Jill Tarter has two claims to fame. Not only is she one of America’s most respected space scientists, she was also the model for the heroine of a blockbuster Hollywood film. When Jodie Foster graced the silver screen in Contact, as the head of a programme trying to locate alien signals from the cosmos, it was Tarter’s story she was bringing to life. Despite the Hollywood hype, the scientist nevertheless retains her reputation for hard-headed science. Asked recently by a children’s magazine if a breakthrough was imminent, she took the pragmatic view. "Chances are the search will take a long time," she replied. "I hope there are readers out there who might want to be my replacement someday." Last week it emerged that she may no longer have any need for a successor. Scientists working for Tarter’s US-government funded Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence Programme (Seti), announced they had tracked an unexplained radio signal that was the best candidate yet for "first contact" from an alien civilisation. The strange signal had been picked up three times by the giant Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico that Seti uses to scour outer space. That the signal did not carry the tell-tale signature of any known astrological phenomenon, or couldn’t be the result of natural interference, only added to the global sense of excitement. Originating from the region of space between the constellations Pisces and Aries, it was also recorded on the frequency that most theorists of extra-terrestrial intelligence believe aliens would be most likely to transmit on if they were trying to make contact with another civilisation.
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