For the astronomers tasked with finding intelligent life elsewhere in the solar system, one of the most vexing questions is why ET is being so quiet. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began in 1960 when astronomer Frank Drake spent 3 months scanning the cosmos for life, but in the 50-odd years since Drake’s initial experiment, SETI astronomers have yet to find any convincing evidence that we are not alone.
The disappointment this lack of results has led to the creation of a controversial wing of SETI research known as METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligences) or Active SETI. The basic idea here is that if the aliens aren’t going to call us, we’ll call them instead.
Although a handful of messages have intentionally been sent out into the cosmos over the last half-century, ranging from 8-bit drawings to the entirety of Craigslist, most SETI research institutions do not fund active SETI projects. Moreover, in February of 2015, a number of leading SETI scientists published a letter listing the perils of METI and calling for a global consensus before any sort of message is sent on behalf of spaceship Earth.
The researcher’s concerns are well founded: as detailed in a paper posted to arxiv last week, a critical analysis of the leading arguments for and against METI found that the project is probably not a good idea, going so far as to call METI “unscientific and potentially catastrophic.”
Stupidly moot issue. They're here. And they've been here for a long, long time. Enough with the BS already. To read more, click here.