And it makes sense as to why.. If no one knows earth is here, this pale blue dot, why tell them? Why announce ourselves to potentially hostile beings from elsewhere? Why give a big blast of “HELLO UNIVERSE” to creatures that may want to simply enslave us or take our resources..?
This is the very real concern of some very real scientists.. The UK INDEPENDENT has the full story on the fear..
The basic gist: Leading scientists at SETI, that little place that has been searching for alien life for as long as I have been alive and then some, are proposing that we beam the signal we send out to the universe and direct it specifically at the potentially hospitable zones for life as Kepler has recently found.. In doing so, the hope would be that actual beings hear the message and either answer back, or I suppose travel here.. and destroy every living being on earth. Well, that is the fear at least..
The argument made by those who oppose: Evil alien intentions will be made easier by us, the dumb thumbs of the planet earth, letting them know all about us. It’s the cosmic way, some may think ,of announcing on Facebook, “hey I’m going on vacation and I left my door open!”
Some leading scientists have pondered about this potential for a long time.. Steve Conner in the INDEPENDENT reminds us:
He is not alone in his concerns. Professor Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge cosmologist, warned in 2010 that humans should keep as silent as possible because alien civilisations may be attracted to Earth and have the technology to travel here and exploit its resources. “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” he said
The BBC’s Phallab Ghosh writes this,
Researchers at the Seti institute have been listening for signals from outer space for more than 30 years using radio telescope facilities in the US. So far there has been no sign of ET.
The organisation’s director, Dr Seth Shostak, told attendees to the AAAS meeting that it was now time to step up the search.
“Some of us at the institute are interested in ‘active Seti’, not just listening but broadcasting something to some nearby stars because maybe there is some chance that if you wake somebody up you’ll get a response,” he told BBC News.
The concerns are obvious, but sitting in his office at the institute in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, he expresses them with characteristic, impish glee.
Impish glee.. it’s all impish glee until a fire storm of hell rains down on the planet earth by hostile beings from elsewhere–and they may be especially angry when they get here and I LOVE LUCY is simply a long memory of our television infancy..
It is an interesting concept.
One must first assume there’s aliens among us, out there somewhere, who are poised and ready to either pounce on our faces or elevate us to a higher existence. I am sure like humans, good aliens and bad aliens abound.. But if we get unlucky and reach out to the wrong crowd first, our homes burn down and we’re left to wonder why high paid scientists said ‘hi’ to begin with..
Of course all this worry could be for nothing.. even if an alien race got our message, they may be hardpressed to get here quickly.
Unless they are already here. . . like the Greys.
And we all know what they do..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu7bmvkgWEg]