Telling aliens where we are ‘puts Earth at risk’

[Alisoncc]

London: A NASA proposal to reveal Earth’s location could provoke an attack by aliens, Oxford scientists have warned.

Researchers at the US space agency have backed a broadcast message, dubbed the “Beacon in the Galaxy”, intended to greet extraterrestrial intelligences. It is an updated form of the Arecibo message, broadcast in 1974 for the same purpose.

Improvements in digital technology mean that more information can now be emitted. The proposed message includes basic mathematical and physical concepts to establish a universal means of communication, followed by information on the biochemical composition of life on Earth.

It also includes the Solar System’s location relative to major clusters of stars, along with digitised depictions of it, Earth’s surface, and men and women. The message concludes with an invitation for intelligences to respond.

However, Anders Sandberg, a senior research fellow at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, warned that sharing such information with intelligent life presents a risk that must be considered.

Dr Sandberg said that although the chance of the message reaching an alien civilisation was low, “it has such a high impact that you actually need to take it rather seriously”.

He said that the “giggle factor” surrounding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence meant that “many people just refuse to take anything related to it seriously. Which is a shame because this is important stuff.”

Overall, said Dr Sandberg, both the risk and the potential benefit were small. Given the difficulty of traversing vast spans of interstellar space, a message received even by a very advanced civilisation might amount to little beyond, as Dr Sandberg put it, “a postcard saying, ‘Wish you were here’.”

The Arecibo message is one of several broadcasts sent into space. “The poor aliens might already be getting various messages sent for all sorts of reasons,” Dr Sandberg added.

A better approach than individual groups firing off ad hoc broadcasts, he said, would be humanity co-ordinating as a species. “We’re not great at co-ordinating, but I think it is a nice exercise.”

Toby Ord, Dr Sandberg’s colleague at the FHI, made similar arguments in The Precipice, a book published in 2020 in which he analysed existential risks facing humanity.

Dr Ord suggested it might be wise to have “public discussion” before sending messages to aliens, pointing out that “even passive SETI [listening for their messages] could hold dangers, as the message could be designed to entrap us.

“These dangers are small, but poorly understood and not yet well managed.”

Overall, wrote Dr Ord, “the main relevant question is the ratio of peaceful to hostile civilisations. We have very little evidence about whether this is high or low, and there is no scientific consensus.

“Given the downside could be much bigger than the upside, this doesn’t sound to me like a good situation in which to take active steps toward contact.”

The NASA scientists proposed that the message be broadcast from China’s Fast radio telescope, and the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array in northern California. No date has been proposed for the broadcast.

Scientists including Stephen Hawking have, in the past, warned that these messages could be risky. In a documentary released in 2010, Professor Hawking pointed out that, on Earth, interactions between civilisations on different levels of technological advancement tend not to work out well for the lesser-advanced group.

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” Professor Hawking said, citing the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.

Telegraph, London

[TheGreenGoblin]

[OFSO]

Not only do they already know our location, they are already here and have been for years.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Not only do they already know our location, they are already here and have been for years.

There is some evidence that we may in fact be the aliens and there can be no doubt, whatever the case, that we humans are a major threat to the earth! Sadly, while the former proposition is mere speculation, the latter is pure fact and is a fait accompli!

Alea iacta est!

Professor David Kipping is brilliant on all subjects but, especially so on the subject of extraterrestrial worlds and the likelihood of "aliens" being out there!




https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... he-aliens/

[Woody]

Ed Wood( no relation) knew the dangers

[TheGreenGoblin]

A brilliantly bad film Woody, the making of which is outlined in Tim Burton's excellent 1994 film 'Ed Wood'.

[1DC]

Surely some of the aliens on here must have told their friends where they are!

[TheGreenGoblin]

Surely some of the aliens on here must have told their friends where they are!

Jup! nuq Data'?


Of course, the Fermi Paradox asks why they aren't here already?




If we "are" living in a "holographic" universe then the aliens are just like us, simply, "possibly digital", information encoded on the outside of a black hole!

[Woody]

Plan 9 from Outer Space is a 1957 independent American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in November 1956, and had a theatrical preview screening on March 15, 1957[4] at the Carlton Theatre in Los Angeles (the onscreen title at this time read Grave Robbers from Outer Space). It later went into general release on July 22, 1959 in Texas and several other southern states re-titled Plan 9 from Outer Space, before being sold to television in 1961. [2]

The film stars Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson, and "Vampira" (Maila Nurmi) and is narrated by Criswell. It also posthumously bills Bela Lugosi (silent footage of the actor had been shot by Wood for another, unfinished film prior to Lugosi's death in August 1956, and was inserted into Plan Nine later). Other guest-stars are Hollywood veterans Lyle Talbot, who claimed that he never refused any acting job, and former cowboy star Tom Keene.

The film's storyline concerns extraterrestrials who seek to stop humanity from creating a doomsday weapon that could destroy the universe.[5] The aliens implement "Plan 9", a scheme to resurrect the Earth's dead, referred to as "ghouls". By causing chaos, the aliens hope the crisis will force humanity to listen to them; otherwise the aliens will destroy mankind with armies of the undead. The film was originally developed under the title Grave Robbers from Outer Space, but in 1959 it was retitled Plan 9 from Outer Space and re-released under that name.

Plan 9 from Outer Space played on television in relative obscurity from 1961 until 1980, when authors Harry Medved and Michael Medved dubbed it the "worst film ever made" in their book The Golden Turkey Awards.[6] Wood and his film were posthumously given two Golden Turkey Awards for Worst Director Ever and Worst Film Ever. It has since been retrospectively described as "the epitome of so-bad-it's-good cinema"[7] and has gained a large cult following

I think that Boris is using the same tactics

[Wodrick]

You mean "Men in Black" is a documentary ?

[TheGreenGoblin]

No, neither is 'The Matrix' but...

http://thescienceexplorer.com/universe/ ... physicists




If we "are" living in a holographic universe then we, like the aliens, are simply information (very possibly digital) encoded on the surface of a black hole or some other dimension of universal space.

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8847863/h ... 0principle.

[Boac]

I WAS having a good Easter monday.............................

[TheGreenGoblin]

I WAS having a good Easter monday.............................

Do you feel like you are falling into a Black Hole?

[OFSO]

That is not the real Michael Jackson in Men in Black.

Seriously several items came across my desk when I was at work but disappeared within 24 hours and I could never find them again. A photo of the giant spacecraft (?) docked to Deimos or Phobos, I forget which, for example. I do not remember while a staffer at the Agency there ever being a discussion about whether aliens existed. It would have seemed pointless.

[TheGreenGoblin]

There are those that have posited the notion that we, here on earth, may have been recently "visited"...



Oumuamua almost definitely not aliens, we think

[OFSO]

Some years ago my friend in California who is both short on humour and devoid of imagination saw two USAF officers escorting an individual around a State Fair. The individual deviated from the human norm so much that she swears it was an extraterrestrial. Her attempts to take a photograph were blocked.

[Hydromet]

Some years ago my friend in California who is both short on humour and devoid of imagination saw two USAF officers escorting an individual around a State Fair. The individual deviated from the human norm so much that she swears it was an extraterrestrial. Her attempts to take a photograph were blocked.

Probably one of the Kardashians.

[emjay]

+1 indeed!

[TheGreenGoblin]

There are those that have posited the notion that we, here on earth, may have been recently "visited"...

The debate continues...

Avi Loeb is such an intelligent, lucid, civilized guy, who is prepared to think rationally and keep an open mind. It is always a pleasure to listen to him speak, even if he is coming from "way out there!" John Michael Godier, is the perfect interviewer as well. These links are the enlightened face of internet debate. Really good stuff.

[OFSO]

Do Kardashians come from the planet Kardash? Never heard of them, but I don't read the Daily Mail so am ignorant....