How do you greet a different species that has no knowledge of humanity our customs, or our languages?
If you have always worried about an end-of-days
situation involving an alien race finding earth, gobbling up all of its
natural resources, and then getting rid of all of humanity just for the
fun of it, you should be terrified right now.
BGR reports that researchers will soon start
sending unsolicited messages to other worlds with the hope of making
contact with an intelligent alien species.
Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (METI) is a San Francisco-based startup that will be scheduling its first messages for some time in the next two year.
Douglas Vakoch, President of METI,
is also a former member of SETI, an organisation that has been
organising the search for intelligent life on other planets since the
1980s. >However, before METI start sending messages, scientists have
to first figure out what the message will be. How do you greet a
different species that has no knowledge of humanity our customs, or our
languages?
There
is also the matter of whether or not this should even be done at all
since it is impossible to know whether or not aliens will be happy to
hear from us.
Yes, the sci-fi trope of aliens coming to take over
the world may be a little far-fetched, but anything is impossible. METI
will have to answer these questions before starting its messaging
experiment.
According
to the BGR report, METI’s first target will probably be a planet
orbiting Proxima Centauri, which may have the capacity to support life.
The group plans to then send messages to other areas much farther away.
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