover detailed instructions for building a mysterious machine. Will the machine spell the end of our world, or the end of our superstitions? Will we take our place among the races of the galaxy, or are we just an upstart species with a long way to go?—Ed Howell <[email protected]>
Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) works for the SETI program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Guided into science and communication -- starting with Amateur Radio -- by her now-deceased father Theodore (David Morse), she listens to radio emissions from space, hoping to find evidence of alien life. she works with her colleague Kent Clarke (William Fichtner), who is blind, but loves the fact that Ellie listens to actual radio signals as almost nobody does that anymore. fisher (Geoffrey Blake) is their research assistant.
Ellie dates Christian philosopher Palmer Joss. She tells Palmer how she is an atheist and her inner most thoughts and fears. Palmer is a part-priest. He is writing a book on impact of technology on the poor people in third world countries. Ellie backs off when Palmer gets serious. Ellie is a logical person (she even blames her father's habit of keeping medicines in the downstairs bathroom for his death), and doesn't like people who talk of God and faith.
David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), the president's science advisor, pulls the funding from SETI, because he believes that the endeavor is futile. Arroway gains backing from Hadden Industries, run by secretive billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden (John Hurt), which allows her to continue the project at the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico.
Four years later, around 1996, with Drumlin seeking to close the SETI program (while Ellie has the funding but the telescope itself is owned by the Govt and they can lease it to whoever they want), Arroway discovers a signal repeating a sequence of prime numbers, apparently sent from the star system Vega about 26 light-years away. This announcement causes Drumlin and the National Security Council led by Michael Kitz (James Woods) to attempt to take control of the facility. Ellie is distraught at her project being taken away from her but has no choice else she will be cut off completely. Arroway's team discovers a video hidden in the signal: Adolf Hitler's opening address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Arroway and her team postulate that this would have been the first signal strong enough to leave Earth's ionosphere, reach Vega, and be transmitted back.
The project is put under tight security, and its progress followed worldwide. Arroway finds that the signal also contains more than 63,000 pages of indecipherable data. The reclusive S. R. Hadden secretly meets with Arroway to provide the means to decode the pages. The pages reveal schematics for a complex machine that is determined to be some kind of transport for a single occupant.
The US Govt advised by Kit and Drumlin are not in support of building the machine, but Palmer enters the discussion (he is now the spiritual advisor to the white house administration) and steers the opinion towards building the machine. The schematics are released to the media by an unknown person, which builds public pressure to build the machine.
The nations of the world fund the construction of the machine at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. An international panel is assembled to choose a candidate to travel in the machine. Although Arroway is a front-runner to go, her hopes are dashed by Christian philosopher Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a panel member whom Arroway met and briefly became romantically involved with in Puerto Rico. When he brings attention to her atheism, the panel selects Drumlin, as more representative of humanity (95% of humanity believes in God). When the machine is first tested, a religious terrorist destroys the machine in a suicide bombing, killing Drumlin and several others.
A cancer stricken Hadden, now in residence on the Mir space station (the low oxygen and zero gravity slows down the progress of cancer), reveals to Arroway that his company had secretly made a second machine in Japan and that Arroway will be the one to go. Palmer meets Ellie in Japan and says that he didn't vote for Ellie the last time as he didn't want to lose her. They reconcile.
Outfitted with several recording devices, Arroway enters the machine's pod, which is then dropped into three rapidly spinning gimbals rings, causing the pod to apparently travel through a series of wormholes. Arroway sees a radio array-like structure at Vega and signs of an advanced civilization on another planet. She then finds herself on a beach, similar to a childhood picture she drew of Pensacola, Florida, and a figure approaches that becomes her deceased father. Arroway recognizes him as an alien taking her father's form and attempts to ask questions. The alien tells her that the familiar landscape and form were used to make their first contact easier for her and that this journey was just humanity's first step to joining other space-faring species.
Arroway falls unconscious as she begins traveling back through a wormhole. She awakens to find herself on the floor of the pod, the mission control team repeatedly hailing her. She learns that, from outside the machine, it appears that the pod merely dropped through the machine's rings and landed in a safety net. Arroway insists that she was gone for approximately 18 hours, but her recording devices show only noise.
A Congressional Committee is formed and speculates that the signal and machine were a hoax designed by the now-deceased Hadden. Ellie has no physical proof of this fantastic story. in an irony, Arroway asks the committee to accept the truth of her testimony on faith. She is almost spiritual in her passion for her "experience" inside the machine.
In a private, online conversation, Kitz and White House official Rachel Constantine (Angela Bassett) reflect on confidential information that, although Arroway's recording device only recorded static, it recorded 18 hours of it. Arroway and Joss reunite, and Arroway receives ongoing financial support at the VLA.
