Dr. Ellie Arroway works with the SETI program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, dedicating her career to listening for radio emissions from space in the hope of discovering signs of intelligent life. Her path into science began with a love of amateur radio, inspired by her father, whose death years earlier left a lasting influence on her curiosity and determination. The mission she pursues is both a scientific pursuit and a personal quest to connect with something larger than herself.
When funding for SETI is threatened, David Drumlin, the President’s science adviser, deems the project futile. Yet Arroway receives crucial financial support from the elusive billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden, who runs Hadden Industries, allowing her to continue her work at New Mexico’s Very Large Array (VLA). This private backing keeps the project alive despite political and public scrutiny, and Arroway presses forward with relentless rigor and optimism.
Four years pass, and Drumlin again moves to terminate the program at the VLA. In this tense climate, Arroway uncovers a remarkable signal: a stream of prime numbers emanating from the star Vega. The international team surrounding the project scrambles to understand its meaning, while Drumlin and the National Security Council attempt to seize control of the facility. Hidden within the signal, the team discovers a video—Adolf Hitler’s opening address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, a startling artifact that indicates the message had traversed the Earth’s ionosphere before reaching Vega.
The discovery sets off a global security response, as scientists and officials around the world monitor progress and safeguard the project. Arroway’s team decodes the transmission and finds an immense amount of encoded data—more than 63,000 pages—believed to hold the blueprint for a sophisticated device. With Hadden’s aid, the information is deciphered, revealing schematics for a machine that could transport a single person through space in an extraordinary journey. Governments and private entities alike contribute funding for its construction, and the project moves forward to Cape Canaveral, where a coordinated effort among nations begins to take shape.
An international panel oversees the selection of a traveler for the machine. Arroway emerges as a front-runner, but Palmer Joss, a Christian philosopher who had a personal relationship with her in Puerto Rico, challenges a key cultural and philosophical assumption by pointing to her atheism. The panel ultimately designates Drumlin as the chosen traveler, reshaping the expectations and pressures surrounding the mission.
Tragedy strikes during the early tests when a religious extremist detonates a suicide bomb, destroying the machine and killing himself, Drumlin, and several others. In a surprise twist, Hadden, now aboard the Mir space station and nearing the end of his life due to cancer, reveals that a secret contract between the U.S. government and his company resulted in the construction of a second machine in Hokkaido, Japan. With Drumlin out of the way and Arroway the only American among the remaining candidates, she is selected to make the historic journey.
Equipped with multiple recording devices, Arroway steps into a pod and is launched into the machine, seemingly traveling through a network of wormholes. Her sensors capture glimpses of a radio array-like structure on Vega, signs of a civilization on an alien world, and a celestial event that fills her with awe. She eventually finds herself on a beach that resembles a childhood image she drew of Pensacola, Florida, where an alien—taking on the appearance of her deceased father—appears and explains that the aliens detected humanity’s radio emissions and judged them ready for a first step into the cosmos.
Back on Earth, Arroway regains consciousness in the pod, and mission control informs her that the pod apparently fell through the machine and landed in a safety net, leaving the experiment seemingly unachieved. She insists she was gone for about 18 hours, but the recording devices indicate only static. A Congressional Committee, led by Michael Kitz, questions whether the signal and the mission were a hoax orchestrated by Hadden, who has since died. Arroway urges the committee to accept the truth of her experience—on faith, if necessary—explaining that, while her testimony cannot be proven scientifically, it has profoundly touched her humanity.
In the aftermath, Arroway is reconnected with Joss, who affirms his belief in her account. Kitz and White House official Rachel Constantine discuss the confidential implications and acknowledge the odd result of 18 hours of static recorded by Arroway’s devices. Despite the controversy, Arroway receives continued financial backing for the SETI program at the VLA, ensuring the pursuit of discovery, inquiry, and humanity’s ongoing search for meaning beyond Earth.
