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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Photo: Are Neighborhood Aliens Listening to Earth Radio?


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Orson Welles broadcasted his version of H.G. Wells's science fiction novel The War of the Worlds from a New York City studio on Sunday, October 30, 1938. The realistic account of an alien invasion from Mars caused thousands of listeners to panic.

The discovery in the mid-1990s of planets outside our solar system gave new life to the debate over whether humans are the only intelligent beings in the universe. Today about 40 or 50 of these so-called exoplanets are near enough to have received radio signals from Earth, and Welles' infamous broadcast is among the first shows they would have been able to hear, experts say.

Photograph from AP