The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

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 Science Salon # 88 Michael Shermer speaks with Daniel Oberhaus about his new book: Extraterrestrial Languages.

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 Science Salon # 88 Michael Shermer speaks with Daniel Oberhaus about his new book: Extraterrestrial Languages.

In this week’s eSkeptic: MonsterTalk: Yetipalooza Skepticality: Dream On: Interview with John Fugelsang Feature: Meeting ET: A Review of Preparing for Contact STOCK UP FOR HALLOWEENat smile.amazon.com and Amazon donates to the Skeptics Society Halloween is lurking just around the corner. Shop for your treats, costumes, and decorations at smile.amazon.com and Amazon will donate to […]

If intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, how should we interact, and what will it mean for our civilization? Lawrence E. Grinter reviews Preparing for Contact: When Humans and Extraterrestrials Finally Meet (2014), by George Michael.

In this week’s eSkeptic, George Michael reviews the book Civilizations Beyond Earth: Extraterrestrial Life and Society edited by Douglas A. Vakoch and Albert A. Harrison (Berghahn Books, 2011, ISBN 978-0857452115).

For nearly 50 years, the SETI (Search for Alien Intelligence) project has searched for evidence of alien civilizations and has occasionally sent messages into space with the intention of communicating with intelligent sentient extraterrestrial beings. How likely are we to come into contact with an extraterrestrial civilization? If they do exist, their aspirations could differ markedly from our own. Could visitors from extraterrestrial civilizations pose a threat to Earth? What would motivate aliens to visit the Earth? In this week’s eSkeptic, George Michael discusses these fascinating questions.

In this week’s eSkeptic, Justin Trottier reviews Ray Jayawardhana’s new book Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System.

Why do we think aliens are out there? Is Earth really being visited? Will aliens really be short, gray, and hairless? What happens if we pick up a signal from another world? These are just a few of the questions this week’s Skepticality guest tackles regularly, in his role as the senior astronomer for the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute. Dr. Seth Shostak talks with Swoopy about the ongoing search for life in the universe, as chronicled in his new book Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

In this week’s eSkeptic, Seth Shostak responds to an article published in New Scientist magazine by Eugenie Samuel Reichthe, which suggests the [email protected] project has found strong evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence.