If you have been abducted by aliens, the Astronomer Royal would not like to hear about it.
Prof Lord Rees has urged “cranks” to stop writing to him with claims of extraterrestrial encounters.
“I get letters from people who say they have been abducted by aliens, they have met them, etc. I respond with cynicism to such letters by saying, ‘Is it really likely that if the aliens had made a huge effort to get here, would they just have met one or two well-known cranks and gone away again?’ It seems unlikely.
“So I tell these people to write to each other and not to me,” he said.
If extraterrestrial life does exist, Prof Rees said, it is not likely to be in the form of little green men.
“If we do detect something it is not likely to be flesh and blood. It is far more likely to be an electronic entity. It is unlikely to be synchronised with us - it could be a million years ahead of us,” he told an audience at the Hay Festival.
And if we do make contact with aliens in a distant galaxy, conversation will be impossible because they will be light years between us. “There is no scope for rapid repartee,” Prof Rees said.
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