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Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future
The quest for extraterrestrial life doesn't happen only in science fiction. This book describes the startling discoveries being made in the very real science of astrobiology, an intriguing new field that blends astronomy, biology, and geology to explore the possibility of life on other planets. Jeffrey Bennett takes readers beyond UFOs to discuss some of the tantalizing questions astrobiologists grapple with every day: What is life and how does it begin? What makes a planet or moon habitable? Is there life on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system? How can life be recognized on distant worlds? Is it likely to be microbial, more biologically complex--or even intelligent? What would such a discovery mean for life here on Earth?
Come along on this scientific adventure and learn the astonishing implications of discoveries made in this field for the future of the human race. Bennett, who believes that "science is a way of helping people come to agreement," explains how the search for extraterrestrial life can help bridge the divide that sometimes exists between science and religion, defuse public rancor over the teaching of evolution, and quiet the debate over global warming. He likens humanity today to a troubled adolescent teetering on the edge between self-destruction and a future of virtually limitless possibilities. Beyond UFOs shows why the very quest to find alien life can help us to grow up as a species and chart a course for the stars.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published February 4, 2008
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89 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 24, 2008
All the big questions answered as well as we can right now answer them. There are an almost uncountable number of suns in our own Milky Way, and there seems to be many millions of Milky Ways. Almost unimaginable, the size of this universe. If this book doesn't make your big problems seem insignificant, nothing will. Our attempts to explain all of this is like a colony of worker ants trying to contemplate Beethoven. Well written, eminently readable. The author is a scientist as well as a teacher, and a good one.
October 19, 2025
Jeffrey Bennett’s *Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and its Astonishing Implications for Our Future* is that rare thing in the cosmic canon — a book that brings both feet back to solid scientific ground without losing the starlight in its eyes. It’s a rationalist’s hymn to curiosity, a lucid bridge between scientific literacy and cosmic wonder.
Bennett, an astrophysicist and educator who helped design curriculum for NASA and the Space Science Institute, writes with a teacher’s gift for clarity and a philosopher’s instinct for awe. He doesn’t chase little green men or speculate wildly about crashed saucers; instead, he asks the more profound question — what does our search for life beyond Earth reveal about *us*?
The title itself is almost mischievous — *Beyond UFOs* — as if Bennett is telling us to grow up, move past the pop-culture obsession with secret coverups and abductions, and look toward the deeper, data-driven mysteries that actually matter.
This isn’t the literature of paranoia or mythology; it’s the literature of evidence, framed with compassion for human wonder. His central argument is elegantly simple: the scientific search for extraterrestrial life is not only a quest to understand the cosmos but a moral exercise in understanding humanity’s place within it. He invites readers to imagine themselves as both cosmic detectives and cosmic citizens, responsible not just for looking outward but for thinking upward.
Bennett’s prose is luminous, almost conversational, and suffused with the gentle patience of someone who has explained the same concept to a thousand starry-eyed students and still finds joy in it every time. He begins by dismantling the mythology of UFOs — not to mock believers but to liberate the genuine mystery from the clutter of conspiracy.
The real questions, he insists, are far grander than government files: How does life arise from nonlife? How common are Earth-like conditions? How would contact — or its absence — redefine human civilization? By grounding these questions in astrophysics, chemistry, and evolutionary biology, he pulls the conversation out of tabloid sensationalism and restores it to its rightful home — the frontier of science.
One of the book’s pleasures lies in Bennett’s ability to make the vast feel intimate. He explains the Drake Equation not as a cold abstraction but as a kind of cosmic census, a way of counting potential neighbors across billions of light years. He revisits the Fermi Paradox with equal elegance, framing it less as a riddle than as an existential mirror: maybe the silence of the stars reflects not their emptiness but our unreadiness. His gift lies in turning data into drama. When he describes exoplanet discoveries, the prose glows with quiet wonder; when he explains the chemistry of extremophiles thriving in volcanic vents, it reads like evolutionary poetry. You come away feeling that science, in Bennett’s hands, is less a discipline than an act of reverence.
But *Beyond UFOs* isn’t content to describe the search for life; it interrogates the *implications* of finding it. Bennett suggests that even the discovery of microbial life elsewhere — on Mars, Europa, or an exoplanet’s atmosphere — would transform philosophy, religion, and identity. It would confirm that life is not an Earthly accident but a cosmic tendency.
That realization, he argues, would demand a new ethics — one based on planetary stewardship rather than tribal survival. He calls it the “cosmic perspective,” a worldview that situates humanity not at the center of creation but within an unfolding galactic narrative. The effect is humbling and exhilarating at once. If life is common, then intelligence may be common too, and the challenge becomes not merely to find it, but to prove worthy of it.
Bennett’s “cosmic perspective” philosophy is where the book transcends mere popular science and becomes something closer to moral astronomy. He weaves together environmental ethics, political reason, and scientific optimism into a single argument: that our treatment of Earth reflects our readiness for the cosmos.
A species that cannot sustain its own biosphere, he warns, is unlikely to be welcomed into any galactic community worth joining. The message lands with the clarity of a moral koan — to search for life beyond Earth is to take responsibility for the one world we already inhabit. It’s a call for cosmic maturity, an invitation to see ourselves as part of a continuum rather than an exception.
Stylistically, Bennett’s approach contrasts sharply with Avi Loeb’s maverick provocation or Arik Kershenbaum’s zoological empiricism. Where Loeb challenges the establishment and Kershenbaum maps biology onto the stars, Bennett acts as a mediator — the calm voice reminding us that wonder doesn’t require rebellion, only curiosity disciplined by reason.
He writes with the clarity of Sagan and the patience of Asimov. There’s an unmistakable lineage here: *Beyond UFOs* feels like a spiritual sequel to *Cosmos*, updated for the exoplanet era. Bennett shares Sagan’s belief that knowledge is an antidote to nihilism — that understanding the vastness of the universe doesn’t diminish us but ennobles us.
Throughout the book, Bennett’s optimism glows like a quiet torch in the dark. He doesn’t deny the cosmic odds, but he refuses despair. He imagines civilizations that may have risen, flourished, and fallen across the eons — and insists that their potential existence gives ours meaning. Each intelligent species, he proposes, is a unique experiment in self-awareness.
The universe, then, becomes a grand laboratory of consciousness, each world a separate trial in learning how to balance curiosity with survival. The moral symmetry is beautiful: just as evolution selects for fitness, perhaps the cosmos selects for wisdom. Those civilizations that learn cooperation endure; those that don’t, vanish into their own silence.
There’s a gentle pedagogical rhythm to *Beyond UFOs*. Bennett builds concepts layer by layer, anticipating the reader’s doubts and addressing them before they form. He illustrates habitability zones, stellar lifetimes, and the fragility of planetary atmospheres with clarity that never patronizes. His analogies sparkle with accessibility — he compares the search for life to “listening for the faint heartbeat of the cosmos” and likens planetary orbits to musical harmonies. These metaphors aren’t mere decoration; they embody his thesis that science and art are twin languages for the same longing.
What elevates the book, though, is Bennett’s moral and emotional candor. He doesn’t hide behind equations; he speaks openly about the psychological implications of cosmic discovery. How would we react if we found intelligent life? Would it unite us or divide us? He speculates, with cautious hope, that such a discovery could serve as the ultimate antidote to human smallness — a mirror forcing us to see our planet as a single fragile oasis. But he’s also aware of the darker potential: fear, denial, politicization. In that sense, *Beyond UFOs* doubles as a psychological study of humanity’s readiness for revelation. The search for aliens, Bennett reminds us, is also the search for adulthood.
Midway through the book, he addresses one of science’s most persistent paradoxes: we yearn for evidence, yet our cultural appetite is shaped by fantasy. The same society that funds telescopes also binge-watches *Ancient Aliens*. Bennett doesn’t sneer; he empathizes. Wonder, he notes, is a messy emotion — easily hijacked by myth but born from a sincere longing to belong. His solution is education: replacing the sensational with the sublime.
Give people real data, he insists, and they’ll find it more breathtaking than any conspiracy theory. The image of microbial fossils on Mars or a spectral biosignature from an exoplanet’s atmosphere is, to him, more miraculous than a thousand flying saucers.
One of the most compelling aspects of *Beyond UFOs* is its insistence on connection — between science and ethics, between knowledge and humility. Bennett argues that recognizing life elsewhere would force a redefinition of “us.” The tribal boundaries of race, nation, and creed would seem absurd against the backdrop of galactic plurality.
The first confirmed alien microbe would be enough to render nationalism obsolete. It’s a utopian idea, but Bennett roots it in pragmatism: the only sustainable civilization is one that recognizes interdependence — with its planet, its species, and its cosmos.
He extends that argument to the existential. Even if we never make contact, he writes, the act of searching transforms us. It forces us to think on scales larger than ourselves, to confront our own finitude. That act of imaginative expansion — of picturing life beyond our bubble — becomes an evolutionary advantage in itself.
Civilization grows not through technology alone but through perspective. Bennett suggests that the true legacy of space exploration may not be colonization but self-realization: learning to see ourselves through the universe’s eyes.
In the final chapters, Bennett speculates on the future with tempered hope. He envisions interstellar missions, self-replicating probes, and the gradual networking of intelligent species across light-years. Yet he never loses sight of the emotional core: that curiosity and compassion must travel together. “To look for life elsewhere,” he writes, “is to affirm that life matters everywhere.” That single sentence captures the book’s ethos — the perfect marriage of scientific rigor and moral clarity. It’s the kind of statement that lingers long after the data fades.
By the time the final page closes, *Beyond UFOs* feels less like an argument than an invitation — to think expansively, live responsibly, and hope audaciously. Bennett’s gift is his ability to make the reader feel both infinitesimal and indispensable at once. You leave the book looking at the night sky not as a mystery to solve but as a conversation waiting to continue. His optimism isn’t naïve; it’s defiant — a reminder that curiosity itself is humanity’s most sustainable resource.
In a genre crowded with alarmists, dreamers, and debunkers, Jeffrey Bennett stands apart as a patient realist — someone who sees no contradiction between skepticism and wonder. *Beyond UFOs* doesn’t dismiss the human longing for connection; it redeems it through science.
It’s a book about aliens that’s really about empathy, about the audacious hope that intelligence, wherever it exists, is a candle against the dark.
You finish it feeling both smaller and freer, reminded that in searching the stars, we are really trying to remember who we are.
Bennett, an astrophysicist and educator who helped design curriculum for NASA and the Space Science Institute, writes with a teacher’s gift for clarity and a philosopher’s instinct for awe. He doesn’t chase little green men or speculate wildly about crashed saucers; instead, he asks the more profound question — what does our search for life beyond Earth reveal about *us*?
The title itself is almost mischievous — *Beyond UFOs* — as if Bennett is telling us to grow up, move past the pop-culture obsession with secret coverups and abductions, and look toward the deeper, data-driven mysteries that actually matter.
This isn’t the literature of paranoia or mythology; it’s the literature of evidence, framed with compassion for human wonder. His central argument is elegantly simple: the scientific search for extraterrestrial life is not only a quest to understand the cosmos but a moral exercise in understanding humanity’s place within it. He invites readers to imagine themselves as both cosmic detectives and cosmic citizens, responsible not just for looking outward but for thinking upward.
Bennett’s prose is luminous, almost conversational, and suffused with the gentle patience of someone who has explained the same concept to a thousand starry-eyed students and still finds joy in it every time. He begins by dismantling the mythology of UFOs — not to mock believers but to liberate the genuine mystery from the clutter of conspiracy.
The real questions, he insists, are far grander than government files: How does life arise from nonlife? How common are Earth-like conditions? How would contact — or its absence — redefine human civilization? By grounding these questions in astrophysics, chemistry, and evolutionary biology, he pulls the conversation out of tabloid sensationalism and restores it to its rightful home — the frontier of science.
One of the book’s pleasures lies in Bennett’s ability to make the vast feel intimate. He explains the Drake Equation not as a cold abstraction but as a kind of cosmic census, a way of counting potential neighbors across billions of light years. He revisits the Fermi Paradox with equal elegance, framing it less as a riddle than as an existential mirror: maybe the silence of the stars reflects not their emptiness but our unreadiness. His gift lies in turning data into drama. When he describes exoplanet discoveries, the prose glows with quiet wonder; when he explains the chemistry of extremophiles thriving in volcanic vents, it reads like evolutionary poetry. You come away feeling that science, in Bennett’s hands, is less a discipline than an act of reverence.
But *Beyond UFOs* isn’t content to describe the search for life; it interrogates the *implications* of finding it. Bennett suggests that even the discovery of microbial life elsewhere — on Mars, Europa, or an exoplanet’s atmosphere — would transform philosophy, religion, and identity. It would confirm that life is not an Earthly accident but a cosmic tendency.
That realization, he argues, would demand a new ethics — one based on planetary stewardship rather than tribal survival. He calls it the “cosmic perspective,” a worldview that situates humanity not at the center of creation but within an unfolding galactic narrative. The effect is humbling and exhilarating at once. If life is common, then intelligence may be common too, and the challenge becomes not merely to find it, but to prove worthy of it.
Bennett’s “cosmic perspective” philosophy is where the book transcends mere popular science and becomes something closer to moral astronomy. He weaves together environmental ethics, political reason, and scientific optimism into a single argument: that our treatment of Earth reflects our readiness for the cosmos.
A species that cannot sustain its own biosphere, he warns, is unlikely to be welcomed into any galactic community worth joining. The message lands with the clarity of a moral koan — to search for life beyond Earth is to take responsibility for the one world we already inhabit. It’s a call for cosmic maturity, an invitation to see ourselves as part of a continuum rather than an exception.
Stylistically, Bennett’s approach contrasts sharply with Avi Loeb’s maverick provocation or Arik Kershenbaum’s zoological empiricism. Where Loeb challenges the establishment and Kershenbaum maps biology onto the stars, Bennett acts as a mediator — the calm voice reminding us that wonder doesn’t require rebellion, only curiosity disciplined by reason.
He writes with the clarity of Sagan and the patience of Asimov. There’s an unmistakable lineage here: *Beyond UFOs* feels like a spiritual sequel to *Cosmos*, updated for the exoplanet era. Bennett shares Sagan’s belief that knowledge is an antidote to nihilism — that understanding the vastness of the universe doesn’t diminish us but ennobles us.
Throughout the book, Bennett’s optimism glows like a quiet torch in the dark. He doesn’t deny the cosmic odds, but he refuses despair. He imagines civilizations that may have risen, flourished, and fallen across the eons — and insists that their potential existence gives ours meaning. Each intelligent species, he proposes, is a unique experiment in self-awareness.
The universe, then, becomes a grand laboratory of consciousness, each world a separate trial in learning how to balance curiosity with survival. The moral symmetry is beautiful: just as evolution selects for fitness, perhaps the cosmos selects for wisdom. Those civilizations that learn cooperation endure; those that don’t, vanish into their own silence.
There’s a gentle pedagogical rhythm to *Beyond UFOs*. Bennett builds concepts layer by layer, anticipating the reader’s doubts and addressing them before they form. He illustrates habitability zones, stellar lifetimes, and the fragility of planetary atmospheres with clarity that never patronizes. His analogies sparkle with accessibility — he compares the search for life to “listening for the faint heartbeat of the cosmos” and likens planetary orbits to musical harmonies. These metaphors aren’t mere decoration; they embody his thesis that science and art are twin languages for the same longing.
What elevates the book, though, is Bennett’s moral and emotional candor. He doesn’t hide behind equations; he speaks openly about the psychological implications of cosmic discovery. How would we react if we found intelligent life? Would it unite us or divide us? He speculates, with cautious hope, that such a discovery could serve as the ultimate antidote to human smallness — a mirror forcing us to see our planet as a single fragile oasis. But he’s also aware of the darker potential: fear, denial, politicization. In that sense, *Beyond UFOs* doubles as a psychological study of humanity’s readiness for revelation. The search for aliens, Bennett reminds us, is also the search for adulthood.
Midway through the book, he addresses one of science’s most persistent paradoxes: we yearn for evidence, yet our cultural appetite is shaped by fantasy. The same society that funds telescopes also binge-watches *Ancient Aliens*. Bennett doesn’t sneer; he empathizes. Wonder, he notes, is a messy emotion — easily hijacked by myth but born from a sincere longing to belong. His solution is education: replacing the sensational with the sublime.
Give people real data, he insists, and they’ll find it more breathtaking than any conspiracy theory. The image of microbial fossils on Mars or a spectral biosignature from an exoplanet’s atmosphere is, to him, more miraculous than a thousand flying saucers.
One of the most compelling aspects of *Beyond UFOs* is its insistence on connection — between science and ethics, between knowledge and humility. Bennett argues that recognizing life elsewhere would force a redefinition of “us.” The tribal boundaries of race, nation, and creed would seem absurd against the backdrop of galactic plurality.
The first confirmed alien microbe would be enough to render nationalism obsolete. It’s a utopian idea, but Bennett roots it in pragmatism: the only sustainable civilization is one that recognizes interdependence — with its planet, its species, and its cosmos.
He extends that argument to the existential. Even if we never make contact, he writes, the act of searching transforms us. It forces us to think on scales larger than ourselves, to confront our own finitude. That act of imaginative expansion — of picturing life beyond our bubble — becomes an evolutionary advantage in itself.
Civilization grows not through technology alone but through perspective. Bennett suggests that the true legacy of space exploration may not be colonization but self-realization: learning to see ourselves through the universe’s eyes.
In the final chapters, Bennett speculates on the future with tempered hope. He envisions interstellar missions, self-replicating probes, and the gradual networking of intelligent species across light-years. Yet he never loses sight of the emotional core: that curiosity and compassion must travel together. “To look for life elsewhere,” he writes, “is to affirm that life matters everywhere.” That single sentence captures the book’s ethos — the perfect marriage of scientific rigor and moral clarity. It’s the kind of statement that lingers long after the data fades.
By the time the final page closes, *Beyond UFOs* feels less like an argument than an invitation — to think expansively, live responsibly, and hope audaciously. Bennett’s gift is his ability to make the reader feel both infinitesimal and indispensable at once. You leave the book looking at the night sky not as a mystery to solve but as a conversation waiting to continue. His optimism isn’t naïve; it’s defiant — a reminder that curiosity itself is humanity’s most sustainable resource.
In a genre crowded with alarmists, dreamers, and debunkers, Jeffrey Bennett stands apart as a patient realist — someone who sees no contradiction between skepticism and wonder. *Beyond UFOs* doesn’t dismiss the human longing for connection; it redeems it through science.
It’s a book about aliens that’s really about empathy, about the audacious hope that intelligence, wherever it exists, is a candle against the dark.
You finish it feeling both smaller and freer, reminded that in searching the stars, we are really trying to remember who we are.
December 22, 2014
This was much different than I had imagined it would be, and I really enjoyed it. But here is a qualifier; I am fascinated with space and the search for extraterrestrial life.
Jeffrey Bennett is a good writer. I am certain this cannot be said of many astrobiologists or physicists. His writing style makes this an easy read. As with any good non-fiction book I learned more than I expected to. Jeffrey does a great job of explaining what it means to answer the question "are we alone?" To answer that question we must determine not only how to define life, but also how life begins. It all comes down to identifying planets that have the potential to host life.
Like most novice space enthusiasts I want to know the answers without the discipline of years of study. Of course, yes, I know this is silly; that it takes years of study to truly understand what we seek. Jeffrey Bennett does a great job of providing a window into what he has learned; what it truly means to be on a quest to answer what is perhaps our most difficult question as a human race.
If you want to go beyond the stereotypical UFO hunter - learn what it means to answer the question "are we alone" - then I recommend you start with this book. You may not get the answers you want, or maybe you will, but what you do get is what it means to be searching for those answers.
Great book.
Jeffrey Bennett is a good writer. I am certain this cannot be said of many astrobiologists or physicists. His writing style makes this an easy read. As with any good non-fiction book I learned more than I expected to. Jeffrey does a great job of explaining what it means to answer the question "are we alone?" To answer that question we must determine not only how to define life, but also how life begins. It all comes down to identifying planets that have the potential to host life.
Like most novice space enthusiasts I want to know the answers without the discipline of years of study. Of course, yes, I know this is silly; that it takes years of study to truly understand what we seek. Jeffrey Bennett does a great job of providing a window into what he has learned; what it truly means to be on a quest to answer what is perhaps our most difficult question as a human race.
If you want to go beyond the stereotypical UFO hunter - learn what it means to answer the question "are we alone" - then I recommend you start with this book. You may not get the answers you want, or maybe you will, but what you do get is what it means to be searching for those answers.
Great book.
March 24, 2025
A great casual intro to astrobiology. It covers the physics, chemistry, earth science, and biology needed to understand how life may arise and how it may evolve to become intelligent. Strongly recommend.
June 26, 2025
WOW this was the best breakdown of astrobiology that i’ve ever experienced. this is NOT a book about aliens. it’s a book that answers basic questions like ‘why is there life on earth’ and ‘what does a planet need to be a habitat for life.’ i’m obssessed tbh get nasa on the phone for me.
August 11, 2014
The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space. — Carl Sagan, Contact.
The book is extremely well-written. It takes the reader through a journey to understand where we have come from, what we have achieved and where we might be headed. It describes what the ancient Greeks thought of the question: Are we alone? Then it shows us how we have polished our understanding of the cosmos throughout centuries—with the help of great minds.
The book does not talk about UFOs (such as what we would need to build UFOs, can we build UFOs and etc.) per se, but the author touches upon various other significant questions such as what is life, the origin of life etc. which are all vastly important in understanding if we have galactic neighbors in this enormous ocean of stars and planets. The first chapter—Worlds beyond Imagination—opens the reader's eye by showing how enormously big the universe is. Imagine this: there are probably as many stars in this universe as there are grains of sands in all the beaches of this world combined together. It suddenly seems perverse to think that we are the only one, right? The next few chapters gives the readers an understanding of what we would need to determine to at least reasonably answer that question of if we are indeed alone. After having an understanding based on the data we have at the present moment, the author then analyzes how likely it is that we are part of a galactic civilization.
Speaking of data, the book was published in 2008, and in these four and a half years, the data we have has changed tremendously. For example, when the author was writing the book, I assume the spacecraft Kepler did not even launch. The author talks about how we are not sure if Earth-size planets are common or rare and Kepler would give us a sense of which hypothesis is correct. Based on the data of Kepler some astrophysicists now say that we might have at least 17 billion earth-size planets—only in our own galaxy.
As the subtitle suggests, this question does have astonishing implications for our future. As the author mentioned, we are still growing up as a civilization. To be able to communicate, we still need to grow more and only then can we join the group of adults that are perhaps so much advanced than us. It makes almost all of your problems seem so small when thinking about the vastness of the universe. And thinking that we might not be alone, makes all of our internal problems in this world seem so childish. The book is written easily for the laymen to understand and the author explains everything lucidly. In the middle it gets stagnant when the author talks about geology/ astro-geology, however the author picks up in the last few chapters.
Want to read
March 4, 2008The quest for extraterrestrial life doesn't happen only in science fiction. This book describes the startling discoveries being made in the very real science of astrobiology, an intriguing new field that blends astronomy, biology, and geology to explore the possibility of life on other planets. Jeffrey Bennett takes readers beyond UFOs to discuss some of the tantalizing questions astrobiologists grapple with every day: What is life and how does it begin? What makes a planet or moon habitable? Is there life on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system? How can life be recognized on distant worlds? Is it likely to be microbial, more biologically complex--or even intelligent? What would such a discovery mean for life here on Earth?
Come along on this scientific adventure and learn the astonishing implications of discoveries made in this field for the future of the human race. Bennett, who believes that "science is a way of helping people come to agreement," explains how the search for extraterrestrial life can help bridge the divide that sometimes exists between science and religion, defuse public rancor over the teaching of evolution, and quiet the debate over global warming. He likens humanity today to a troubled adolescent teetering on the edge between self-destruction and a future of virtually limitless possibilities. Beyond UFOs shows why the very quest to find alien life can help us to grow up as a species and chart a course for the stars.
Come along on this scientific adventure and learn the astonishing implications of discoveries made in this field for the future of the human race. Bennett, who believes that "science is a way of helping people come to agreement," explains how the search for extraterrestrial life can help bridge the divide that sometimes exists between science and religion, defuse public rancor over the teaching of evolution, and quiet the debate over global warming. He likens humanity today to a troubled adolescent teetering on the edge between self-destruction and a future of virtually limitless possibilities. Beyond UFOs shows why the very quest to find alien life can help us to grow up as a species and chart a course for the stars.
August 21, 2008
This was the book they are having Freshman read here--since it's science related, I'm helping with a discussion forum, so I hope it's going to be interesting. I'm not that interested on life beyond this planet, except when it comes to Star Wars, and Harry Potter, and the Golden Compass, and The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe...
But alas...this ended up being pretty good really and I am now interested in stuff beyond the planet. It's a good read for the "process of discovery" in science, and it's also interesting. I feel like I learned some things about the way the solar system, galaxy, etc. function to the point people understand, but my knowledge was completely absent. It also seems like there will be good things to discuss with the freshman discussion group tomorrow, so looking forward to that. Was worried none of us would have actually finished the book, but at least I will have read it!
I gave it three stars rather than four or more stars, probably because it's nonfiction and it's not as quite as engaging as a novel with the juicy story of someone's life, but it's still good. :)
But alas...this ended up being pretty good really and I am now interested in stuff beyond the planet. It's a good read for the "process of discovery" in science, and it's also interesting. I feel like I learned some things about the way the solar system, galaxy, etc. function to the point people understand, but my knowledge was completely absent. It also seems like there will be good things to discuss with the freshman discussion group tomorrow, so looking forward to that. Was worried none of us would have actually finished the book, but at least I will have read it!
I gave it three stars rather than four or more stars, probably because it's nonfiction and it's not as quite as engaging as a novel with the juicy story of someone's life, but it's still good. :)
April 8, 2010
A sane, well-balanced and very readable book about extraterrestrial life written by a scientist who take a careful look at assumptions we make about aliens and science. He discuses the Intelligent Design viewpoint without snark but is a science promoter all the way. He has a sense of humor and adds personal experiences as he goes. Bennett reminds me a bit of Phil Plain (The Bad Astronomer).
He takes the time to go back along the history of the scientific method to discuss what science is, and how it works. He's refreshingly clear and concise. This is one of the best books I have ever read about UFOs, in part because it isn't really about UFOs. It is about how we know what we know.
It's up-to-date, to, because it was published in 2008. Highly recommended, especially for lovers of astronomy and hysteria-free discussion of the possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe.
He takes the time to go back along the history of the scientific method to discuss what science is, and how it works. He's refreshingly clear and concise. This is one of the best books I have ever read about UFOs, in part because it isn't really about UFOs. It is about how we know what we know.
It's up-to-date, to, because it was published in 2008. Highly recommended, especially for lovers of astronomy and hysteria-free discussion of the possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe.
January 28, 2009
This book is not about UFOs but about the hard science behind the concept and search for life in the universe. It mostly covers our solar system and other planetary systems in the Milky Way galaxy but also touches on the universe as whole. The author is knowledgeable and open to both current and new ideas on the subject. As a science buff I found the book to be well based on fact and science; and as a hopeful UFO believer, I found the author (a scientist) willing to listen and not insulting to those who do believe. This is a well thought out book worthy of both sides of the story.
January 15, 2014
Certainly an intriguing topic . . . alghough with a foregone conclusion since the entire topic is purely hypothetical. Posits very interesting scenarios, however - for example categorizing possible civilizations (please, not aliens - perhaps alien to earth civilizations) into three possible streams.
Much of the book dwells on what the supposed requirements for life are (that would be assuming that extra-terrestrial life has the same requirements more of less than human requirements).
Interesting handling of the paradox: 'where are they?'
Much of the book dwells on what the supposed requirements for life are (that would be assuming that extra-terrestrial life has the same requirements more of less than human requirements).
Interesting handling of the paradox: 'where are they?'
January 12, 2009
Bennett creates an accessible view of our inter-connectedness with Earth's planetary processes and why it would be more shocking if we are the only life in the universe. He provides an understanding of the unique qualities of carbon and water that together with a handful of amino acids create the inevitability of life arising on the right planet.
August 12, 2008
its all about the known science behind the search for life elsewhere and the beginning of Earth. not my cup of tea but thought provoking and informative
April 25, 2012
I think that everyone should be required to read at least the last chapter of this book. This might result in a better world for us all to live in.
May 7, 2015
A wonderful Book about space. The author takes to the wonders of UFOs, extraterrestrial life etc. This title one should not miss.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews