--- description: Unlike E.T., today's aliens want to use the phone to do something other than call home title: Earth to Echo Movie Exclusive Preview Video: Cell Phones and Aliens image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # VIDEO: Space Aliens Meet iPhones in an Exclusive Clip from _Earth to Echo_  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 19, 2014 4:00 PM CUT  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 19, 2014 4:00 PM CUT The idea that aliens might choose to communicate with Earthlings via our technology is far from a new one. It’s in movies from _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ to _Contact_, and — sort of — in real life, as the choice to [send vinyl records](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager%5FGolden%5FRecord "undefined") on the Voyager space explorer shows. But none of the people involved in those stories had something that almost everyone has today: a cell phone. The upcoming movie _Earth to Echo_, out July 2, changes that. A bit of family-friendly sci-fi in the _E.T._ vein, it’s about a group of friends who — after receiving strange cell phone messages — suspect that something fishy is going on in their neighborhood, right before the area is to be bulldozed for a highway construction project. And, as the exclusive sneak peek above shows, the kids at the center of the story are more than proficient when it comes to their phones. The phones are also how first contact takes place—as seen in a second clip, below—and how some of the movie’s scenes are presented, mixing a found-footage style with the first-person GoPro aesthetic. The idea that cell phones would [ruin the plots of older movies ](http://www.buzzfeed.com/virginmobilelive/10-movie-plots-that-wouldve-completely-changed-if-5l87 "undefined")isn’t a new one — for example, the entire plot of _Home Alone_ could have been avoided if Kevin could call his folks at the airport — but not everything is messed up by constant communication. As _Earth to Echo_ shows, sometimes the cell phone _is_ the plot. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2852894/earth-to-echo-exclusive-clip/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2852894/earth-to-echo-exclusive-clip/"},"headline":"VIDEO: Space Aliens Meet iPhones in an Exclusive Clip from Earth to Echo","datePublished":"2014-06-19T16:00:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:19:43.841Z","description":"Unlike E.T., today's aliens want to use the phone to do something other than call home","url":"https://time.com/2852894/earth-to-echo-exclusive-clip/","keywords":["movies","selfies","Exclusive","Pop Culture","Tech","video","selfie","cell phones","aliens"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2852894/earth-to-echo-exclusive-clip/","name":"VIDEO: Space Aliens Meet iPhones in an Exclusive Clip from Earth to Echo"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Earth to Echo Preview Clip: Our Phones Went Crazy","description":"A strange force messes with cell phones in a scene from the upcoming movie 'Earth to Echo'","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bS7Y8muA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-06-19T14:41:56.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bS7Y8muA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/2852894/earth-to-echo-exclusive-clip/","duration":"PT1M16S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/2852894/earth-to-echo-exclusive-clip/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```