Another Earth

Richard Berendzen:
Within our lifetimes, we've marveled as biologists have managed to look at ever smaller and smaller things. And astronomers have looked further and further into the dark night sky, back in time and out in space. But maybe the most mysterious of all is neither the small nor the large: it's us, up close. Could we even recognize ourselves, and if we did, would we know ourselves? What would we say to ourselves? What would we learn from ourselves? What would we really like to see if we could stand outside ourselves and look at us?

John's Son:
What rhymes with "light"?

John Burroughs:
"Light"?

Maya Burroughs:
Oh, that's a good one. [Loud crash]

Richard Berendzen:
In the grand history of the cosmos, more than thirteen thousand million years old, our Earth is replicated elsewhere. But maybe there is another way of seeing this world. If any small variation arises-they look this way, you look that way-suddenly maybe everything changes and now you begin to wonder, what else is different? Well, one might say that you have an exact mirror image that is suddenly shattered and there's a new reality. And therein lies the opportunity and the mystery. What else? What new? What now?

Rhoda Williams:
Maybe they're up there. Maybe not. Maybe.

[first lines]

Rhoda Williams:
I saw this image when I was a kid. The photograph of Jupiter taken by NASAs Voyager. Beautiful. But nothing special until shown in rapid succession. Suddenly Jupiter was alive. Breathing. I was hypnotized.

John Burroughs:
You would go?

Rhoda Williams:
Yes.

John Burroughs:
You don't know what's out there.

Rhoda Williams:
That's why I would go.

Rhoda Williams:
When early explorers first set out West across the Atlantic, most people thought the world was flat. Most people thought if you sailed far enough West, you would drop off a plane into nothing. Those vessels sailing out into the unknown, they weren't carrying noblemen or aristocrats, artists or merchants. They were crewed by people living on the edge of life: the madmen, orphans, ex-convicts, outcasts like myself. As a felon, I'm an unlikely candidate for most things. But perhaps not for this. Perhaps I am the most likely.

Richard Berendzen:
It would be very hard to think "I am over there" and "Can I go meet me?" and "Is that me better than this me?" "Can I learn from the other me?" "Has the other me made the same mistakes I've made?" Or, "Can I sit down and have a conversation with me?" Wouldn't that be an interesting thing? The truth is, we do that all day long every day. People don't admit it and they don't think about it too much, but they do. Every day, they're talking in their own head. "What's he doing?" "Why'd he do that?" "What did she think?" "Did I say the right thing?" In this case, there's another you out there.

Rhoda Williams:
If you met yourself, what would you say?

John Burroughs:
Hey, you up for a video game? Probably beat me. What would you say?

Rhoda Williams:
Better luck next time.

Purdeep:
Listen to me. Keep your mind clear. And that's it. You will have peace of mind. My dear, don't worry. Learn to adjust yourself.

Rhoda Williams:
You know that story of the Russian cosmonaut? So, the cosmonaut, He's the first man ever to go into space. Right? The Russians beat the Americans. So he goes up in this big spaceship, but the only habitable part of it's very small. So the cosmonaut's in there, and he's got this portal window, and he's looking out of it, and he sees the curvature of the Earth for the first time. I mean, the first man to ever look at the planet he's from. And he's lost in that moment. And all of a sudden this strange ticking... Begins coming out of the dashboard. Rips out the control panel, right? Takes out his tools. Trying to find the sound, trying to stop the sound. But he can't find it. He can't stop it. It keeps going. Few hours into this, begins to feel like torture. A few days go by with this sound, and he knows that this small sound... will break him. He'll lose his mind. What's he gonna do? He's up in space, alone, in a space closet. He's got 25 days left to go... with this sound. So the cosmonaut decides... the only way to save his sanity... is to fall in love with this sound. So he closes his eyes... and he goes into his imagination, and then he opens them. He doesn't hear ticking anymore. He hears music. And he spends the sailing through space in total bliss... and peace.