Tantalizing new evidence released by the U.S, military suggests that we may be on the threshold of some unprecedented contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence. But something the people of Earth should NOT be doing, is trying to make such contact. Indeed, the whole idea is ‘reckless’ and we should stop trying to communicate with unknown worlds right now. That is the gist of a June, 2021 op-ed in the Washington Post by influential physicist and science writer Mark Buchanan. Among scientists agreeing with him is SETI astronomer Joe Gertz who sees such efforts as ‘the reckless endangerment of all mankind’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ufo-report-aliens-seti/2021/06/09/1402f6a8-c899-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html)
Buchanan and Gertz find themselves echoing the views of the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking who warned that rather than seeking such contact we should be trying to avoid it. It is not that Hawking thought there is no life out there. On the contrary, he thought that, given the odds, there almost certainly is. It is just that there is no telling what it is like, and prudence would dictate that we do what we can to stay out of its way until we know a great deal more than we do now. I wrote about the Hawking warnings in my publisher’s letter for Atlantis Rising Magazine #82 (July/August, 2010).
Most alien life Hawking believed is probably microbial or simple animals. Any intelligent life and even civilized life, he thought, might very well view Earth as a target for colonization or some other form of exploitation. The first contact with arriving ETs might be very much like that of the American Indians greeting the European explorers, and that didn’t work out very well for the Indians, he reminded us. One also recalls the cargo cults of the south Pacific during World War II.
On some South Pacific islands in the 1940s the native tribes came to believe that western manufactured stuff (“Cargo”) had been created by divine spirits in the sky and was intended for their people. They objected to the unfairness of sending such bounty to white people alone and formed what were called “cargo cults” to enlist the gods in their cause. Meanwhile on other islands the natives worshiped the Americans who flew in the “cargo.” The phenomenon was studied and written up by celebrated anthropologist Margaret Mead. Later, in the early days of NASA, Mead joined in a report from the Brookings institute recommending that any possible future discoveries of extraterrestrial life be withheld from the public on the grounds that, as in the South Pacific, such contact could be calamitous. Could she have had a point?
Interplanetary travelers, Hawking pointed out, could very well be nomads or pirates out to raid Earth to extract its resources and then to move on. If Hawking was right, then someone should warn some of those at SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) like Douglas Vakoch who runs a nonprofit research organization devoted to transmitting intentional signals to extraterrestrial civilizations, and seem to think it a good idea to broadcast our presence to the universe.
And what about some politicians who have complained that Hollywood portrayals often make aliens look unflatteringly threatening? For this school of thought, the politically correct treatment of aliens ought to be more like what was portrayed in the movie ET. But what if the aliens are more like those we saw in Independence Day, merciless and predatory?
Do we really know what to expect, and should we gamble the human race on the answer?
