It happens all the time in science fiction stories: aliens park their vessels in Earth orbit, and things go pear-shaped. But what if this scenario unfolded in real life? What would be the best thing for us to do? We asked several anthropologists the best way to go about communicating with truly unknown life forms.

We have yet to make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. If they're out there — and surely they must be — we haven't the foggiest idea what they might be like. Or do we?

With AMC dropping its mystery drama The Killing and Breaking Bad wrapping at the end of this season, the cable channel is looking for a new television hit. It looks like they're putting their money on Walking Dead executive producer Gale Anne Hurd and Area 51, a series about the mysterious military base set in the…

Want to find life on other planets but don't know where to begin? Starting in January, the University of Edinburgh will be offering a course on the search for extraterrestrial life. Best of all? You can take the course online for free.

We take it for granted that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a safe endeavor. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong with passively searching for interstellar radio signals? Unfortunately, the answer is quite a lot –- especially if the incoming signal contains something malicious, like a…

We've been searching for alien intelligences out there for decades, and so far we haven't found a single blip. But maybe we're just going about it the wrong way?

Geoff Marcy has spent the better part of his career peering into the depths of space in the search for exoplanets and brown dwarfs. His pioneering work has resulted in the discovery of over 110 planets outside of our own solar system - including the first system of planets orbiting a distant star. But now, Marcy has…

Valentine's day is coming up, which means it's time to get romantic with your alien loved one. But how exactly do you do the deed with someone whose DNA comes from the other side of the galaxy? How do you negotiate differing erogenous zones and the possibility that your lover may want to eat you after the act? Read our …

When you consider the utter vastness of space, it isn't hard to accept that, somewhere out there, extraterrestrial life probably exists. That being said, one can just as soon reason that the Universe is so immense, the odds of us actually finding evidence for the existence of alien organisms are probably pretty slim.…

What would non-carbon-based life really be like? What would it want from us? Bruce Dorminey, science journalist and author of "Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System," interviews NASA astrochemist Max Bernstein about the possibility of silicon-based life, in an article from Universe Today.