Bring up aliens and a lot of people will scoff. But not everyone is laughing. Around the turn of the century, 3.8 million people banded together in a real-time search for aliens -- with screensavers.

America was winning the race to find Martian life. Then China jumped in. In July 2024, NASA’s Perseverance rover came across a peculiar rocky outcrop on Mars covered in strange spots. On Earth, these ...

If so, why haven’t they said hello? The humble residents of this pale blue dot have been on a quest to find an alien civilisation for more than a century. First, it was the “canals” of Mars. Then ...