Let's face it --anyone can claim to be an alien. Whether it's bumbling Dick Solomon from TV's Third Rock or Marshall Applewhite, head of the doomed Heaven's Gate cult, proclaiming an extraterrestrial origin is easy. But how can we put such claims to the test?

One way is this: Ask the alleged ET for an unambiguous techological or scientific assertion that is either currently unknown or generally not believed, but which can be verified by observation or experiment within the next few years. Human history, after all, demonstrates the concept that contact between civilizations of vastly different technological levels always results in some information flow. Assuming emissaries of a super-high-technology civilization are interacting with our own, what sort of knowledge might be rubbing off? What types of information might they reveal that could be explained in no other way?

Our recent article, Quest for Evidence, focused on questions in astronomy, but many other fields offer analogous candidate questions:

• GEOPHYSICS: What are the electromagnetic signatures of rock under extreme tension? That is, how can earthquakes be predicted? When will Earth's next magnetic polarity reversal occur?



• MATHEMATICS: Provide a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Develop a rational expression for computing pi.



• EXOBIOLOGY: Explain the dominent "left-handedness" of Earth's organic compounds, and compare these to samples from other biospheres.



• METALLURGY: Describe the most promising crystallization techniques for zero-G factories, and provide guidance to achieve room-temperature superconductivity.



• METEOROLOGY: Describe the proper chemical species for clearing CFCs out of the upper atmosphere where they are attacking the ozone layer. How can jet streams, hurricanes, and El Nino be artificially steered? How do you kill a tornado?



• NUCLEAR PHYSICS: What is the atomic number of the first stable trans-uranic element? ( Some people already claim it will be 115.) What's the trick to building a workable neutrino telescope?



• MATERIALS: How can metallic hydrogen be created, and then preserved at low pressure? What's going to be the most valuable but as yet unknown application of recently discovered carbon buckminsterfullerenes ("Bucky Balls")?