In the 1997 movie "Contact" (based on the novel by Carl Sagan), actress Jodie Foster plays an astrophysicist devoted to SETI -- the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Despite doubting colleagues, she vigilantly monitors signals from radio telescopes aimed at thousands of nearby sun-like stars, hoping to receive a message from alien life forms. While the large dish telescope in the movie is real (the movie was filmed on location at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico), the contact isn't. So far, the skies remain silent.
pessimist.