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Gold Key Twilight Zone comics ruled. Their covers were confounding, and the plots were nuggets o' weirdness narrated by a snarky illustrated Rod Serling. In this gem from 1972, a blind, whiny alien turns some schmo into his "seeing-eye man!" More »
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Hulu's scifi and horror pages are chock full of worthwhile movies, even if the selection skews towards the ridiculous and low-budget. Here's the cream of the crop. Apologies to our international readers! More »
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This is the coolest thing you'll see all day. Scientific American has an interactive infographic showing twelve things that could/will happen by 2050. We'll meet aliens, fight nuclear wars, clone people and discover extra dimensions. Witness the animated tesseract! More »
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Our probes and landers still look for life "as we know it." But we're already aware that even terrestrial life goes beyond what we once considered possible. We should use that experience, or we may literally step on alien life. More »
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Experts say any spacefaring alien races we meet must be vastly more advanced than we are. That's because the odds of an alien race, within a reasonable traveling distance, developing spaceflight at the exact same moment as humanity are virtually nil. So any other space-traveling cultures in our patch of the galaxy could well have the technology to come to us. So why haven't they shown up yet? Vote for your favorite explantion. More »
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Want to make a good impression on extraterrestrial civilization we encounter? The best bet is to showcase our dark side — our foibles, our mistakes and even our most horrifying aspects, says Douglas Vakoch, director of message for the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute. It's too bad the Voyager spacecraft only contained Pollyanna-ish messages about our lovely aspects, and our propensity for cooperation, because any advanced spacefaring races we come across will probably just think we're not just primitives, but lacking in self-awareness. More »
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Movie posters used to be simple and dignified, until marketing departments realized that the more sensational the poster, the more ticket-buyers. It's like the cover of a comic book: You might see an image of Batman riddled with bullets and dead, but that never takes place in the actual story itself. Star Trek has been one of the guiltiest parties in sensationalizing its posters with odd artwork and strange taglines (perhaps second only to the James Bond movie posters), and we've collected them for you all in one spot in the list below. More »
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Chances are when alien visitors show up, they won't speak any language we can recognize. We'll be lucky if they have recognizable music, like the aliens in Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. They may not have eyes or ears, as we understand them. So how can we prove to our first contacts that we're smart enough to talk to — let alone actually talk to them? Vote for your preferred method of dialogue! More »
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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles starts its two-night premiere next Sunday, and you may have seen some of the new posters promoting the show, including with one with a topless (and bottomless) Summer Glau hanging from cables with all of her, uh... cybernetics exposed. But it turns out the old android babe with wires dangling from her severed torso isn't exactly a new image in science fiction. We've found at least four others. Take a look below and see for yourself (including mildly NSFW images.) More »
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