Listeners by Steve Meredith - Short, Drama, Sci Fi - At the U.S. Deep Space Signals Intelligence Laboratory - a top secret facility in the Mojave Desert - Drs. Steve Culver and Amy Fitch spend most of their nights listening to the silence of deep space.  That monotony changes however, when a signal is picked up by the facility's satellites orbiting Earth. 6 pages - pdf, format 8)

I think there's the germ of a decent story in here, though obviously incomplete at the moment,

I'm not sure of the science but would anything man-made be that far out?

Re the dialogues, they seem a little un-scientific in places and I'd have thought they'd have more knowledge of hat they were monitoring... e.g. when they say they'd have had to start sending the signals hours, if not days ago... wouldn't they know which?

Anyway be interested to see where you take this.

Steve,

Some notes.  

Like Anthony, I don't think this is a complete story.  It needs more work.  The dialogue is too wordy and needs better formatting.  I don't know why Amy didn't contact NASA as soon as the pings started coming.  I understand that you're building for some sort of space encounter, but there should be better science in this.  I don't know much about deep space listening, but I think there would a range of procedures and tests to run before they start bothering with NASA and space assets.  

Get this one started faster so you can get to some plot twists and turns that will keep the audience involved.

Best
Richard

1: 'After a moment of silence, a car is heard, and a pair of
headlights shine on the roadway from a distance,
illuminating an approaching intersection with a sign that
reads "RESTRICTED ACCESS." ' ...... Wow, that is one long sentence. 32 words? I think the longest sentence I ever managed was 26 or 27 words. To be honest, I don't really know if there's anything wrong with it. It seemed a bit wordy, to me.

2: A minor criticism, you say 'expression' quite often.

3: 'That's what I'm thinking, too'... I should hope so! That's what his training was for, right? I would reword that. Maybe 'I was thinking the same thing'. Your sentence could imply he isn't sure what he's talking about. Maybe a little pedantic.

About the story, itself? It seemed pretty well written, to me. Not too original, but it kept my attention.

As others have mentioned, I think there needs to be more to this story. But more importantly, the dialogue needs work. The scientists are way too certain and calm about everything.

Quoted Text AMY: Do you think it's non-human? STEVE: Honestly, no.  I think Dan's going to call back and we're going to find a deep space asset that's run its course and losing juice.  We'll end up logging it like everything else. AMY: Yeah, but still...

I get you're trying to establish a certain gravity to the situation. But you need to really fine-tune it. Ultimately the tensions not gonna come just from the implication of possible alien life... it's the human element... character's we care about reacting with emotion to a stressful event.

So here you need to first build two distinct characters. Then pepper their conversation with hints of doubt and fear lurking under the surface.

As written, Steve basically goes "nope, everything's fine". And there's no hint he's covering up real concern. It drains away all the tension from the scene.

This is a good start though. Keep at it. Just keep reading and writing and this will almost become second nature.    

at 30, I am guessing he'd be prematurely bald.

Watch the beginning (I will guess you have) of CONTACT and compare the emotion and energy on display there versus yours.

Is this set far in the future? It has to be given the reference to space junk at the edge of the Milky Way. The edge closest to our sun is 30,000 light years away. Only recently did we reach the outer edge of our own solar system.
Henry

I absolutely love sci-fi space stories and I think this is a decent concept. At the same time I think that the writer didn't think this through, seems a bit rushed. They should be way more excited about this discovery.

How do they know that these signals are coming from the edge of the Milky Way? Like Stumpzian said, nothing man-made would get that far and even if it could, it would take ten thousands of years for the signal to reach Earth again (unless there's a wormhole or something!?) and not just hours or days like in the script.

You should revise this in terms of logical issues and formatting of the dialogue.