Stephen Hawking Warns Over Making Contact with Aliens

[Helen Reyes]

He wanted the FBI to take action. It was tongue in cheek, sort of, but it makes a subtler point: if it's military people screwing around and kidnapping people, hypnotizing them to believe a truck is a flying saucer and their captors were greys, there's still legal liability for kidnapping. Akroyd was the only one who seemed to be making a kind of sense, but Larry King didn't let him talk that much. He also brought up 9/11, saying if the aliens saw that, we can forget about them coming in peace, or coming at all. He was implying "inside job" without being explicit.

[Ed Jewett]

U.S. Air Force Funds SETI, Will Investigate Using Radio Telescope Array to Detect and Track Orbiting Space Objects

December 7th, 2011Via: SETI Institute:
The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is once again searching planetary systems for signals that would be evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Among its first targets are some of the exoplanet candidates recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope.
"This is a superb opportunity for SETI observations," said Jill Tarter, the Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute. "For the first time, we can point our telescopes at stars, and know that those stars actually host planetary systems including at least one that begins to approximate an Earth analog in the habitable zone around its host star. That's the type of world that might be home to a civilization capable of building radio transmitters."
The ATA had been placed in hibernation mode last April as the result of the withdrawal of the SETI Institute's former partner, U.C. Berkeley, due to budgetary shortfalls.
…
The restart of SETI work at the ATA has been made possible thanks to the interest and generosity of the public who supported SETI research via the http://www.SETIStars.org web site. Additional funds necessary for observatory re-activation and operations are being provided by the United States Air Force as part of a formal assessment of the instrument's utility for Space Situational Awareness (see www.seti.org/afspc for more information).
Posted in Technology, War

[Peter Lemkin]

No doubt many intelligent life forms are peaceful, but also cautious of those that are not. While we would pose no danger to them [their technology would consider nuclear weapons and lasers, etc. as primitive], they would not likely find human beings as heading in good directions, at best. Other intelligent life forms may be malevolent and would either be into planet mining or species collections for their zoo - even destruction for destruction sake. Were we more peaceful as a Planet and species we would stand a better chance, even if so little evolved technologically. Our best protection, however, are the great distances which, unless they have found ways to bridge them with wormholes in spacetime or faster than light speeds will be our greatest chance of protection. Better to listen for other intelligent life and not purposely broadcast to them. Our TV and radio is headed out at light speed as it is. Their first image of us will be Milton Berl and Cid Ceasar from USA and whatever the equiv. was in other countries.....not great advertising. That would soon be followed by evidence of nuclear tests and use and WWI and WWII. Again not great advertising.