Uninvited Guests [antikvár]

FOREWORDForty years have now passed since the first "flying saucer" sightings, signaUing the birth of the UFO phenomenon as it has come to be recognized. During this same period, the world and our perception of it have changed beyond the measure of all previous human history. Science and the accompanying transformations of technology have brought us machines that have taken people to the Moon and back, an almost instantaneous world communications system, and computers that control a global inundation of information. At the same time, we have created a "star wars" world of fearful weapons and an uncontrolled exploitation of planetary resources that threaten not only the ecological balance, but also the very life of planet Earth itself.The discovery of DNA and molecular biology have placed us at the threshold of a genetically engineered "brave new world" of unfathomable implications. Beginning with radar and the advent of radio astronomy, the eyes of astronomers have now been opened to virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum from gamma rays to the radio signals from the echo of the "Big Bang" that likely formed the universe as we now know it. It is also during this 40-year span of time that scientists and philosophers have begun to seriously pose the questions "Are we alone in the universe?" and, if not, "Where are they?".This latter question, reputed to have been asked by physicist Enrico Fermi at a Los Alamos gathering of Manhattan Project scientists, neatly characterizes one of the primary observations regarding extraterrestrial life, intelligent or otherwise17