This movie is a sci-fi thriller in which an astronomer discovers intelligent alien life. But the aliens have a secret that they don’t want revealed. The film takes place in the high-desert Owens Valley of California, where the astronomer works for the SETI Project. In reality, the OVRO 40-meter Telescope is a radio telescope at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory near Big Pine, CA. It is owned and operated by Caltech. This is the same radio telescope used as the film location where Dr. Eleanor Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) did her thesis work in the movie, Contact. An interesting side note is that, in 2007, the telescope was re-purposed for a blazar monitoring campaign, in support of the Fermi Space Telescope which launched in 2008. A blazar is like a cosmic engine that blasts EM radiation from the center of most galaxies. (Image Source: OVRO 40 Meter Radio Telescope)