Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

The possibility of life on other planets has been a constant fascination
sent messages into space on our Voyager crafts, and we are using
radio telescopes to listen for messages that may have been sent to us. In
our solar system, Mars is the only other planet that has the likelihood of
being home to life, now or in the past. But the search for planets around
neighboring stars is perhaps our best hope; in this search, we have found at
least 21 possible candidates.
discovery of life on another planet. Scientists are dedicating
resources to this search and have had some promising leads, but
artists have been on the case even longer. Artistic portrayals of
the subject tend to come in four varieties: aggressive, exploratory,
cooperative, and transcendental.
The aggressive version is the central plot device of H. G. Wells’s
War of the Worlds, in which Martians invade Earth with the intent
of seizing control. Wells’s story was famously revived on the radio
in 1938. At the time, World War II was looming, and thoughts of
mass killings and the possibility of invasion by those considered
“other” were not far from the cultural mind.
Director Steven Spielberg gave us representations of extraterrestrials
Third Kind and
come to Earth to study humans, not to conquer us. Produced in
hopefulness that those who seem different can come to understand
each other and coexist.
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