The moment of first contact with extraterrestrials is a staple of science fiction. It usually involves a frantic scientist having a Eureka moment, realising in a single dramatic instant that Earth is being visited by creatures from light-years away.

War of the Worlds was an obvious and devastating response to the carnage of 9/11, updating the classic novel to a modern-day depiction of a society coming undone in the face of an apocalyptic alien invasion.

Sci-fi about the inventor of a device to communicate with aliens, in which scientists spend too much time talking astrophysics at each other