Mobile phones have done many things to our lives, but one that gets overlooked is erasing the memory of a long distance phone call. Twenty years ago, receiving or making a long distance call was a big deal. And taking that into account, one company has figured out how much it would have cost E.T. to phone home.
We’re referring, of course, to Steven Spielberg’s classic 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In the film, the title alien and his friend Elliot construct a communications device that allows them to call E.T.’s planet so he can go home. Now obviously, though 1982 was prime “long distance” time, Elliot and E.T. figured out a way around any long distance charges. That’s no fun, though.
So TollFreeForwarding.com broke down how much a 10-minute call from California (the film’s setting) would be to various places around the world, averaged it, then broke that down per mile. They then applied that number to the distance to E.T.’s home planet of Brodo Asogi. (Which wasn’t mentioned in the film but has been mentioned in ancillary material since the release of the movie.)
So what’s the total?
That’s $US76 quadrillion ($99 quadrillion), or $US76,424,516,944,816,700 ($99,135,460,723,629,088) to be exact.
Go to this site for a pretty cool visual representation of that number, what it actually means and some other fun facts.