There's the invasion by a warlike species, there's the highly evolved species trying to communicate with our primitive ...

“Hollywood has preconditioned us to expect one of two types of alien contact, either a hostile invasion force or a benevolent ...

For decades, science fiction writers have tried their best to prepare us for eventual contact with aliens. Their efforts are dominated by several recurrent tropes. There's the invasion by a warlike ...

Scientists suggest the first alien signal we detect could be a desperate cry for help from a fading civilization.

It’s one of the most popular themes in science fiction—top secret government experts are ready to spring into action if a UFO appears. For example, in the novella-based 2016 film Arrival, the ...

We've all grown up dreaming of aliens landing on the Earth or laser beaming across the sky; well, either way, it's sci-fi and ...

In 1995, a pair of scientists discovered a planet outside our solar system orbiting a solar-type star. Since that finding—which won the scientists a portion of the 2019 Nobel Prize in ...

The first unmistakable signal from another intelligence would rank alongside fire and writing in the story of our species, yet a growing group of researchers warns that such a moment might arrive not ...

Hunting for alien civilizations isn't a matter of just waiting around for them to show up; it's the business of combing through enormous volumes of data to look for peculiar signals. When you purchase ...

The Fermi Paradox ponders an endlessly fascinating question: If so many worlds exist in the universe, why haven’t we detected any sign of extraterrestrial life? A possible reason, called the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. Nov 17, 2025, 05:21am EST Nov 28, 2025, 12:25am EST A team ...