Everyone loves to think about aliens, and Matt is no exception. But when it comes to actually KNOWING anything about them— well, no one actually knows shit. So to discuss the possibility of their existence and our search for extraterrestrial life, Matt wanted to talk to an actual expert on the matter— not the guy from ‘Ancient Aliens’ or some other wingnut like him. Enter: science journalist Keith Cooper, editor of ‘Astronomy Now’ and writer of the new book ‘The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions In The Search For Extraterrestrial Life’. Listen as Matt and Keith discuss the vastness of space, why it’s so hard to wrap our minds around that vastness, why humans are so fascinated by the cosmos in the first place, the present state of mankind’s search for extraterrestrial life (‘SETI’), what the future of that search might look like, how we should plan on encountering an alien life form if that should ever come to pass, why people insist they’ve encountered aliens when they definitely have not encountered aliens— and ultimately why, when we look at the stars, we are really just looking at ourselves. Also, Matt tells the story of his very first anxiety attack, which was triggered by staring up at the night sky and wondering what the fuck else is out there... if anything.