It’s Halloween, when we are on high alert for the unknown that prowls in the shadows. I still shiver when I think of a Halloween night, many harvest moons ago, when a ragged, blue-wigged stranger showed up to trick-or-treat. The creature communicated by grunts and stomps, terrified my sister Gail and me…and turned out to be our mother.

What other creatures lurk in the vastness of space, unfamiliar and perhaps terrifying (or not), but still part of our family which we call life? 

“Are we alone?”, arguably one of humankind’s oldest questions. As they looked at the heavens, the ancients imagined other worlds populated by gods and mortals. Friends or foe? Like us or unimaginable creatures?