This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

DENVER — A former director of the Center for SETI Research visited Denver this week to talk about the future of space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and technology.

(SETI stands for the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’)

Jill Tarter is one of the world’s leading scientists on the subject. She’s so passionate about it, Jodie Foster’s character in the movie ‘Contact‘ is based off of Tarter.

“He [the author] used a lot of personal details which surprised me,” Tarter said with a smile.

Tarter was dear friends with the author of ‘Contact’. Carl Sagan, a world-renowned astrophysicist and astronomer, considered Tarter a brilliant scientist.

“Well Carl was somebody who was always on. He was always engaging with whoever he was with,” she said.

Tarter continues to dedicate her entire career to searching for answers to the unknown. The answer, she believes, lies with new technology we haven’t even developed yet.

Two weeks ago, SETI launched a new funding campaign to help raise money to create new gadgets to help with the search.

SETI wants to take a series of 96 cameras with wide angle lenses (that can also correspond with one another) and use laser technology to constantly scan the skies for any extraterrestrial intelligence.

You can learn more about that project by clicking here.

Both Tarter’s efforts and SETI’s efforts are the subject of a new book called, ‘Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence‘. You can learn more about it or order a copy by clicking here. The book was written by Sarah Scoles, whose love for SETI was inspired by the movie, ‘Contact‘.

To learn more about Tarter and Scoles, select the ‘play’ button on the video above and watch Kevin Torres‘ Unique 2 Colorado segment about SETI.