It is interesting reading for me. Perhaps I have watched a few too many UFO documentaries and "Aliens Among Us" type shows. I remember how very adamant Sagan is that there are no aliens here, and all the UFOs are of earth or natural origin. Reading the Contact book made me curious about what exactly he believes, so I consulted the other Sagan book I own: Pale Blue Dot.

The Sagan Summery: He wants to believe there is life out there, tho he always qualifies his statements with "I might be wrong." He talks about the vastness of space, and the speed limit of the Universe (speed of light). If there is life out there, it will take however many years --hundreds or thousands-- just to get a light speed message to us, and the same number of years for them to hear our reply.

Yeah. I have to admit, the more I learn, the more cynical I become. Of course there is this optimist in me as well, who reads science fiction novels and watches X-files and Star Trek and drinks Coke out of an Area 51 koozie.

I know there is life out there. The Universe is 15 billion years old, and has I don't know how many gazillion stars in it, and we have never been as unique as we thought we were.

I would like to believe that there are ETIs who have made Earth their home or their vacation area or their zoo. Even with the speed of light problem that Sagan talks about, there are aliens who are billions of years ahead of us. Surely they've figured out a way around that cumbersome E=mc² problem.

W.C. believes the aliens are here to turn us all into slaves and then turn us all into hamburger. I believe that aliens who are advanced enough to travel through space and break the light barrier... are also advanced enough to be vegetarians. ;)

Shrug. But, ya know, it's just "belief." And everyone has their own.