27-04-2010, 05:43 PM
This made me chuckle a little. I guess it's a news item because it's Hawking, and because there's a new television series involved. This has always been the question since the dawn of the modern UFO age in 1947: whther they come in peace or war. Radio dramas too numerous to mention have dealt with this, quite a few television shows and movies from the 50s onward as well.
Albert Bender comes to mind. He really wanted to make contact. His International Fyling Saucer Bureau even announced a World Contact Day when all members and the fellow-minded would intone inwardly a small statement asking the aliens to make contact. The problem is Bender got more than he counted on and was swept up in a Men-in-Black experience. He ended up repudiating the idea of World Contact Day, although some rock bands adapted his address to the aliens with some changes, despite the instructions that it was not to be recited out loud.
Jack Sarfati also said recently on Coast to Coast radio that the mechanical voice that contacted him by telephone in his youth in the 50s sounded like Stephen Hawking. This is another old plot device in the alien invasion thrillers: the aliens among us, even posing as anti-alien forces. Is Hawking perhaps really saying to those "in the know," in effect, "don't call us, we'll call you"? Sarfati probably didn't mean his UFO voice was Hawking, but taking him at his word is much more fun.
Sagan's work with the Soviet scientist in calculating roughly the probability of the number of civilisations in the galaxy was an important step in breaking the ice, in bringing the idea into the mainstream of scientific thinking. If I remember right, it produced SETI, among other projects. And the gold disc with driving directions to reach Earth, and the compact disc with the Beatles hits and other sounds from this planet, both sent out with no real expectation of ever being found by anybody, in the real world of astronomical distances. I read somewhere Sagan debriefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on aliens once, early in his career. He toned it down a bit later at Princeton or Cornell or wherever it was.
Albert Bender comes to mind. He really wanted to make contact. His International Fyling Saucer Bureau even announced a World Contact Day when all members and the fellow-minded would intone inwardly a small statement asking the aliens to make contact. The problem is Bender got more than he counted on and was swept up in a Men-in-Black experience. He ended up repudiating the idea of World Contact Day, although some rock bands adapted his address to the aliens with some changes, despite the instructions that it was not to be recited out loud.
Jack Sarfati also said recently on Coast to Coast radio that the mechanical voice that contacted him by telephone in his youth in the 50s sounded like Stephen Hawking. This is another old plot device in the alien invasion thrillers: the aliens among us, even posing as anti-alien forces. Is Hawking perhaps really saying to those "in the know," in effect, "don't call us, we'll call you"? Sarfati probably didn't mean his UFO voice was Hawking, but taking him at his word is much more fun.
Sagan's work with the Soviet scientist in calculating roughly the probability of the number of civilisations in the galaxy was an important step in breaking the ice, in bringing the idea into the mainstream of scientific thinking. If I remember right, it produced SETI, among other projects. And the gold disc with driving directions to reach Earth, and the compact disc with the Beatles hits and other sounds from this planet, both sent out with no real expectation of ever being found by anybody, in the real world of astronomical distances. I read somewhere Sagan debriefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on aliens once, early in his career. He toned it down a bit later at Princeton or Cornell or wherever it was.