And a Happy First Contact Day to You All...

Everyone here at StarTrek.com wishes everybody out there in the universe a happy First Contact Day!

“Come again?” you might be asking. “First Contact Day?”

We celebrate the holiday (fictional though it may be, but shhhhhh...) in tribute to the flight of the Phoenix and the pivotal first interaction between humans and Vulcans. The event took place – or will take place, depending on how you look at it -- on April 5, 2063. That evening, a Vulcan survey ship, the T’Plana-Hath, landed in Bozeman, Montana, after tracking the warp signature of the Phoenix, a spacecraft that represented mankind’s first successful attempt at achieving warp drive. And, of course, moments later on that same day, a robed Vulcan, displaying the split-fingered Vulcan salute, greeted Dr. Zefram Cochrane, creator of warp drive and pilot of the Phoenix. And so, First Contact was made, setting in motion a chain of events that led to the formation of the United Federation of Planets.

Want to learn more about First Contact and First Contact Day? Please check out the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Metamorphosis,” with Glenn Corbett portraying Cochrane; the Star Trek: The Next Generation film First Contact, with James Cromwell in the role (which he reprised briefly on Enterprise); the books First Contact (the novelization of the feature) and First Frontier; and the Voyager episode “Homestead,” in which Neelix and Naomi Wildman oversee a party celebrating the 315th anniversary of First Contact Day, complete with an old-school jukebox, helpings of Cochrane’s favorite food (cheese pierogies), and the sight and sounds of a stoic, reluctant Tuvok giving the Vulcan salute and uttering those immortal words, “Live long and prosper.”

Once again, happy First Contact Day!