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Arts and Culture

Jodie Foster Helps Fund the Search for Alien Life

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Posted on Aug 16, 2011
gonemovie.com

The Allen Telescope Array in Northern California was shut down due to government budget cuts, but more than 2,400 donors, including “Contact” star Jodie Foster, gave enough money to keep the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute-run facility open a little longer.

Foster played Dr. Ellie Arroway in the film adaptation of Carl Sagan’s novel “Contact.” A good chunk of the film involves Foster’s character running around the country looking for someone to fund her radio telescopes, which she uses to find alien intelligence.

Although more than $200,000 in donations will be enough to get the telescopes humming again, the SETI Institute is hoping a little government work will cover the lab’s annual cost of $2.5 million. With funding for science evaporating, guess which department of the United States government is still flush with cash?  —PZS

BBC:

The SETI Institute says the fund should be enough to keep the telescopes operating until the end of the year, though the plan is still dependent on the institute receiving money from the US Air Force to track space debris that could damage satellites.

SETI Institute Astronomer Seth Shostak told BBC News, the deal with the Air Force is not yet done but he said he is fairly confident it will go through. Even then the money will need to be ratified by Congress and so there may be a delay. He hopes the array will re-open in September or October.

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By PenOverSword, August 22, 2011 at 3:48 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

My view is that the crop circles are the answer to the SETI radio transmissions.

For those who deem this ridiculous, read Eltjo Hasselhoff’s “The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles” or Michael Glickman’s “The Bones of God.”

I have yet to see a credible explanation of how hoaxers have been responsible for the entire phenomenon.

Too bad humans have been conditioned to reject any possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.

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By christian96, August 21, 2011 at 12:52 pm Link to this comment

Truthdig’s article on 8-17-11 titled “Big Tobacco
Sues Over Graphic Labels” didn’t make it to the
front page the next day on 8-18-11 but this 8-16-11
article about Jodie Foster helping search for alien
life has been on the front page SIX days.  Keep
searching for alien life Jodie.  I’ll keep searching
for OBJECTIVE journalism.

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By JohnStClair, August 21, 2011 at 12:17 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Here is the conversation with the Commander of the spacecraft who made the recent vortex crop circle which can be seen on the earthfiles.com website.

J.  Hello, this is John of Revelations here on Earth.
How may I address you?
C.  Call me Commander of our spaceship.
J.  Hello Commander.  Thank you for making the crop circle illusion.  It is marvelous.
C.  Thank you.  It took some time to calculate it.
supercomputer with 1 million processors)
J.  Yes, indeed!
C.  What did you discover?
J.  The area of the circle divided by the area of the
ellipse is pi/2.  Correct?
C.  Yes, very good.
J.  There appears to be more than this but I am still working on it.
C.  Yes, there are more things to discover, but that
is a good start.  Thanks for contacting us.
J.  How far away in light years is your planet located from Earth?
C.  10,000 light years.
J.  Is your planet similar to that of Earth?
C.  Yes, 10 billion people, 50% water.
J.  Are you a member of the Pleiadian Federation?
C.  No, we have a group of planets as a cluster nearby, whereas the Federation has planets scattered around the galaxy.
J.  Interesting. What made you decide to make the crop circle for us?
C.  We wanted to establish contact with the people of Earth.  It is a gesture of goodwill.
J.  Yes it is.  Thank you for your act of kindness.
C.  You are welcome.
J.  Is there anything you want to say before I sign out?
C.  We thank you for contacting us and wish you well.
Over and out.
J.  Over and out.

End of conversation.

John St.Clair

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By JohnStClair, August 20, 2011 at 7:03 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

@Gabriel - Oink oink, puny earthling!

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Gabriel's avatar

By Gabriel, August 19, 2011 at 6:07 pm Link to this comment

@JohnStClair

LMAO ... nice try, poor joke. Pigs on a farm can see through that conversation.

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By JohnStClair, August 19, 2011 at 3:59 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

This is the conversation concerning the recent crop circle in China which can be seen on the earthfiles.com website.

J.  Hello, this is John of Revelations here on Earth.  How may I address you, please?
A.  Yes, John, you may address me as Madam President.
J.  We are astounded by your beautiful and huge crop circle and/or land circle.  Amazing - such straight lines and dug into the earth. Can you describe what you meant?
A.  Yes, of course.  We are delighted to make contact with you.  It is a symbol of friendship to your people on Earth.
J.  Thank you so very much.  It has generated much interest in China and around the world.
A.  I see you are not in China.
J.  No, I am on the other side of the Earth in the United States of America.
A.   How did you get the picture?
J.  Master Chow took photographs and posted them on the Internet which is our global communications system - not mental telepathy!
A.  You are very capable in mental telepathy.
J.  Yes, I have contacted 1200 civilizations in the galaxy including 550 Pleiadian Federation planets.
A.  Oh, my, you are the best on your planet.
J.  Thank you for your kind words, Madam President.
Is your science adviser and legal/financial officer there with you also?
A.  Yes, they just came in.
J.  Please say hello to them also.
A.  I did.
J.  Would they like to say something?
A.  This is the Financial/Legal adviser - hello!
J.  Hello.
A.  This is the Scientific adviser.  Hello.
J.  Pi.
A.  What is that?
J.  Hi is hello, and Pi is 3.14159265 which sounds like Hi.
A.  That is funny.  So when I greet my committee I will say Pi.
J.  Most amusing!
A.  We are all laughing.
J.  Me too.
What did you do with the dirt that was removed from the circle?
A.  Yes, we scooped it up and put it on our mothership!
J.  Is that for your new garden in space?
A.  That is funny.  No, in a large storage bin.
J.  Your crop circle is 2000 meters in diameter, so how large is your mothership if I may ask?
A.  Our ship is 5 times that or 10000 meters long and 5000 meters wide and 1000 meters high.
J.  So I take it that you don’t actually need a planet!
A.  Ha, ha.  Yes, we are now on our planet.
J.  We have some lovely purple and yellow flowers and vegetables in our garden that you can plant in that soil.
A.  No, no.  We have plenty of that.
J.  Does your circle have a meaning we should know about?  It seems Oriental for the Chinese.
A.  Yes, it does.  It means no matter what path you take in life, you always come full circle!
J.  Oh, my!  That is profoundly beautiful.  May I disclose that here to others who will be inspired by your comment?
A.  By all means.
J.  I am overwhelmed.
A.  This has been a great conversation and humorous too.  We have to go.
J.  All right.  Thank you again.  Over and out.
A.  Over and out.

End of conversation.

John St.Clair

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Gabriel's avatar

By Gabriel, August 19, 2011 at 12:31 am Link to this comment

LOL ... SETI already received it’s answer and much more, in a way that shills can’t mess with it:
http://www.crop-circles.eu/pages/auteurs_agroglyphes.php?lang=en
and
http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/articles/alienface.html

US, UK and other military have extensive files and gleaned much tech. But they abused it and now it’s being presented to public directly by various means.

Some very high end info is being given.

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By Jimnp72, August 18, 2011 at 4:44 pm Link to this comment

How about rephrasing their search as the ‘search for intelligent life somewhere’ and removing the extraterrestrial part, because there sure as hell isnt any intelligent life here.

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By Maani, August 18, 2011 at 2:44 pm Link to this comment

Jim:

“With all the problems we face, from Fukushima fallout to a terminally corrupt goverment, to ever-increasing unemployment and poverty, doesn’t funding a search for extraterrestrial life seem irrelevant, if not over the top?  If you want to find aliens in our universe, that is, a large population of psychopaths and sociopaths masquerading as humans, they’re not hard to find leading corporations, organized religions, news organizations and governments.  And, we don’t need radiotelescopes to receive their broadcasts!”

On the other hand, if the search is for “intelligent life,” you won’t find much of it here on Earth - so you may as well look elsewhere!!  LOL.

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By Jim, August 18, 2011 at 9:44 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

With all the problems we face, from Fukushima fallout to a terminally corrupt goverment, to ever-increasing unemployment and poverty, doesn’t funding a search for extraterrestrial life seem irrelevant, if not over the top?  If you want to find aliens in our universe, that is, a large population of psychopaths and sociopaths masquerading as humans, they’re not hard to find leading corporations, organized religions, news organizations and governments.  And, we don’t need radiotelescopes to receive their broadcasts!

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Lafayette's avatar

By Lafayette, August 17, 2011 at 9:57 pm Link to this comment

Nice lady, Jodie.

She was recently interviewed at Cannes Film Festival and spoke excellent French.

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PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, August 17, 2011 at 4:42 pm Link to this comment

As long as Jodie is using her largesse to create jobs and fund worthwhile projects such as this, I am wholeheartedly behind her.

We need more like her.

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prisnersdilema's avatar

By prisnersdilema, August 17, 2011 at 7:23 am Link to this comment

Thanks Jodie….great movie, one of my all time favorites….It seems so long ago when I
read Carl Sagans, book…and yearned for a movie to ,do it justice….but that was almost
a life time ago…you were superb…

“What we have found is that all we have is each other”...

Thank you again…

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ohiolibgal's avatar

By ohiolibgal, August 17, 2011 at 7:09 am Link to this comment

You go Jodie! I’m sure she met people in and around the program while doing the film.

Loved James Woods in the movie as the paranoid national defense guy.

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By Wayne J. Tirone, August 17, 2011 at 3:10 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The wise would NOT search for alien life because if found, they may likely resemble humans in behavior, see us as inferior intellects to them and EAT us… I don’t care what degree or IQ someone has, it doesn’t mean they will have the intuition and street smarts to survive in a universe with infinite unknown perils.

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