Carl Sagan was captivated by the notion of life beyond Earth. Yet in this interview from NOVA Online, conducted shortly before the well-known champion of science died in 1996, Sagan says that extraterrestrial intelligence is "a wonderful prospect, but requires the most severe and rigorous standards of evidence." Sagan doubted that the various proponents of so-called "alien abduction" making headlines in the 1990s had met those scientific standards.