Plot
Allan Maxwell (Cliff Robertson) is an engineer who has dedicated himself to researching microwave background noise using a device powered from his radio station. He inadvertently gets an extraterrestrial from Andromeda on his three-dimensional television screen. Using his computer, Allan is able to translate the extraterrestrial's thought patterns into English. Both are conducting illicit experiments; Maxwell should not be using the radio station's power, and the extraterrestrial is forbidden to contact "planets like Earth" because "worlds such as these are a danger to the others." Allan and the extraterrestrial have further enlightening, philosophical conversations, in which Maxwell learns that "Infinity is God. God, infinity, all the same."
In the evening, Allan reluctantly leaves the radio station to be feted at a banquet, while leaving the channel to the extraterrestrial open. DJ Eddie Phillips, who is substituting for Allan's brother Gene "Buddy" Maxwell (Lee Philips), after being told not to, turns up the power to full, causing the extraterrestrial to be transmitted to Earth as a three-dimensional electromagnetic being. The 'Galaxy Being', as it is dubbed, wreaks inadvertent havoc, killing Eddie and injuring several other people by burning them with natural radiation. The extraterrestrial encounters Allan in person, who convinces it to turn down the heat, and then guides it back to the transmitter shed. They are soon cornered by local authorities, who accidentally shoot Allan's wife, Carol (Jacqueline Scott). The Galaxy Being then uses beneficial radiation to heal the wound.
When the Galaxy Being emerges, the authorities attempt to kill it, but it protects itself by destroying the bullets in flight, again with radiation. As a warning demonstration (and perhaps to prevent other aliens from coming), the Galaxy Being destroys the transmitter tower. The mob is told, "There are powers in this universe beyond anything you know. … There is much you have to learn. … Go to your homes. Go and give thought to the mysteries of the universe. I will leave you now, in peace." At this, the crowd disperses.
The Galaxy Being is then unable to return home because it has violated a law forbidding contact with Earth. So, after first reassuring Allan that "there is no death for me," the Galaxy Being reduces its microwave intensity which causes it to disintegrate. Its last words as it vanishes into another dimension are, "End of transmission".
Read more about this topic: The Galaxy Being
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)