The curious minds at What If sit down with Andrew Siemion to discuss whether we have already made first contact with aliens.

Hollywood makes initiating alien contact seem much easier than it has proven to be. In E.T. the Extraterrestrial, E.T. got ...

A self-proclaimed time traveller claims aliens will make contact in 2028, sparking online debate. His assertions, made during ...

The moment of first contact with extraterrestrials is a staple of science fiction. It usually involves a frantic scientist having a Eureka moment, realising in a single dramatic instant that Earth is ...

Alien first-contact stories are a classic of science fiction, and they're all the more fascinating because they can feel like predictions of a possible future. Real scientists all over the world are ...

Your phone buzzes with a breaking news alert: "Astronomers detect unusual signal from distant star system." Within hours, social media explodes with alien conspiracy theories, deepfake "evidence," and ...

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 ...

Scientists have quietly rewritten the global rulebook for what happens if alien intelligence is ever detected, updating long‑standing 'first contact' plans in 2026 to prevent panic and confusion in an ...