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 ...

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

Recent research suggests that galaxies with high radio emissions—known as “radio-bright” galaxies—could be home to alien civilizations. This idea, explored in Brian C. Lacki’s study Artificial ...

When most of us find an unwelcome beehive around the house, we see a nuisance that must be destroyed. However, after watching Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia”, audiences will think twice about reaching for ...

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 ...

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 ...

In 1950, famed astrophysicist Enrico Fermi posed a profound question during a casual lunch with colleagues: Where is everybody? In other words, if there’s an extremely high probability that advanced ...

A staple of the "Star Trek" franchise since its earliest days is its inclusion of imaginative extraterrestrial characters. Whether as members of Starfleet vessels or villains-of-the-week, the ...