Message From ET?

According to one news agency, KVTU in California, one of the giant SETI radio-scopes have picked up a message from outer-space. For those of you living under rocks, the SETI project is a world-wide scientific effort to detect signals from other life forms in the Universe that have developed the use of electromagnetic radiation as a form of communication. It operates on a simple principle. Earth has been sending out radio and TV waves from our planet for the last one hundred years or so, and we are blasting out massive amounts of information about us that travels through space at the speed of light. If another form of sentient life anywhere within 100 light years of earth were to happen to point their antennae in our direction, they would also have the benefits of re-runs of “I Love Lucy” and have talk radio just like we do, but the further away that they are, the older the broadcast that they would receive.

SETI has been positioning receivers all over the sky in the hopes that some other race has the same habits as we do, and we would have the benefit of all of THEIR old broadcasts. The fact that we have received a signal worthy of SETI’s attention and that has not been blasted all over the media is a puzzle to me, as this is big news. It should not be surprising that we do not really know if this signal is something that we can decipher or not, but let us assume that this is not another freak signal from a natural occurrence. That brings us to a huge set of questions.

Should we reply? If we do reply, what exactly should we say to them? If they have caught a presidential debate on their TV, what would stop them from coming here and blasting our planet out of existence on general principles?

As to the first, evidently a large majority of people are in favor of beaming back a message. That presents some dangers. The study of nature has shown us that if you are “food,” and you advertise your location to “those that want food,” then you are cutting your chances back quite a bit.

As to the second question: that may be the single most important message ever sent to anything for any reason. According to this article, responses from people suggested everything from a simple “Howdy” to “Please help us, we are idiots running out of our own resources.” One guy was more on track, in my humble opinion:

Jonathan Harding, of Oakland, had a lighthearted response.

"Don't eat us," he said.

What the HELL *ARE* these things??

That is a fair response, I think. But, it is weak. Another lesson that we have learned from nature is that species that are vulnerable to predators NEVER SHOW SIGNS OF WEAKNESS. The puffer fish blows its body up to say “Do not eat ME! I am huge and dangerous!” A cat raises its back and looks tough.  Other species color themselves with intimidating colors to show that eating them is a bad idea. I have a suggestion for our first message:

Who cares if we are a bunch of morons that can’t agree on the color of shit? That is not the side of humanity that I want our first message to be, and as long as we are going to expose ourselves, we might as well start off at least *looking* tough! Now there is going to be meetings of scientists to determine what the very first message of humankind to extra-terrestrials should be.

What are we thinking? We have spin doctors here on Earth that can make Attila the Hun look like Mrs. Clever and we want to have Poindexter come up with our first advertisement? I have another suggestion. Let’s get the guys that did the tobacco advertising and hook them up with the guys that wrote spin for Bill Clinton and get their asses on the job. I can see it now:

“We read your message: What exactly DID you mean by eat until you are sated?”

“Earth – The vacation spot for really wealthy, friendly ET’s!”

"Visit Earth! We will give you Microsoft for FREE!"

(whistling noises): “Nothing here worth looking at!”