cover image Aliens: Can We Make Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence?

Aliens: Can We Make Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence?

Andrew J. H. Clark. Fromm International, $25 (293pp) ISBN 978-0-88064-233-0

Although its title may conjure up visions of The X-Files, this sensible book has more affinity with the movie Contact. Above all, it is a plea for continued support of SETI (the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence), presently conducted as the privately funded Project Phoenix due to the withdrawal of government backing. Although readers of other major books on this subject, such as the classic Are We Alone? by Paul Davies or the more recent Probability One, will be familiar with much of the material here, this is a solid primer for those new to the actual science involved in current efforts to find ETI. The authors, a British father-and-son team (p re David is the author of The Cosmos from Space; Andrew is a physicist and philosopher), address three crucial questions. Why have 40 years of searching not been fruitful? What is the probability that intelligent life will evolve on other planets? And, if it is there, why hasn't it come here? Readers are walked gently through the history of both the American and Soviet programs, the Drake equation (a means of organizing the factors necessary for an advanced alien civilization) and the fundamentals of astronomy, geology, biology, etc., needed to assess the likelihood of other technologically sophisticated civilizations evolving. While still promoting the search via radio astronomy for alien beacons, the authors hope to revive serious consideration that an alien research probe or survey may have visited (or will visit) our planet. Amateur exobiologists are encouraged to download SETI@home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/download.html) to turn their screensavers into signal-finding number-crunchers, and those who have read this well-reasoned book and wish to look further are advised to join a legitimate research group such as the Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan. Agent, Al Zuckerman of Writers House. (July)