From Different Planets

The prospect of partnering with a UFO enthusiast to launch an Internet site focused on serious science would be enough to give anyone pause. So it was especially jarring for Ann Druyan--the widow of renowned scientist Carl Sagan--when Web entrepreneur Joe Firmage approached her with such a plan early last year. Firmage, who made millions as the co-founder of consulting giant USWeb (now MarchFirst Inc.), became a legend in Silicon Valley in November, 1998. That's when he posted a bizarre 600-page diatribe on the Web called "The Truth," which attempted, among other things, to prove that aliens have visited earth and the government has covered it up. It was enough to make Sagan spin in his grave. Yet two years later Druyan and Firmage have joined forces to launch OneCosmos Network. The venture, which debuts this month, has two arms. OneCosmos.net, run by Firmage out of San Francisco, is a Web portal offering science-related information. Los Angeles-based Cosmos Studios Inc., which Druyan manages from her hometown of Ithaca, N.Y., will produce educational programs similar to Cosmos, the 1970s show that she co-produced with Sagan. Some of the programs will be broadcast on the site, others will be sold to TV networks. Everything is designed to carry on Sagan's vision of making science engaging to everyone, regardless of age, class, or education. "It's the Discovery Channel plus 50 IQ points," says Firmage, 30, who worshiped Sagan as a child.

Hard sell. But how Druyan, 51, came to trust Firmage to carry out that vision is a remarkable story about the meeting of two wildly different minds. Indeed, anyone who thinks that The X-Files' pairing of skeptical scientist Dana Scully with alien-hunting dreamer Fox Mulder could only happen on TV clearly has not met Druyan and Firmage. He talks freely about a vision that he thinks might have been an alien encounter--the experience that led him to write "The Truth." She thinks Firmage's extraterrestrial theories are hooey. Her opinion is backed by 20 years of working and living with Sagan. "I cling to the scientific method," Druyan says. "I am a true skeptic. Joe is not."