Should We Avoid Talking to the Aliens?

Recently the well known astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has warned that, while aliens almost certainly exist, we should make every attempt to avoid them. Why?

Basically he says that if aliens visit us, it might be to raid Earth for resources and then move on. If aliens visit us, the outcome could be compared to when Columbus arrived in America and the decimation the white man left after him on the Native Americans.

He continued that we only have to take a look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might change into something we wouldn’t want to meet and therefore we should do everything possible to avoid contact with extraterrestrials.

Naturally I don’t agree with him and set out some of my reasons below.

Astronomers are pretty much agreed having analysed the types of stars and star systems, it’s unlikely that there would be intelligent aliens anywhere within 90 light years of us. There probably is life but it could be microbial, or at a different stage of evolution than us. An astronomer called Frank Drake came up with an equation in the 1960s called the Drake equation. He was the guy who started Project Ozma which listened for signs of intelligent radio signals coming from a number of different star systems. Nothing was found. However, the answer to the Drake equation was the number of civilisations in our galaxy with whom communication might be possible. This took into account the average rate of star formation, the fraction of those stars which have planets, the fraction of those planets which actually produce life, the fraction of those life forms which develop intelligence and the faction of those which actually develop radio communication and finally the length of time such civilisations continue to exist. Multiplying these fractions together gives the number of civilisations. Depending on the value given to these unknown fractions has resulted in answers ranging from 1 civilisation per galaxy to millions.

It obviously can’t be millions as that leads to the famous question as to where are they. Some people believe that they are in fact already here and some go further and say they are in fact, dangerous. Alien abduction, mutilation of cattle are frequently cited. Sure there are lots of reports of UFOs in the skies but mostly from people who are untrained in looking at the sky. Most of the sightings are of Venus when low in the evening sky (a beautiful sight), weather balloons, even the common airplane. And surely a lot of the Nevada sightings are of the stealth aircraft being put through their paces before they were even announced to the American public. And frankly, I think anybody who believes they have been abducted are deluded. Think about it. An advanced civilisation crosses space and perhaps time to reach Earth and what do they do? Buzz aircraft, abduct people and mutilate cattle? Besides if there are so many aliens around, how come there is not one single incident where a piece of alien technology has been found? Roswell, among others, may be cited but no evidence has been forthcoming. Besides, the pieces of debris found at Roswell were from a weather balloon.

It is possible that we are actually unique and are the only form of intelligent life in the universe or even in our own galaxy. I believe this is highly unlikely and as the heroine in the film Contact said, if this is true it seems like an awful waste of space out there. And looking at the Drake equation again, we have already discovered in excess of 300 planets orbiting stars other than our own which implies a fairly decent rate of planet formation which is one factor increasing the odds in favour of life elsewhere. Also on our own planet we have found life existing in the most inhospitable places where we never expected to find it. For example, microbes living miles underground, some frozen in ice which revive when heated up, life existing without light or heat in the very deepest places in the oceans.

Now that it’s beginning to look like ET surely exists somewhere, let’s consider the question of whether they could reach us if they wanted to?

In order for a civilisation to cross the vastness of space they would have to be incredibly advanced technologically. And not only that, I believe that such advancement in technology also comes with advancement in their understanding of themselves and other creatures, so much so that they would surely have long ago realised the senselessness of violence and killing. At our present level of technology our fastest spacecraft could probably cover the distance to the nearest star in about 80,000 years. So an incredible leap in technological sophistication is required to overcome that daunting timeframe. If Einstein is right about the speed of light being a limiting factor, then we may never meet another alien race face to face. However, I’m convinced that there must be ways around this problem but these advances are not going to come anytime soon. However things turn out, only an incredibly advanced race will be capable of making such journeys. Aggression or violence would be a thing of the past with such a race. Certainly if they haven’t learned to control such behaviour then it is unlikely that they would have survived for so long. Besides, what could we have that they would possibly need?

So now that we know ET is not here yet and unlikely to be for some considerable time to come, our best option to talk with them is by radio or optical communication, or maybe by some other method we haven’t discovered yet. On Earth we have been communicating by radio for the last 90 odd years and as radio waves travel at the speed of light, this means that our signals have already traversed space out to 90 light years. So if there are intelligent aliens with radio capabilities within that range, they know we’re here already.

Now going into the digital age and away from normal radio communication analogue technology, some say that digital signals would look like noise to aliens. I don’t understand this. It’s nonsense! A signal is a signal and it just needs deciphering. Maybe they mean that digital signals from earth are weaker and more earth directed and so eventually when our technology has advanced sufficiently our signals won’t leak into space at all. Advanced aliens will probably use similar technology which is another reason we don’t spot them in our radio searches. The chances of finding a civilisation at the exact same point of evolution as ourselves is about the same changes of winning the lotto. Fairly low. So most civilisations out there are probably far superior to us and there’s no chance of our finding them (unless they want to be found) or far inferior to us in which case there won’t be much in the line of signal to find them.

I mentioned above that during Project Ozma nothing was found. Well, during a later SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) search in the mid seventies, one signal was found and they called it the Wow! signal. This bore all the hallmarks of artificial origin (any hint of it being manmade was ruled out), unfortunately it was never seen again. To this day some still insist it was of extraterrestrial and intelligent origin.

Frank Drake sent a message from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (the largest in the world) in 1974. Because this telescope can only point in one direction as the Earth rotates, the message was sent towards a dense group of stars called Messier 13. Messier 13 is the name given to a particular globular cluster which lies along with many other similar clusters on the outskirts of our galaxy. Unfortunately it will take about 25000 years to reach it’s destination, so we won’t be getting a reply anytime soon. But, what the hell, it was a first shot and maybe an alien spacecraft will pick it up first.

So why bother listening or trying to make contact? In my opinion, the importance of communicating with them is that we would have so much to learn from them. But maybe they don’t want to share? If that’s the case, it’s a pity, but I would think they would want to share. The more a civilisation advances intelligence wise, the more understanding they would have of the universe and all that’s in it. The more they might want to reach out and help struggling civilisations to come to grips with everything. Even looking at ourselves, many people want desperately to reach out and help others. Otherwise there wouldn’t be the outpouring of humanity when disaster strikes as seen recently in Haiti, for example.

So rather than trying to hide away, let’s announce our presence to the rest of the universe. And let’s keep listening to try and find a signal from them. One way or the other it would surely be the most significant discovery we have ever made to find out that we are not alone in the universe. Or equally that we are alone.