Contact; by Carl Sagan.

From attempted discovery of aliens to space travel through worm holes across light years to questions of what is conveniently termed paranormal, fear of which makes mobs of normal rational people willing to discredit the respected and persecute the fellow humans, even colleagues and other well known professionals.

It is a bit like watching someone painstakingly constucting a pendulum clock in the atomic wristwatch and gps and blackberry age. Or a tall building without a steel skeleton structure in the landing on Mars age.

While he does mention wormholes, actually using them for travel seems to have been a slate of hand sort of trick, what with the observers never seeing the vehicle leave the spot much less earth. Leaving on a plane other than physical needs no vehicle much less one constructed with instructions arriving from space.

There is the laborious effort to keep everyone happy, with meticulously portioned out considerations.

And then the scary pendulum to stand under. It could crush you and standing under it requires a great deal of faith in science, the people who constructed it, and more.