We are used to searching the sky for signs of alien contact but that is not the only place we are able to look. Ten billion miles away, at the edges of our solar system's heliosphere, the two Voyager probes have left the planets behind and are set to pass out into interstellar space within a few years. Surprisingly these forty-year-old spacecraft are still transmitting data back to Earth about the conditions around them. At the speed of light it still takes thirteen hours to bridge the gulf.

On April 22, 2010 the transmissions from Voyager 2 changed. The data being received was suddenly in a new format, one which the scientists in charge of the data stream say they cannot understand. The official reason given to the press and public is that it is a "glitch" despite the control and diagnostics transmissions having not been affected at all.

Interestingly both Voyagers carry a copy of the Golden Record, "... a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth," along with a device that might allow any alien discoverers to play back and receive our message to them. Is it possible that some alien presence has found the message, played it, and are using our own transmitter to send back a reply about themselves? If so, they are being rudely hung up on.

Doctor Edward Stone, a project scientist who was one of those who helped construct Voyager 2, has stated that the spacecraft was ordered to halt all data stream transmissions and only transmit the engineering data about the status and condition of the craft. This information has not changed in format and reports that the spacecraft is still in fine condition and that the on-board computer is still functioning properly, aside from the change in the formatting of the scientific data stream transmissions.

It is fortunate that the "glitch" was just in the data transmissions back to Earth and not the engineering transmissions. These facts have led to massive speculation as to what is really going on and just what information might have eventually been discovered by analyzing and trying to interpret this data. We may never know since after just the one "reformatted" data transmission NASA cut it off. They do not confirm anything special about that transmission even though you would think that the very idea its formatting had been changed might be considered unusual if not special.

It should make sense that we also look to outer space for evidence of beings from outer space. Even the Hubble space telescope has imaged some unidentified objects even within the boundary of our solar system. Despite misinformation and outright debunking, information and images still leak out of artifacts scattered across the faces of various planets and our own moon. Let us hope that reality does not mimic fiction and that the one transmission NASA received before turning off the link was "Resistance is futile."

In the late 1940’s, the UFO craze began to engulf the world. There have been numerous sightings of Alien craft and reports of abduction from various sources over the years. But at the burgeoning of the craze, these were much more colorful accountings and people gave notice to every story of the strange hoping to find the evidence of life existing far from our world. Of these stories, perhaps the most interesting came from Polish-born American by the name of George Adamski.

Adamski owned a burger stand that was situated near an observatory; this is what probably turned his attention to space. He purchased a telescope and claimed to be regularly seeing UFOs. While traveling with some friends in the desert in 1952, he spotted a giant UFO overhead. Convinced that the craft’s occupants wanted to communicate with him, he told his friends to wait while he ventured off to meet with the visitors.

The Alien from the Adamski UFO, Orthon came from the planet Venus. He was human in appearance, but was blonde and more beautiful than most people. He spoke to Adamski using telepathy, English and hand gestures. His clothing was strange; he wore odd-looking trousers and shoes which made strange and mysterious markings in the sand. Orthon communicated to Adamski that there were a total of twelve planets in the galaxy and that each had highly-evolved human inhabitants like himself. It was a community which Adamski called the Space Brothers.

The Space Brothers’ concern was the beginning of atomic testing on the Earth. Orthon feared that radiation would somehow leak into space and cause damage to the Alien worlds. Parts of the story were corroborated by the witnesses, who later retracted their corroboration and denied it ever happened.

Adamski managed to construct a miniature industry around his extraterrestrial contacts and himself. He cashed in on books that he co-wrote, and supplemented it with newsletter earnings and telepathy courses he marketed for his followers. Conveniently, Adamski relayed that the Space Brothers did not allow photographic evidence of themselves, but the Adamski UFO pictures can be found on the George Adamski Foundation website.

Eventually, Adamski’s claims became more bizarre. He lost a lot of his support. One claim he made was that he had been taken on a tour of the solar system by the Space Brothers. He told of his landing on Venus and of a convention he attended on Saturn.

We now have a greater understanding of the Solar System than we did back in his day. And we know with absolute certainty that the planets Adamski claimed sustained life and civilizations, actually cannot support human life at all.

When a Soviet satellite released pictures of the barren surface of the Moon, Adamski tried to denounce them as fakes. He made claims that the other side of the Moon contained green pastures and flowing rivers. He soon began to lose his following and towards the end he was widely regarded as a hoaxer.

The Adamski UFO is still a popular topic today, and some are still believers who take his work seriously.