Bring up aliens and a lot of people will scoff. But not everyone is laughing. Around the turn of the century, 3.8 million people banded together in a real-time search for aliens -- with screensavers.

FX's new series Alien: Earth opens with a scene familiar to any fans of the storied science fiction horror film franchise: A crew of dysfunctional, blue-collar workers waking from extended hibernation ...