Prometheus: Planet Zeta 2 Reticuli and beyond!

leading from

Prometheus Return of the Space Jockey

a) Lambert's statement
Lambert the navigator says in Alien as a point of reference for the whereabouts of the Nostromo said "We're just short of Zeta II Reticuli. We haven't reached the outer rim yet." The question to ask for many years was whether the planetoid is to be found orbiting Zeta II Reticuli because of this or was that the nearest publicly known system in that part of the galaxy explored by humans and 

b) Planet Zeta Reticuli
Zeta II Reticuli would have been a well known star system in UFOlogy. When Ridley Scott came around to getting the movie Prometheus into production at the time it was still directly an Alien prequel, to the press he made a reference to a planet called Zeta II Reticuli . What was he talking about?   

Quote source
26th April 2010, there was a Screendaily article in which Ridley is quoted by Mike Goodright as saying "If the first Alien took place in 2090, it will take place in the years before that when they first come across this thing on a planet called Zeta Reticuli and it will ask who was that guy in the first film lying in a chair with his chest blown outwards when they first go into the giant spacecraft". (source http://www.screendaily.com)

c) Blurred Revelation in Prometheus Timeline
Two years later, 17th, March  2012, it was noticed on the Weyland Industries website that it gives a timeline for Weyland Industries and it's discoveries. May 14, 2039,  it mentions the discovery of Archeron LV-426 and that "Weyland astronomers discover multiple moons and a ringed planet just outside the Zeta 2 Reticula System, which are possibly able to support life. Weyland expects to travel there within the century. "  despite Archeron being a misspelling of Acheron, the other error here that remained unnoticed is that Zeta II Reticula should be Zeta II Reticuli and what exactly do they mean by just outside the Zeta 2 Reticula System? Are they saying that it is not part of the Zeta II Reticuli system? Are they trying to identify it as a rogue planet system or belonging to an unnamed star nearby still uncatalogued at the time when the planet and its moons were discovered. Or is this material not serious enough for them to be that concerned about the accuracy of the content? The other discovery to come may well be that they discover "a ringed planet with multiple moons" rather than multiple moons and a ringed planet.

The Betty Hill Star Map as interpreted by Ms. Marjorie Fish giving the star names

c) Begging for a context
However with this new name for the planetoid or moon being named Planet Zeta II Reticuli we are left asking still questions for a context, but I ask myself if it is just a nickname for the planet amongst the production crew in the way we have Space Jockey, Derelict, Facehugger and Chestburster from Alien

9th May, 2012, Yahoo Entertainment release a short documentary where Ridley expands on the whole concept of planet Zeta II Reticuli. "The planet where they go is called Zeta II Reticuli which actually is an existing moon just off Io". The statement seems rather out of context as if he is talking about Io the moon around Jupiter but a Jupiter with large rings, it appears that he is talking about what actually exists in the world of the movie.

depiction of the arrangement  of the stars in Prometheus

d). 30th May 2012, onwards, the movie Prometheus is finally released, but the star system where the Prometheus is heading towards is unnamed. Wherever it is, it's supposed to be part of a constellation of stars that match the star pattern seen in the ancient tablets in the movie and the cave painting which while it matches up with the network of stars  shown in the Betty and Barney Hill alien abduction case, it appears that wherever it is, presumably it's somewhere too far away to be seen by the human eye going by the idea that primitive human civilisations could not have possibly known about it

It was thought that the stars in the star system pattern shown to Betty Hill included Zeta I and II Reticuli (which are barely visible to the unaided human eye) and our star system the Solar system, Alpha Mensae, 82 Eridani and Gliese 86, since it was matched up well enough by a Ms Marjorie Fish an amature astronomer back in 1969, although scientists such as Dr Carl Sagan long held the idea that the identification wasn't valid.

However in Prometheus no such connection was made other than in the Weyland Industries timeline where a suggestion that the Prometheus was journeying to a star system outside of Zeta II Reticuli whatever that means. It seems like complete nonsense now to bother to make speculations about the planetoid's nearness to Zeta II Reticuli other than it's just floating around as a metaphor not for close scrutiny.

1. Holloway (in Prometheus):"These are images of archeological digs from all over the Earth. That's Egyptian, Mayan, Sumerian, Babylonian, that's Hawaaian over at the end there, and that's Mesopotamian, this one here is our most recent discovery, it's a thirty five thousand year old cave painting from the Isle of Skye in Scotland, these are ancience civilisations there were separated by centuries, they shared no contact with one another and yet the same pictogram shown men worshiping giant beings pointing to the stars was discovered at every last one of them. The only galactic system that matched was so far from Earth that there's no way they primitive ancient civilisations could have possibly known about it, but it just so happens that system has a sun a lot like ours and based on our long range scans there seemed to be a planet, just one planet with a moon capable of sustaining life and we arrive there this morning."

Storyboard with the words "Magellan Zeta II Reticulae" with the Earth explorers spaceship travelling across the planet in their spacecraft known at the time of the storyboarding as the Magellan and would later become the Prometheus

f) See also: Locating the Nostromo 

g) See also: The galactic map of "Alien"