Science Friday12 Sep 2025

The Human Obsession With Aliens Goes Way, Way Back

A video shown on Capitol Hill on September 9 reportedly shows an American hellfire missile attacking and simply bouncing off a UAP (the military term for a UFO). When videos like this come out, speculation about aliens often follows. But our obsession with aliens isn’t new—and it didn’t begin with 1950s alien invasion movies like “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” or even with Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” mock news bulletins of the 1930s.

As science reporter Becky Ferreira writes in her upcoming book, First Contact: The Story Of Our Obsession With Aliens, humans have been fascinated with the potential for alien life for about as long we’ve been around. She joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss how our views of beings from other worlds changed throughout the millennia, and where we’re at now with scientific exploration of life beyond Earth.

Plus, science journalist Umair Irfan joins Ira to share other stories from the week in science, including what’s going on in a decision-making brain, the trouble with vector-borne illnesses, and the unusual tale of an ant queen that breeds ants of another species.

Read an excerpt of First Contact: The Story Of Our Obsession With Aliens.

Guests:
Becky Ferreira is a science reporter at 404 Media and author of First Contact: The Story Of Our Obsession With Aliens.
Umair Irfan is a senior correspondent at Vox, based in Washington, D.C.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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