Neil deGrasse Tyson takes on aliens and how we should greet them in
'Take Me to Your Leader'
[May 13, 2026]
By MARK KENNEDY
NEW YORK (AP) — Neil deGrasse Tyson has had a lifelong fantasy of being
abducted by aliens. That's right, he actually wants to be taken.
“I even picture the scenario in my head: I’m sitting out there alone,
and a beam of light comes down,” he says. “It’s not a spacecraft that’s
hovering over me. It’s just a beam of light from space. And I just get
lifted up into that beam of light, and I appear in a new place.”
America’s favorite astrophysicist has turned that lifelong fascination
into a book, “Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien
Encounter,” which — like that beam of light — illuminates what we know
about possible space critters and what we can anticipate if they ever
come calling.
“Even if it doesn’t actually happen, there’s value to going through the
thought experiment of what could happen,” he says. “Maybe there’s some
takeaways that offer insights into how you think about the world, how we
think about each other and the future of our civilization.”
The book, out Tuesday, is a unique road map into the prodigious brain of
Tyson, who has an ability to blend pop culture with quantum physics.
Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum
of Natural History in New York City.
“Take Me to Your Leader” references evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay
Gould and Cartoon Network’s “Rick and Morty” and weaves ideas from both
the French philosopher Voltaire and lyrics by Katy Perry. It mixes the
physics of invisibility with “Star Trek” and has digressions into
multispectral vision, how Superman — an alien, remember? — could kill us
all just by farting and why supersonic planes “look badass.”
They're going to be smart
Tyson concludes that if aliens were to arrive on Earth, they are likely
to be much more advanced than humans. He writes it would be like trying
to teach a chimp long division.
“They’ll not only be brilliant, but they’ll be way more powerful than us
in practically any way that matters, which is why it’s so laughable when
you see in Hollywood movies some mothership arrives and people pull out
their pistols and start shooting guns at it. Like, ‘Really? Have you
thought this through?’”
During first contact, he advises against trying to shake hands or
raising a hand in a sign of hello. “Leave all your habits at home, until
you learn a thing or two about theirs,” he writes.
The book arrives during a spasm of interest in aliens. The Pentagon has
begun releasing a new batch of files on UFOs, “Project Hail Mary” was a
smash and Steven Spielberg prepares his alien movie “Disclosure Day,”
while former President Barack Obama declared on a podcast that aliens
are real. (He later clarified that he had seen no evidence but that “the
odds are good there’s life out there.”)
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This combination of images shows Neil deGrasse Tyson at a premiere
of "Now You See Me: Now You Don't" in New York on Nov. 10, 2025,
left, and cover art for his book "Take Me to Your Leader:
Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter." (AP Photo, left, and
Simon & Schuster via AP)
 Tyson decided to write his book
after watching recent congressional hearings on UFOs, noting that
both Republicans and Democrats seemed unified in finding the truth.
“They had a common subject that they’re both interested in,” he
says. “When I saw it hit that level, I realized I have something to
contribute.”
A book of etiquette
It is the first book under Simon & Schuster's new Simon Six imprint
led by Jonathan Karp, Tyson's editor, who called the scientist “the
Bruce Springsteen of astrophysicists.”
“You name a respected scientist who has ever written a book of
etiquette on how to meet aliens. It hasn’t been done. This is truly
terra incognita,” Karp says.
The aliens will, of course, not speak any Earth languages, but Tyson
thinks we can still communicate via science — universal constants
like the speed of light, Newton’s laws of motion and gravity and
Einstein’s relativity. The aliens may even recognize our periodic
table — not the names or symbols — but the simple organization,
which they may likely also have done.
He also concludes that they won't be tiny or enormous, citing
brain-to-body-weight ratios. Too big and they collapse under their
own body weight. Too small and they couldn’t construct a spaceworthy
vehicle. “The laws of physics greatly restrict the likelihood of
Earth being visited by, much less invaded by tiny aliens,” he
writes.
If they're monitoring us, though, there's a good chance they'll want
to be taken to our apparent leader — Taylor Swift. Instead, Karp
says Tyson should be the point man for the human race and the book
is his calling card.
“I think this is the funniest factual book that anyone will ever
read on aliens and that’s quite a statement,” says Karp. “There’s so
much chaos and conflict in the world, and it's a book on aliens that
has the potential to bring us all together. He’s clearly been
thinking about aliens his entire life, and he’s managed to write
about them with the acuity of a scientist and the appeal of an
entertainer. That’s a powerful combination.”
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