What should you do if you meet an alien? Neil deGrasse Tyson offers a scientific perspective in ‘Take Me To Your Leader’ (interview)

Delivering a refreshing fusion of science, pop culture, history, and esoteric humor, renowned astrophysicist, lecturer, and best selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson takes us on a whirlwind tour of UFO culture and speculations on how first contact might actually happen in his latest book, “Take Me To Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter” (Simon Six, May 12).

It’s the perfect pocket-sized hardback that offers up Tyson’s witty thoughts regarding alien abductions, UAP sightings, and flying saucer lore, as seen through his unique commonsensical delivery, and we’ve got the prologue exclusive to share with both believers and non-believers.

Tyson admits in our sneak peek below that “Ever since childhood I’ve wanted to be abducted by aliens.” While as far as we know that’s not occurred quite yet, the esteemed host of StarTalk does provide some sound practical advice that just might come in handy when entertaining alien kind.

“I saw so much swirling around,” Tyson told Space.com. “The level of interest given to UFOs, rebranded as UAPs of course, as it ascended into the halls of Congress, at that point I said to myself as an educator, scientist, and as an alien enthusiast, that I thought I needed to step into the ring. I wanted to go in there and anchor conversations that people were having. To anchor it in the physics of the universe, so that when you do think about aliens you have some way to imagine it that has some kind of authenticity with the laws of the universe.”

What Tyson has unwittingly accomplished in this enticing book is to present a solid case for him being the perfect candidate for Earth’s official ambassador should E.T. ever come calling! And we can honestly think of no better representative ourselves!

“At no time do I say things like ‘the supposed observation’ or ‘the supposed abduction.’ I’m taking everything at face value and asking other questions related to it. When you were abducted, did you steal anything from the craft so you can show it to people? No. Did you take photos? Everyone has a high-resolution data-taking device in their pocket. Are you using that? I’m encouraging people to just get better data than simple eyewitness testimony.”

In a world easily startled by sensationalism, Tyson here becomes a cool, gentle voice of reason amid the unchecked fascination with the topic of alien visitation and the stark reality of what humanity’s reaction might be. Proper etiquette and protocol might be the difference between an enriching cultural exchange that could alter the trajectory of our species, or a disastrous instance of miscommunication as seen in films such as “The Day The Earth Stood Still” or “Mars Attacks.”

“Because the public thinks eyewitness testimony constitutes evidence. Perhaps in the court of law, but not in the court of science, nor in the court of psychology, where they’ve known from the beginning of the susceptibility of the retelling of an objectively true event once it’s filtered through the human sensory system. What I’m saying is if you want people embrace what you’re saying, I need more than your eyewitness testimony to do so.”

Hollywood has also helped foster the notion of extraterrestrial hookups in countless movies, from “War of the Worlds,” “Invasion of the Saucer Men,” and “Communion,” to “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” and “Fire In The Sky.” These cinematic scenarios provide a framework to further the notion of cultural acceptance towards the idea of otherworldly visitors and how it might all play out.

“The evil alien trope is … here they are, they come across the galaxy, they clearly have more advanced technology than we do, and they kill us, enslave us, they have their way with us,” Tyson notes. “So here is how we think aliens will behave based on suppositions. However, it’s exactly how we know we’ve behaved to ourselves. This whole evil alien trope seems to me to be a mirror held back to how our civilization has interacted with itself. When a more advanced part of civilization encountered one that was less technologically advanced, it’s never boded well.”

For Tyson, this fun project was the ideal marriage of his scientific expertise, the physics and the astrophysics aspects, with his prominent presence in pop culture.

“I’m a big consumer of pop culture because I think it makes me a better educator,” he adds. “I have places to touch and reach when I’m explaining something to others. And I can pivot it onto some pop culture thing that they know about or they’ve heard about. It makes for the transfer of knowledge, wisdom, and insight of science much easier if I can attach it to something you already care about or already know about. The fact that all of these films and TV shows that are referenced in there, are all part of my background, tells me that this book may be unique.

“If you’re a successful academic you’re kind of not watching sit-coms or ‘SpongeBob Squarepants.’ The fact that I am doing it, when I’d rather be in the lab, is so I can be more effective, and in this book it all came together. From early episodes of ‘The Twilight Zone’ to Superman and the Great Gazoo popping in and out of existence.”

Prologue except for Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Take Me To Your Leader”:

Ever since childhood I’ve wanted to be abducted by Aliens. My interest in the night sky began at age nine, after a first visit to New York City’s famed Hayden Planetarium, an attraction within the American Museum of Natural History. Growing up in the City, with persistent air pollution, light pollution, tall buildings, and endless evening distractions, were it not for the Hayden Planetarium, I’d have no relationship with the night sky at all.

After a few years, I joined the local amateur astronomer’s club,* and with my telescope, I’d look for occasions to be alone, at night, under clear skies. The more alone I was and the more secluded the observing site, the greater my desire for a beam of light to come down from the sky and take me away. This sentiment was especially stoked at the summits of mountaintops, surrounded by low-lying clouds below, at observatories in the Chilean Andes, where I obtained data for my PhD thesis. Just me, my telescopes, and the universe. The desire to be abducted was driven entirely by my cosmic curiosity and not by some suppressed need to escape civilization and leave Earth behind.

As a professional astrophysicist, I am not alone in this interest. We’ve all done the calculations. We know the size of the observable universe — more than 90 billion light-years across. We know the age of the universe — 13.8 billion years. We know how many galaxies it contains — as many as a trillion. We know how many stars populate those galaxies — approximately 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (ten sextillion), give or take a few. We can estimate how many planets and moons might orbit those stars — multiply by ten. We know the chemical ingredients of life — hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and of course “other.” We know how common they are — among the most common on the cosmos. And we know how quickly life began — organisms have thrived for 95 percent of Earth’s timeline, starting when Earth was cool enough to sustain complex molecules.

We know these numbers well, which prevent any of us from imagining a universe not teeming with life. We desperately want to find them. Or maybe it is they who will find us. If that happens, and the space Alien demands, “Take me to your leader!” what will you do? What should you do? Our collective assumption is that the Alien wants to meet the person in charge of things: The President. The Prime Minister. The Monarch. The Pope. Or whoever happens to be the head of state. But plenty of other people are also “in charge of things, especially multibillionaires and captains of industry. Not knowing anything in advance about human civilization, but eavesdropping on our cultural norms before arrival, the Aliens might just as easily conclude that decade by decade, pop culture icons were also, or exclusively, in charge, such as Clark Gable, Walt Disney, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Beyonce, Taylor Swift.

For the Aliens to have reached Earth at all, from any place outside our solar system, we can reliably conclude they’re more advanced than we are, in every way. So, maybe you should not seek out your actual leaders, be they political, cultural, or religious. Perhaps you should instead seek out people who have high scientific and technological expertise. You might also hide from the Aliens everybody who thinks Earth is flat, as well as all others who deny what science is and how and why it works. This would also be the wrong time to convince them that your God created the universe and that humans, not Aliens, are created in His image. We want to leave the friendliest impression possible on our space visitors, whatever their intentions, be they plunderous, nefarious, or simply curious.

In science, skepticism is foundational to our profession, so we uphold standards of evidence that some interpret as disinterest or even denial. Don’t take it personally, it’s how any and all objective truths have ever been established in this world. Think of “Take Me to Your Leader” as a book of etiquette and insights for your next close encounter, or perhaps a scientifically infused user’s manual with helpful hints from an astrophysicist who wants to meet the Aliens as badly as you do.

* The New York Amateur Astronomers Association is the oldest in the country, founded in 1927.

Excerpted from “Take Me To Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter” by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Copyright © 2026 by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Reprinted by permission of Simon Six/Simon & Schuster. All Rights Reserved.