The METI Dilemma: Will Detection by Extraterrestrial Life be a Threat to Earth? A Galaxy Classic

Mankind has always been driven by contradictory drives.  The relentless curiosity that pushes us forward and is directly responsible for our progress from caves to  cities.  The fear of change that tells us "hang on, these caves/cities are really nice, we don't want to risk losing them."  There isn't any greater potential threat to the status quo than the discovery of extraterrestrial life, which is why some people would prefer we didn't try.

There has been some outrage recently over attempts to contact intelligent aliens, where instead of hiding in the corner and listening real hard some astronomers beamed intense directional messages up up and away.  Critics decried these actions as dangerous, though their fears reveal more about us than any eventual ETs.  They assume that they would be similar to humanity, so their first response to finding a more primitive culture would be to exploit the hell out of it.  While such a fate might be pleasingly ironic (for anyone who isn't human, at least), others contend that any species that can make the journey here has advanced to a point where their goals are rather higher-minded than "Shoot us".

Dr Alexander Zaitzev, of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, doesn't think much of these worries either way.  A proponent of METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), in a recent paper he shows that the odds of one of the METI messages being detected is a millionth of that due to powerful radar pulses regularly used in astronomical investigation.  Though whether writing a paper saying "This METI thing we're doing has only a tiny chance of working" is overall a good idea remains to be seen.  An important point is that METI represents an intentional will to make contact, rather than the accidental alien interception of some random radiation from Earth - the difference between saying "Hello!" and just being a suspicious strange noise late at night.

Most of the objections to contacting aliens are weak under close examination.  We can't suddenly decide to hide after fifty years of pumping electromagnetic radiation into space without rhyme or reason - in fact, we'd better hope that an advanced civilization doesn't catch an episode of "American Idol" and just vaporize us outright.  Suddenly keeping quiet would be like a drunk boyfriend carefully taking off his shoes after knocking over a bookshelf on his way to the bedroom.

Then there's the assumption that aliens would have the same kind of technology we do - despite the extremely obvious fact that our technology can't actually get to other planets.  Any attempt to mask radio emissions will likely look like cavemen closing their eyes to hide from satellite imaging.

The simple fact is that certain people have always opposed progress while other, better people have driven it.  "Experts" decried boiled water as unhealthy compared the vital stuff straight from the river, cursed antibiotics as a temporary placebo, and confidently declared that computers were nothing but expensive toys.  As an intelligent species we must make every effort to contact anyone or thing we can - and if you don't like it, there are some lovely caves you can move back to.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Detection Probability Calculation

Related Galaxy posts:

Detecting Extraterrestrial Life -The "Man vs. Machine" Space-Exploration Debate
Babelfish -Universal Translator Will Allow ET to Speak English
The 1.5 Gigayear Technology Gap
Advanced Civilizations in the Universe -A Galaxy Insight
GAIA -Mapping the Family Tree of the Milky Way
The "Hubble Effect" -A Galaxy Insight
Stanley Kubrick & the Mythology of Extraterrestrial Life -A Galaxy Insight
"The Great Silence" -A Galaxy Insight
James Cameron & Arthur C Clarke on 2001 A Space Odyssey
New Technologies & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life -A Galaxy Insight
Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos Revisited -NASA's Phoenix Probe & the Search for
NASA's "New Worlds Observer" Will be Able to Spot Oceans, Continents and Clouds on Small Rocky Planets
MIT Asks: How Would Extraterrestrial Astronomers Study Earth?
"The Great Silence" -A Galaxy Insight
Harvard-Smithsonian Scientists Zero In On Key Sign of Habitable Worlds
Cruising the Goldilocks Zone -The Search for Super Earths
Dead Zones in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

 

Comments

[Charles]

Great opinion piece and I have to agree with most of it. Actively trying to contact alien life poses no threat that I can see. There are two simple reasons for this; if by some miracle an alien race intercepts our attempts at communicaton there is a far greater chance they will be solar system bound as we are and not poised to send off an armada of attack ships to wipe us out. Second, any alien species capable of getting to our planet within their own lifetimes probably already know about us or this planet and would have done something already, with regards to world domination, etc.

Sadly, humans are their own worst threat currently and the forseeable future. I subscribe to the firefly theory of life in the universe...there may have been many alien civilizations in the past and many more to come in the future, however, I doubt highly that there are very many, if any at all, currently residing within a reasonable distance of our planet. Unless we eventually become a galaxy and or universe occupying race of super advanced beings I doubt we will ever come in contact with a species close to or even more advanced than us. And if there were another civilization out there currently who fit this description we would have seen some of sign of their existence by now unless we are like an isolated tribe in the Amazon in the grand scheme of the galaxy or universe. I sincerely hope I'm wrong though.

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

What if extra - terrestrials think that terrans are too primitive & ought to be left alone, like Earth is the universe's lunatic asylum or some such ?
We have enough problems here on Earth without worrying about being enslaved / killed / or used as pet food by " alien overlords ".

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

What if extra - terrestrials think that terrans are too primitive & ought to be left alone, like Earth is the universe's lunatic asylum or some such ?
We have enough problems here on Earth without worrying about being enslaved / killed / or used as pet food by " alien overlords ".

[connie]

Human beings should be so lucky to think that any other species in the universe would want to talk to us. We only pose a threat to ourselves. The rest of the galaxy couldn't care less if we exist or not.

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

The rest of the universe - those advanced & old enough or otherwise enlightened, might look at us like some people look at the developmentally disabled. Better they see us like that than as homicidal / genocidal primitives. Even then, they might still think that we're worth observing to see if we show signs of advancement.

Hey, it COULD happen.....

[Marty Ferguson]

(With all of the above comments being said)...IF they even intercept our transmissions! Studies of the space beyond our system have shown that the further out that our radio signals travel the weaker they get, to the point where they can no longer be recognized AS radio. The clear transmissions decay to interstellar background noise (static). Also, take into account the SHEER SIZE of the cosmos, it is extremely doubtful that any intelligent lifeforms(malevalent or benign) would even make the trip to the earth...at least, in our lifetime. And never mind the sci-fi dreams - i.e., INDEPENDENCE DAY, SPECIES, CONTACT and the remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, due to be released in two months.

[darkmaster]

I agree, we are in this universe for a finite time, and while we're here we might as well turn it upside-down and inside out. Hopefully someone will reply back, even if they're a little bit more advanced than us, they can send a reply back faster and faster as their technology grows.