Chances are that a lot more people in the world believe that God had some role in the creation of Humanity than the scientific version, which begins with the Big Bang.  As such, then, God is the most popular choice for First Contact, or interaction with an extraterrestrial.  Actually, he has no competition in this vote because no intelligent life form has yet ever made contact, as confirmed by any reliable source. This might well be my shortest posting, for what would be the point of confirming or refuting the title?  Well, this gives me another opportunity to compare religion with science. I start with  Global Religion 2023 , a 26-country Global Advisor survey by Ipsos. These countries were all reasonably developed, with 46% of the respondents believing in some form of Christianity.  Only 7% Buddhist, 6% Muslim, mostly Sunni, and 4% Hindu.  Interestingly enough, 29% with no religion or not religious. India, Turkey, Japan and Thailand were surveyed, but the...

I've lived a life where I have been able to professionally dabble in pure fantasies. Three years with the U.S. Senate working on energy and the environmental legislation.  I drafted the bill that created the national hydrogen program in 1979.  Worked on laser fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( SETI ) at the NASA Ames Research Center.   I had a full career in renewable energy, directing the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii and co-founding the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research. Here is a  nine-year old posting providing some details on my experience with fusion .  in the mid-1970's I remember having an apartment adjacent to Wente Brothers, and watching the Watergate hearings.  That was almost half a century ago.  At the  end of 2022 : Lawrence Livermore first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers. That...

Today I reach back to three postings, the first a dozen years ago, 23 May 2010: A HALF A CENTURY SEARCHING FOR ALIEN SIGNALS Why this topic?  Perhaps some stimulation sparked by the James Webb Space Telescope, which  has begun a search for extraterrestrial intelligence  (SETI).  Just another in my primary quests seeking ultimate answers on topics like peace ( The 10% Solution ), energy ( Starpower for Humanity ) and Planet Earth ( Geoengineering for Climate Change ).  Yesterday set the stage for this future with  The Three Grand Miracles .   My professional career was dedicated to those above interest areas. For SETI, it all began with an  assignment at NASA's Ames Research Center  in 1976.  Answering the question of  Are We Alone?  to the potential of receiving  The Encyclopedia Galactica  from superior space civilizations fascinated my imagination. In many ways that first paper on SETI by Philip Morrison ...