I wondered why I could not find data about the short film. I had mistakenly believed that one of the early clips was a sanctioned “original”.

I will update the correction to the original article, but also leave your correction-comment.

Incidentally, this same article appears under my pen name “Ellery” at awildduck.com and on a few social media sites. I will correct these copies too.

I do have a few more photos. I will scan and send in the future. Please don’t hesitate to call.

Separately, I live near Harvard MA, a small town in which Carl and Steven Spielberg dedicated a radio telescope in their role as proponents of SETI. I visited it a few years ago. It is sad to see that the telescope has been ripped off of its foundation (leaving just a hole and some cement). The control shack is in ruins.

Apparently, there is either insufficient will or insufficient funding to continue listening—at least from here in Massachusetts. Hopefully, SETI still merits time on the big dish in Arecibo and elsewhere.

Philip Raymond
Sagan’s former Astro 101 student

At least one clarification is needed: Carl never was involved in any “Pale Blue Dot” short film. The audio you hear used in the video is actually taken from an audiobook version of the book, Pale Blue Dot.

The first PBD video appeared in 2006 as a fan tribute which took the audio and added imagery to the reading (several hundred more unique PBD videos have appeared in the years since). There is at least one audio variant based on a speech he gave, which differed slightly from the audiobook.