Irritating Scientific Gaffe in the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster

[Bill Angel]

I happened to recently watch the movie Contact which starred Jodie Foster. I noticed what I thought was an irritating gaffe in the plot. At the end of the story the possibility is presented that the First Contact purportedly established with an alien society was a hoax perpetrated by a wealthy individual to serve his own greedy corporate purposes. The First Contact was supposedly a signal received from a source located 26 light years away in the constellation Vega. If the purported First Contact was indeed a hoax, then the implication was that the scientific community was fooled into believing that the signal establishing First Contact (which therefore was actually of local origin) had originated in a radio source 26 light years distant. But it would seem to be impossible to fool scientists on this matter, as astronomers have very accurate ways of measuring the distance from the Earth of stars and other sources of radiation. A perpetrator of a hoax could never fool scientists on this issue. In the context of most science fiction this issue would be a minor gaffe. But the story and movie originated with Carl Sagan, who would have been expected not to have made such a gaffe, considering that the credibility of whether First Contact was even established becomes a central issue at the end of the story.

[swansont]

It's been a long time since I saw the movie, but wasn't the hoax claim politically motivated?

[Tamorph]

Scientists of course can see the errors in science fiction films, just as historians see the many gaffs in historical films, but how many scientists and historians go to the cinema?

 

Most films are made with only one aim, and that is for the film producers to make a profit. Films are made with little educated mass audiences in mind rather than a much smaller group of better educated scientists or historians.

 

When push comes to shove, factual accuracy is never going to get in the way of a good storyline. The dollar is more important to the producers, who have invested their own money, than truth can ever be.

[Bill Angel]

It's been a long time since I saw the movie, but wasn't the hoax claim politically motivated?

Perhaps, in the sense that the space traveller's (Jodie Foster's character) testimony was called into question and discredited in the context of a Congressional hearing by a Congressman (played by James Woods). The purported Congessonal criticism could also have been politically motivated as several scenes incorporate Bill Clinton as President lauding the scientists for their success in decoding the message from space and then building the device to transport someone out and back through wormholes. But Jodie Foster's character was supposed to a radio astronomer with a PhD from Cal Tech, who could not explain at a Congressional hearing why scientists were certain that the signals originated from 26 light years away and not from relatively close proximity to Earth.

[CharonY]

Scientists of course can see the errors in science fiction films, just as historians see the many gaffs in historical films, but how many scientists and historians go to the cinema?

 

Well, I would think the majority of scientists are. It is just that scientists are not the largest part of the population.

[Mr Monkeybat]

I remember this annoying me too, I was still in high school but I still noticed it. But even if the accusation was politically motivated any report or inquiry that came to that conclusion would be ridiculed by any anilist who thinks about it a bit.

[overtone]

The accusation in the movie was that the hoax was very sophisticated, carried out with the backing of a wealthy and technologically very capable man with a reputation for skirting the law, and any discrepancies were covered up somehow by the main recipients of the signals - a small number of the world's top pros in cahoots.

 

If you recall, the signal stopped inexplicably as soon as the machine was turned on - better evidence, to the accusers, of its near earth origin, than any more subtle problems were of its distant one. And the faction that wished to disbelieve in the alien origin was presented as strongly motivated as well as resistant to scientific argument.

 

As a foreteller of climate change denial, the story seems to have got a lot of the situation pretty well laid out.

[pwagen]

But the story and movie originated with Carl Sagan, who would have been expected not to have made such a gaffe, considering that the credibility of whether First Contact was even established becomes a central issue at the end of the story.

The story originated with Sagan. The film, perhaps not as much. I never finished the book myself (too much political boring stuff in the middle). But from what I read, and I'd be happy to look it up myself, the hoax accusations are in the books as well, but the scientists disregard them due to it being an impossibility. So Sagan didn't miss this little detail at all, though the film makers didn't include it for one reason or another.

[Mr Monkeybat]

The accusation in the movie was that the hoax was very sophisticated, carried out with the backing of a wealthy and technologically very capable man with a reputation for skirting the law, and any discrepancies were covered up somehow by the main recipients of the signals - a small number of the world's top pros in cahoots.

 

If you recall, the signal stopped inexplicably as soon as the machine was turned on - better evidence, to the accusers, of its near earth origin, than any more subtle problems were of its distant one. And the faction that wished to disbelieve in the alien origin was presented as strongly motivated as well as resistant to scientific argument.

 

As a foreteller of climate change denial, the story seems to have got a lot of the situation pretty well laid out.

 

It would require not just the top pros in cahoots. It would require modifying every single radio telescope in the world. You would have to splice in a device which emit a signal only when the telescope is pointed at exactly the right angle which is changing all the time.

 

Your description of the hoax theory it a bit different to what I remember, is that from the book? If I remember correctly at the end of the film they said he launched a satylite to fake the signal which of course would have the orbiting problem of not staying in the right place in the sky as well as a parallax problem of between multiple earth telescopes. With the script writer misunderstanding what geostationary orbit implies.

[overtone]

 

It would require not just the top pros in cahoots. It would require
modifying every single radio telescope in the world. You would have to
splice in a device which emit a signal only when the telescope is
pointed at exactly the right angle which is changing all the time.

Or just step on the occasional naysayers, flake researchers the general public does not understand.

 

Much easier than climate change denial, and the interested parties seem to have sold that effectively.

[half-fast]

A little late to the discussion, I'm mostly in agreeance with overtone. Overall, it's a great story, and probably my favourite of all "realistic" movies about aliens and space. I absolutely adore this movie, and that aspect barely bothers me - mostly because the government does far more irrational things, not to mention the American government's proclivity to cover things up and deny, deny, deny

 

There are other aspects of this movie that get to me far more than the aforementioned part, but all in all, this movie makes pretty damned good sense, considering most sci-fi movies make little to no sense.