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How and when does there come to be an "anthropology of the alien?” This set of essays, written for the eighth J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Fantasy and Science Fiction, is concerned with the significance of that question. "[Anthropology] is the science that must designate the alien if it is to redefine a place for itself in the universe,” according to the Introduction. The idea of the alien is not new. In the Renaissance, Montaigne’s purpose in describing an alien encounter was excorporation--mankind was the "savage” because the artificial devices of nature controlled him. Shakespeare’s version of the alien encounter was incorporation; his character of Caliban is bro...
Astronomers around the world are pointing their telescopes toward the heavens, searching for signs of intelligent life. If they make contact with an advanced alien civilization, how will humankind respond? In thinking about first contact, the contributors to this volume present new empirical and theoretical research on the societal dimensions of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Archaeologists and astronomers explore the likelihood that extraterrestrial intelligence exists, using scientific insights to estimate such elusive factors as the longevity of technological societies. Sociologists present the latest findings of novel surveys, tapping into the public’s attitudes a...
If we send a message into space, will extraterrestrial beings receive it? Will they understand? The endlessly fascinating question of whether we are alone in the universe has always been accompanied by another, more complicated one: if there is extraterrestrial life, how would we communicate with it? In this book, Daniel Oberhaus leads readers on a quest for extraterrestrial communication. Exploring Earthlings' various attempts to reach out to non-Earthlings over the centuries, he poses some not entirely answerable questions: If we send a message into space, will extraterrestrial beings receive it? Will they understand? What languages will they (and we) speak? Is there not only a universal g...
Do Aliens Exist? And if they do - what would they look like? Where would they live? Would they be conscious beings? And what would happen if they found us? These are the biggest questions we've ever asked - and here, Professor Jim Al-Khalili, theoretical physicist and host of BBC Radio Four's The Life Scientific, blasts off in search of answers. Coming with him are Martin Rees, Ian Stewart, Louisa Preston, Monica Grady, Sara Seager, Paul Davies and a crack team of scientists and experts who've made it their life's work to discover the truth. So get ready to visit the ice boulders and hydrocarbon lakes of Saturn's moon Titan, meet the tiny eight-legged critters that could survive in space, and learn about the neuroscience behind belief in alien abductions. Along the way, you'll enter the mind of an octopus, work out the probability of us finding an alien civilisation and discover whether quantum computing might hold the secret to life itself. Lively, curious and filled with scientific insights fresh from the cutting edge of the Galaxy, Aliens is the perfect book for anyone who has ever looked up into the starry sky and wondered: are we alone?
Are alien civilizations really possible? If extraterrestrials exist, where are they? How likely is it that somewhere in the universe an Earth-like planet supports an advanced culture? Why do so many people claim to have encountered Aliens? In this gripping exploration, scientist Don Lincoln exposes and explains the truths about the belief in and the search for life on other planets. In the first half of Alien Universe, Lincoln looks to Western civilization's collective image of Aliens, showing how our perceptions of extraterrestrials have evolved over time. The roots of this belief can be traced as far back as our earliest recognition of other planets in the universe—the idea of them suppo...
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet, William Shakespeare Stanley Schmidt guides you toward a better understanding of our universe to create beings who will live in your science fiction. Aliens and Alien Societies explains science to help you make your fiction plausible. You'll avoid bringing characters from solar systems unlikely to support life. Discover the galaxy's vastness and imagine the technology needed to cross it. Put biochemistry on your side to put viable creatures on your pages. Learn how engineering shapes life and why this suggests that intelligent inhabitants of other planets might have similarities to humans. Develop well-founded cultures and logical languages. Introduce aliens to people or other aliens. Portray them as individuals, true to their species. In this book, possibilities abound and lines between knowledge and conjecture blur enthrallingly. Aliens and Alien Societies is thoughtful, clear and utterly fascinating. It is filled with facts to help you write believable fictions about the things in heaven and earth.
The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the most authoritarian Muslim-majority countries have produced highly imaginative accounts on one of the frontiers of knowledge: astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe. This book argues that the Islamic tradition has been generally supportive of conceptions of extra-terrestrial life, and in this engaging account, Jörg Matthias Determann provides a survey of Arabic, Bengali, Malay, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu texts and films, to show how scientists and artists in and from Muslim-m...
'VISIONARY' Stephen Greenblatt 'So interesting... I recommend [Extraterrestrial] to people who have any interest in this extraordinary subject of life existing in other places than on Earth.' William Shatner (from Amazon.com) Harvard's top astronomer takes us inside the mind-blowing story of the first interstellar visitor to our solar system In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed a strange object soaring through our inner solar system. Astrophysicist Avi Loeb conclusively showed it was not an asteroid; it was moving too fast along a strange orbit, and leaving no trail of gas or debris in its wake. There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of adva...
Unmasking the mysteries of alien life on earth! Make mention of the word “alien” and it conjures images of black-eyed, large-headed, dwarfish beings that have come to be known as the Greys. Indeed, Greys have become a staple part of pop-culture, never mind just the field of UFO research. They’ve appeared in Steven Spielberg’s classic 1977 movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. They regularly popped up in The X-Files. And, of course, there are numerous people – all across the world – who claim to have been abducted by the Greys and subjected to intrusive medical experiments. Yet, before the 1950s, the Greys were nowhere in sight. The Alien Book: A Guide to Extraterrestrial Bei...
Astronomers are on the verge of answering one of our most profound questions: are we alone in the universe? The ability to detect life in remote solar systems is at last within sight, and its discovery—even if only in microbial form—would revolutionize our self-image. Planet Hunters is the rollicking tale of the search for extraterrestrial life and the history of an academic discipline. Astronomer Lucas Ellerbroek takes readers on a fantastic voyage through space, time, history, and even to the future as he describes the field of exoplanet research, from the early ideas of sixteenth-century heretic Giordano Bruno to the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1995 to the invention of the Kep...