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A switchboard operator and a DJ in a small town in the 1950s discover a strange, potentially alien, audio signal that leads them on a wild investigation to find the origins of the signal. This is the plot for The Vast of Night, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Could our first contact with aliens be as simple as a radio signal from aliens saying, “Hi?” The renowned scientists who invented the radio believed they received precisely that early in their experiments. Today, scientists spend millions to listen in on radio signals from space hoping to hear that first transmission from an extraterrestrial civilization.

A complicated debate rages as to who first invented the radio. On the U.S. side is Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor who is the namesake for Elon Musk’s Tesla electric vehicle company. Representing the Europeans is Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi.