Many scientists fear what many see as an inevitability — first contact with aliens. They reason that reaching out into the vast universe to make that contact — via space probes and other means, such as the messaging initiative from Breakthrough Initiatives — could very well alert aliens who might be hostile to sharing the universe with the human species. Be that as it may, there are scientists who don’t see a proactive approach to contacting aliens as asking for trouble. Some scientists believe an alien outreach program could prove quite beneficial to humanity.
METI (Messaging ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) International President Douglas Vakoch, who is also a professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies in California, believes the dangers attributed to taking an active approach to contacting aliens (as opposed to the more traditional, passive way — listening, the method employed by SETI, or the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), is exaggerated. In an interview with Seeker, he said the fear of what METI, which works to coordinate messaging efforts that could potentially result in the contact with aliens, is attempting is only natural.
“When I talk with other scientists about the potential risk of METI, they agree that the public perception of the danger is overblown,” Vakoch told Seeker. “And that’s natural. We know that our brains are hard-wired to pay attention to vivid images of danger — even when the alleged risk isn’t credible. So when Stephen Hawking warns that aliens could decimate Earthlings just as European explorers conquered the New World, that evocative image sets off our internal alarms — even if the scenario isn’t logically consistent.”
Big, smelly red herring. We have already been contacted, and for thousands of years. But the intellectual dishonesty and cowardice on the part of mainstream academia has kept that knowledge hidden from society. To read more, click here.