DON’T AGITATE THOSE EXTRATERRESTRIALS…
(…they could be meaner and more powerful…than us)

There are serious ongoing debates concerning our efforts to seek out or discover signs of life as we know it…beyond our little world we call Earth.

For a number of decades we’ve used the SETI approach (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) to see if there are some other worlds out there, somewhere, with civilization equal to or greater than our own. Essentially this has been a passive effort, using vast disk antenna arrays and related radio technologies, to scan different parts of the universe hoping to pick up any signals that might be coming from them…to us. So far the results have been zilch. Now, with newer and more advanced technologies at our disposal, we’re considering taking a more pro-active approach called METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence). That is, rather than just listening for alien signals being sent to us, the idea is for us to send signals of our own to announce and advertise our presence to them (and that we’re friendly besides).

The debate about that boils down to: is it worth the risk to do so? Can we really trust them? Maybe it’s best not to agitate such extraterrestrials…they could be meaner and more powerful…than us! So telling them that we’re here may not be the smartest thing to do. Then again, such concerns may be a day late and a dollar short as they say, because according to some UFO and Area 51 conspiracy buffs, extraterrestrials are already aware of our presence, and have actually been visiting our world for thousands of years to periodically see how this planet of clever little apes has progressed…or not.

Of course “progress” is a relative term, and depends on how one defines it. If it’s a question of having developed more effective means of destruction, mass slaughter, and insouciant pollution of the environment; then, yes, we humans have truly “progressed” way beyond our ape-like ancestry. Whether that’s something any extraterrestrials might admire or approve of is a big question. Frankly, we’re not so sure about that because, now that they see us beginning to reach out into space to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere, they may actually be having second thoughts about us…Whoa there! Do we really want to let these nasty little critters infect and maybe mangle our world as badly as they’ve done to theirs? Maybe we need to nip their outreach in the bud…with another flood…a Black Plague…or an Ebola pandemic. Extraterrestrial thinking might then ponder wiping us out, letting our world become green again, to become a great vacation place for them to enjoy.

Good neighbors…anyone?

CENTURION