Sphere Study Guide

Norman Johnson is the protagonist and a psychologist who, years earlier, was responsible for defining the operational procedures should the US ever come into contact with alien life - although he admits that he treated the request to do so as a joke at the time.

These procedures were outlined in a report entitled Recommendations for the Human Contact Team to Interact With Unknown Life Forms , often abbreviated ULF. Despite being the least physically fit team member in the context of an underwater habitat, he is arguably the most level-headed of the group. Nonetheless, Johnson takes time and trouble to convince the group to collaborate.

Harold "Harry" Adams is a young, intelligent, African-American mathematician. While intellectually gifted and professionally secure, he is arrogant, unsympathetic, disdainful, and often uncooperative with the others, as a legacy of growing up as a mathematical prodigy who was often picked on as a child because of his lack of athletic talent.

Elizabeth Halpern is gentle and caring while simultaneously fierce, combative, and confrontational. She perceives herself as being dominated by the male scientists, with the implication she kept her "powers" at the end of the novel to redress the perceived imbalance.

Theodore Fielding is an enthusiastic opportunist, whose pretensions tend to cause conflict in his relationships with the others, despite his good intentions. It is later revealed his ambition is driven by anxiety and a conviction he has to achieve fame and do so fast, because he believes that the time for him to do so is fast running out.

Arthur Levine is the sole member of the team not chosen by Norman. He is also the only team member who doesn't make the descent to the crash site.

Harold C. Barnes is a retired Navy captain who has charge of the underwater scientific investigation. He is brusque, impatient, and distrustful - possibly as a result of his military background. This leads to conflicts with the other main characters. It is implied he has withheld crucial information from the team and his crew, following his own agenda at the expense of the others with tragic consequences.

Alice "Teeny" Fletcher is a Navy chief petty officer in charge of maintaining the habitat. She is friendly and competent, despite Norman's initial skepticism. It is not specifically explained how she dies, but the survivors find a trail of blood and one of her shoes after the second giant squid attack.

Tina Chan is a Navy petty officer and electronics technician who is in charge of communications. She develops a friendship with Halpern, and is one of the longest surviving Navy personnel killed by the manifestations.

Rose Levy is a Navy seaman who serves as the habitat's cook.

Jane Edmunds is a Navy petty officer and data processing technician who serves as the operation's archivist. She is responsible for recording events and transferring the tapes to the submarine at DH-7, which is pre-programmed to return to the surface if not reset before a failsafe 12-hour countdown reaches 0. intended to ensure that at the very least a partial record will survive in case of catastrophe.