Customer Reviews

Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

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Arthur C. Clarke didn't know if there was life on other planets, but he felt it was a scary prospect either way; he said, "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." Seth Shostak isn't ready to be terrified, he's ready to be astounded, and if things go his way, he will be among the first to give a positive answer to the question. He is the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in California, SETI being the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. As such, he has to explain why nothing has been found yet, and he also has to arrange for increasingly sophisticated tools to be targeted on the question. In addition, he gets to advise Hollywood about science fiction movies. In _Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence_ (National Geographic), Shostak has provided a stimulating introduction to his work, his motivations, and just what those aliens might be doing to ring us up to say hello. There is plenty of technical detail in his book, but Shostak is a funny writer who has good jokes (often pertinent analogies) on almost every page.

Since he is the public face of SETI, he often interacts with the public about his work. He has been accosted by Christians who insist that scripture mentions no aliens, but many others oppose his organization's efforts on non-religious grounds, grounds that he fairly discusses. After all, there has been some sort of search for signals from the aliens for fifty years, and SETI celebrates a 25 year anniversary this year. Why aren't there signals? If SETI hasn't succeeded yet, Shostak wants us to know that it is premature to call it a failure: "We have carefully examined only 0.0000005 percent of a single galaxy." He gets the objection that it is silly to be looking for ETs out there when they are already here. He'd be delighted to have no more need for SETI because aliens are already physically here. "Frankly, if the evidence were good enough, my colleagues and I would abandon our antennas and begin crawling the countryside. It would be easier and cheaper." The worry about a governmental anti-ET conspiracy comes up in SETI's work pretty often. Even if SETI finds a signal that certainly comes from a conscious being up there, the argument goes, the government won't let people know about it. Shostak has convincing evidence that this is not the case, because the signals have already been captured and the public became fully aware in both instances. Well, that's not quite true. In the first instance, he himself got the signal. Shostak tells the enticing story of how he and his colleagues on 24 June 1997 thought they had the real thing. Long before they could rule out other causes, Shostak was getting calls from the media, like the reporter who called from the New York Times and started the conversation, "So, Seth, what about that signal you're following?" No cover-up would have been possible; the story was out there, and confirmations from other teams were being sought. The attempts at confirmation took over 24 hours to do fully, and showed that the signal was manmade. The other instance was a hoax in 1998, a website report that hacking into another SETI organization had found signals coming in. This turned out to be a straightforward prank, but again, there was no cover-up; attempts at verification were public, and if they had been positive, that would have been public knowledge. This is the way, Shostak says, that if we find signals the world is going to be told about them, in a open scientific manner.

There are some wonderful anecdotes here, like when the guy from the studio art department working on the sci-fi movie _Contact_ called up and said, "So, Seth, what does it look like when you fly through a wormhole?" Movies show such near-lightspeed travel as "some snazzy computer animation that looks as if you're flying through a pig's intestine at high speed," but what would really happen is that the universe would collapse to a bright point ahead and a bright point behind, and everything else dark. Guess which version made it into the film? For the remake of _The Day the Earth Stood Still_, he was consulted on dialogue, which included scientist-speak like "It was moving at nearly three times ten to the seventh meters per second," which he helpfully changed to human-speak: "It's moving too goddamn fast - a tenth the speed of light!" The brushes with Hollywood aren't what keep Shostak in his game, though, nor, he says, is it the pay or the health insurance. He likes what he does because SETI addresses a really big question, and because it will continue to get better at asking the question because receptors are going to get bigger and computers are going to get faster. It is hard to read this likable book from a personable and knowledgeable researcher and not feel that his optimism is justified.

Confessions of an Alien Hunter
By Seth Shostak



Chapter One of Seth Shostak's new book about SETI begins by recounting a signal, of clearly artificial origin, picked up at the Green Bank Radio Telescope on June 24, 1997. This incident introduces Jill Tarter and some description of the history, culture, and technology of SETI today.
The book is a wide-ranging description of the whole SETI field, updated by the roughly 300 extra-solar planets now known, the new Allen Telescope, and by new technology ideas that have appeared in recent years. The book was written by a man who has an enviable position at the center of SETI. Readers who enjoyed Bill Bryson's popular books will enjoy Confessions.
In 1971, NASA's Project Cyclops set the scientific and technological stage for subsequent developments. For all the good reasons analyzed in that report, radio became the primary communication mode investigated for ET signals, with optical SETI as secondary. Since then, as Shostak recounts, many new ideas, which go beyond the technology analyzed by Cyclops, have emerged. One example is a proposal by physicist John Learned to modulate Cephied variable stars as very long range signaling devices.
I always enjoy hearing Seth Shostak on the radio; this book is an opportunity to spend some time exploring SETI with him. [Full disclosure: some of our physics research at the University of Hawaii is mentioned.] Reviewer prejudice aside, I enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.

A witty and very-well written and book by SETI Institute senior astronomer Seth Shostak, that covers a broad range of topics related to SETI.

The author methodically takes us through the very interesting history of SETI to the present projects underway and the ongoing improvements in technology that continue to have an enormous impact on the success of the
search. Other SETI venues of searching - such as optical SETI - are also discussed.

The contentious issue of UFOs and alien visitation is addressed in one
chapter, with the author providing a sample of the colourful
correspondence he receives from those opposed to his and the SETI
Institute's skeptical stance on alien visitation.

Shostak also talks of his and his colleagues' escapades as science advisors for sci-fi films, where he was often responsible for tweeking scripts to make them reflect actual scientific banter: "Despite Hollywood's frequent habit, few academics address one another as 'Dr. Fudnick' or 'Professor Fooberg.'"

Finally, Shostak discusses the aftermath of discovering an extraterrestrial signal - what we humans could discover, whether religious beliefs and our view of ourselves will be affected and what to include in a potential reply to the extraterrestrials.

Thanks to Shostak's wit and knack for making technical details
interesting to the lay audience, there isn't a dull page to be found -
an extremely enjoyable and enlightening read.

I just want to say up front that I'm dinging him 1 star for his overuse of analogy. The man loves analogies approximately as much as Piers Anthony loves puns. On the bright side, this does keep the book from being too dry. For example, the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" is a very scientific and dry read and "Confessions of an Alien Hunter" could have easily ended up the same way, but the author took a lighter, more casual approach that keeps it more interesting than a straight factual presentation would have been. (But seriously, waaay too many analogies.)

I see someone else has dinged the book for stating a lot of material that's not "new". I don't think it's fair to ding the book for that. Yes, if you are a SETI fanboy and have been following the story of SETI for years and have an autographed copy of both "Cosmos" and "Contact" sitting on your shelf at home, this book is probably not going to offer many, if any, surprising revelations. It's a story of and a casual scientific overview of the search for life on other planets, including a lot of historical and modern speculation on the subject. If you're a fan, you already know all this. You know about the history of astronomers seeing canals on Mars and the history of radio astronomy and so forth. I still enjoyed the book, though, because it's nice to hear everything I already knew echoed back from a source on the inside -- sort of a summation and confirmation of the story I already knew.

However, if you're only lightly familiar with the topic of SETI, then you're in for a real treat: a highly readable book that will get you caught up on the basics of virtually everything about the search for life in the universe.

Recommending this book to a devoted fan of SETI may be a bit like recommending "The Universe in a Nutshell" to a physicist: you probably already know it all, but maybe you'd enjoy reading someone else's take on it.

But if you're a casual outsider, look no further. In fact, I'd say that's a pretty good comparison -- if you don't know much about physics and would like to, pick up "The Universe in a Nutshell". If you don't know much about the search for life in the universe and would like to, pick up "Confessions of an Alien Hunter". They are full of good information, presented in a format that doesn't require a degree in astrophysics to understand.

The self-professed occupation of 'Alien Hunter' made me think immediately of Charlie Frost, Woody Harrelson's character in Roland Emmerich's 2012; a genuinely likeable character though somewhat didactically aggressive, mis-focused, and hardly believable. I was pleasantly surprised to find my vision completely off the mark.
Seth Shostak is a Princeton and California Institute of Technology educated astronomer, associated for years, now as Senior Astronomer, with The SETI Institute (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Not only are his credentials impeccable, his style of sharing his acquired knowledge and personal opinions, bitingly honest and constantly humorous, invites the possibility of a previously unexplored interest on the part of the reader, and perhaps a questioning believability...if not in the concrete assurance that extraterrestrials will be discovered by radio astronomers, then at least an understanding of the importance of the SETI program and its continued operation.

Confessions of an Alien Hunter runs to an incredibly easy read of 320 pages, presenting material that is possibly an anathema to some in a way that should be approachable to all. Perhaps not a must-read but certainly more than worthwhile: easily recommendable.

This is not everyone's cup of tea, but if your idea of a Sunday afternoon is sitting around with a scientist shooting the breeze, talking about the possibility of alien intelligence existing out there somewhere, then you'll love this book. It's everything you wanted to ask after watching the movie Contact (written by Carl Sagan, starring Jode Foster), but never knew who to ask.

Hollywood gets it all spectacularly wrong, which makes for great movies but also means our collective public awareness of this area of science is lousy.

And there's some great insights. At one point Seth points out that if our galaxy were a haystack and we were searching for a needle (representing intelligent aliens), then SETI estimate that there could be thousands of needles but, so far, all we've been able to do is to examine a tablespoon's worth of hay. It's no wonder we've come up empty handed, but if we keep proding around, we will get pricked by a needle sooner or later.

For a science buff, this book is a must.

Confessions of a what? This seemed more like a recap of history to me. I was expecting to here some evidence or articulation of fundamental experiences of actual alien hunting rather than a synopsis of the SETI program and a tutorial on radio waves, microwaves, etc.
Average reading but certainly not what I expected.

Seth Shostak is a funny guy, and smart to boot. That's all you need to know to want to read his book. Listen to his SETI podcast as well.

I am an astrobiology enthusiast, but since I have read most mainstream books on the subject I started running out of reading material and figured it might be interesting to give this book a shot (being a book about the search for extraterrestrial *intelligence*, and not just *life*). I have to say I was very impressed with Seth's treatment of the subject. I wasn't sure what to expect, I thought the author might be unrealistic about the about the search for EI, but he managed to stay grounded in his appraisal of our chances while I also remaining very enthusiastic and passionate about the need to forge ahead with the search nonetheless. And after reading this book, I am even more inclined to agree. Not because I'm an alien nut (I enjoy sci-fi alien invasion flicks as much as the next guy), not because we "need to know if we're alone", not because pushing the boundaries of discovery is part of human nature, but because *IF* we found that we are not alone, the knowledge that another intelligent race had survived their own technology learning-curve would give us the hope that we might too. The book is definitely worth reading.

I need to admit up front that I am not an unbiased reviewer. I am a fan of Seth Shostak. I listen to the Are We Alone podcast from the SETI Institute every week. I like his corny jokes and overacting, and I like the way he tries not to take himself too seriously. I have also read Sharing the Universe by Shostak. The title of this book drew me in because I thought it might be a much more personal approach to the subject. I was hoping for a sort of autobiography, as I am always interested in what motivates people in science. Yes, there is some of personal history in the book, but not enough to quench my curiosity. The book reads much more like an introduction to radio SETI than a detailed personal journey. It is full of Shostaks wit and I enjoyed that. As I am pretty familiar with most of the material presented, the humor kept me reading when I might have distracted by something else. As someone who is very into radio technology I hoped for a more convincing defense of radio SETI in the face the recent challenges put forth by Paul Davies in his new book The Eerie Silence. Perhaps that will be part of Shostak's next book. I also hope it will contain more of the technical details of Paul Allen Array and the way it is being used. In short, it is a good introduction to SETI, full of humor and a bit of personal (and SETI) history. Its hard to imagine that you will not enjoy it.