Sci-fi authors have been getting us ready for first contact with aliens for decades.

Alien first-contact stories are a classic of science fiction, and they're all the more fascinating because they can feel like predictions of a possible future. Real scientists all over the world are ...

Humanity loves imagining first contact as the big emotional moment: the ship lands, the music swells, and everyone feels very ...

Near the end of Star Trek: First Contact, after Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of the Enterprise stop the Borg from altering history, the movie arrives at the scene its title ...

Scientists are listening in on sperm whale conversations and studying Earth's strangest microbes to prepare humanity for first contact with extraterrestrial life. Tardigrades—a type of invertebrate ...