Let’s
say you and a group of friends invent a transporter device, like on Star Trek,
but with one major difference: You have no control over where it would send
you. Suppose, on your first trip, you and your friends found yourselves in a
back alley of a totally unknown neighborhood in a foreign country. Would you
announce your presence? Back in your own country, the news regularly reports
stories of strangers being treated very badly by locals. Sure, those are
isolated events. Most people back home act quite friendly to others. But you
don’t know much about the customs and mores of these people. What do you do?
Image
your machine transported you to some alien planet, populated with local beings,
where you would be the alien visitors. You know nothing about these beings. Are
they so much more superior to you that they might look on you as you see a
mosquito? Might they just eat you to sample a new delicacy?
That’s
a quandary that faces humanity on a larger scale. We have discovered thousands
of alien planets, many of which seem quite capable of supporting life, with
more discoveries of potentially life-bearing planets coming every year. For
some time, Project SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been
actively searching for signals from aliens that populate other planets. That’s
like you and your friends in the back ally of an unknown foreign country simply
listening to a radio broadcast to see what you can learn about the local
people.
But
now, a newly formed group known as
METI (Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), led by the former SETI
scientist Douglas Vakoch, wants to take that a step farther and broadcast our
existence to the universe. Some scientists argue vehemently against such an
idea. Remember, they warn, what happened to the native populations of the
Americas after the discovery of the New World by Europeans. In some areas, 90%
or more of the natives were killed and their cultures virtually wiped out.
That, claim some voices of caution, is most
likely our fate if other, alien races discovery our existence.
In 1974, the director of Arecibo Radio
Telescope in Puerto Rico, then the largest telescope in the world, wanted to
showcase its newly renovated abilities. In a demonstration meant more for
publicity than science, they designed and sent a 167-second radio message to a
cluster of 300,000 stars, known as M-13. M-13 is 25,000 light years from earth,
meaning we can’t get a return signal for 50,000 years.
Martin Ryle, then the Royal Astronomer of
England fired off a strong condemnation of the stunt. He argued that ‘‘any
creatures out there [might be] malevolent or hungry.’’ Ryle further demanded
that the International Astronomical Union, the international governing body of
things astronomical, forbid any further communication attempts to alien planets.
Today,
the voices of dissent echoing Ryle’s caution include scientific luminaries like Elon Musk and Stephen
Hawking. Like Ryle, they warn that aliens might treat us the way Cortez treated
the Aztecs five centuries ago. The problem, they explain, is that humans have
existed for a mere few hundred thousand years on a planet only 4.5 billion
years old. The Milky Way has been making planets for more than 10 billion
years. Any race of beings who detect our messages likely will be as advanced
compared to us as we are to bacteria, and view Earth as a place with riches to
be exploited. That doesn’t bode well, they say, for our continued existence.
Of course, not all humans are so brutal and
calloused. Many actively work to help others less fortunate and less well-educated than they are. We’ve protected many species and environments on our
planet. But as recent political events show, that may not be a permanent
situation. And as the fate of those original natives of the Americas reminds
us, such kindness towards others often takes a back seat when the opportunity
to enrich ourselves arrives.
So, what do you think? Should we announce our
existence and location to the universe at large? Or should we remain in our
dark alley corner of the universe, eschewing contact with others? Please
comment with your thoughts.
I found this very interesting. When I was younger, I used to think I would love to experience a close encounter. But, as I've seen more information and realized the odds of it going well, not so much. And no, I don't think we need to sashay out there and yell into the darkness. Excellent article!
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