People

The Arrival 7-12

Plot :
Ilana Green (Lindsay Crouse) is a climatologist who discovers plants and flowers growing 90 miles from the North Pole, despite the fact that there is no land above sea level within 90 miles of either the true or magnetic North Poles. She also describes CO2 increases of about 1% each, recorded at about 12 locations around the world, and uses this data to conclude that global CO2 has increased by twelve percent.

Zane Zaminski (Charlie Sheen) is a radio astronomer working for SETI who, along with his co-worker Calvin (Richard Schiff), discovers a radio signal that seems to have extraterrestrial origins. Zane and Calvin confirm the signal as not from a satellite or the Earth. They discover that it is coming from the fictional star "Wolf 336", 14 light years away.

Zane takes the tape of the signal to his boss at the JPL, Phil Gordian (Ron Silver), who dismisses his claim. Phil fires Zane supposedly because of budget cuts, and he says that he will give the tape to someone to check out. He instead destroys the tape. Zane discovers that he has been blacklisted by Gordian and cannot get a job anywhere. He finally gets a job as a TV satellite dish installer. He decides to use some of the dishes he installs to make his own personal array to listen to the signal again. The little boy next door, Kiki, shows interest in what Zane is doing and begins to help him with his work. He discovers that a reply signal is being transmitted from Earth back out into space. Zane tries to go to Calvin with his new information. But he finds that Calvin has just died under mysterious circumstances (right after giving information about their discovery to supposed government agents). Zane is becoming increasingly paranoid about what is going on. He traces source of the outbound message to Mexico, where the signal appears to have been piggybacked onto a broadcast from a Mexican radio station.
Cast :
Charlie Sheen ... Zane Zaminski
Lindsay Crouse ... Ilana Green
Richard Schiff ... Calvin
Shane ... JPL Guard #1
Ron Silver ... Phil Gordian / Mexican Guard
Teri Polo ... Char
Phyllis Applegate ... Mrs. Roosevelt
Alan Coates ... Terraformer
Leon Rippy ... DOD #1
Buddy Joe Hooker ... DOD #2
Javier Morga ... Co-worker
Tony T. Johnson ... Kiki
Catalina Botello ... N.C.A.R. Woman
Georg Lillitsch ... Computer Tech
David Villalpando ... Cabbie