extraterrestrial

Is the Digital Age cutting us off from aliens?

A few days ago, I was bound and gagged by a peculiarly witty human who forced me to watch "Contact," starring Jodie Foster.

If this strangely slow-moving opus has passed you by, Foster plays a woman whose lifelong dream is to sit down with an alien being and have a chinwag over a large latte. Well, more or less.

So it was with the spirit of space discovery forcing my lips to hum that I read Monday that the founder of SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) declared that it wasn't just me who was gagged, but … Read more

Man loses job after searching too hard for aliens

I can understand why people are so keen to find alien life. It isn't so much a scientific fascination with what might be out there. It's more a pained hope that what is out there might be more enjoyable than what is down here.

So I am wrestled to the ground by a certain sympathy for Brad Niesluchowski.

According to the Arizona Republic, Niesluchowski was asked to resign after allegedly using his position at the Higley Unified School District to exercise his own (and our) need for an alien encounter.

This was not a case of uploading pictures … Read more

Report: Spielberg's spooky social site

Who wants to believe? TechCrunch reported Monday night that Steven Spielberg is developing a new social network where people can talk about their encounters with the paranormal and extraterrestrial.

Spielberg, creator of sci-fi classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Men in Black, and the War of the Worlds remake a few years ago, is reportedly himself a believer in paranormal phenomena. In creating a social network for fellow enthusiasts as well as people who claim to have encountered the otherworldly, Spielberg is tapping into a lifelong passion.

But its exact ties to tech and entertainment are … Read more

Arthur C. Clarke's three wishes

Now a nonagenarian, science fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke is still waiting for evidence of extraterrestrial life--the first of his three 90th birthday wishes is for "some kind of signal" from some kind of life form, emanating from somewhere out there. He's also optimistic that humans will soon be traveling by the thousands into orbit and to more remote destinations in the next half-century.

His other two wishes have to do with economic and political challenges right here on Earth. To find out more about what's on Clarke's mind, see the full Reuters story: " … Read more