The consensus is that aliens will look and act nothing like the way we imagine them in the movies. As the astrophysicist Martin Rees explains in his essay, we will most likely encounter some kind of machine intelligence rather than actual beings. They might even be speaking to us now, though we aren't equipped to understand them. Jacobsen’s dogged investigation uncovered little about aliens and U.F.O.s — she discounts some of the rumors as Cold War intrigue — yielding instead a provocative account of top-secret nuclear arms testing and research into aerial espionage technology. Sagan took pleasure in the unknowability of what was out there, particularly with regard to alien life.

Source: New York Times June 24, 2021 14:26 UTC