Best first contact sci fi books11/19/2023 ![]() ![]() "And that led to speculation that, you know, if there were an infinite number of atoms, then maybe there were an infinite number of other planets," says Roush.īut though speculation about life on other worlds is ancient, the extraterrestrials of these early musings were not like the imaginative creations found in books and on television today. Decades later, the philosopher Democritus came to a similar conclusion after theorising that matter in the Universe might be made of tiny particles called atoms. In fact, he supposed, it might even contain life.Īnaxagoras was promptly sentenced to death for his insubordination – but the idea that there might be other celestial bodies like our own planet persisted. After an intensive, career-spanning observation of the skies, around 450 BC the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras tentatively suggested that the Moon might not be a god, as was widely believed, but a rock like the Earth. Humanity has been contemplating the possibility of life on other planets for thousands of years. In the end, they are exterminated.Īs it happens, the timing of this story is no accident. Even the way the Shapes communicate, by tracing symbols on each other's bodies using the rays of their stars, is alien. After many battles, (spoiler alert), it becomes clear that there's no room for diplomacy. Each was around half the size of a human, with some stripey markings and "a dazzling star near its base like the sun at midday". The creatures are considered among the first non-humanoid aliens in science fiction, within a cautionary tale that shows how devastating first contact can be with an unfamiliar "other". The bizarre, geometric creatures resembled "bluish, transparent cones" with their point facing upwards. A nomadic tribe of people are looking for somewhere to rest one night, but instead they stumble upon "Les Xipéhuz", translated as "The Shapes". The book is set on Earth, a thousand years before the ancient Mesopotamian cities of Nineveh and Babylon were founded, and begins with a dream-like encounter in a forest clearing. In 1887 – before the invention of sliced bread, ice lollies or even the word "teenager" – the science fiction author Joseph Henri Honoré Boex set pen to paper in his Brussels office and imagined up Les Xipéhuz. "So, when Steven Spielberg came along and made probably what are the two most influential movies about aliens – Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and ET the Extra-Terrestrial – the aliens and those movies were both basically variations on the 1950s and 1960s little green or little grey man image."īut what were depictions of extraterrestrials like before this collective tuning of the public imagination? And what has influenced the way we view them? Generations before, the aliens of early science fiction were considerably more fantastical – bloodcurdling octopus-beings, intelligent swarms of insect-creatures and monstrous reptiles. "And the standard depiction of aliens at that point became the little grey man," he says. Together with a handful of similar tales that emerged around the same time, big-headed alien beings were quickly embraced by TV shows and films, according to Wade Roush, a science and technology writer and the author of the book Extraterrestrials. The couple had invented the archetypal sci-fi movie alien – with an aesthetic like creepy, distorted human babies. ![]() In the Hills' account, the creatures they met had oversized heads with large craniums, wide eyes, greyish skin, small noses and slit-like mouths. But it also contributed to another revolution – via Hollywood. ![]() The claims gripped the public imagination and are widely credited with pioneering the entire alien abduction genre – it was the first such story to be published, and led to many similar tales from members of the public.
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