Calm down dear. They 'probably' come in peace

I shall shortly be away to another part of the UK to see family over the Jubilee weekend so - despite having said earlier that I would return to more blogging after finishing my latest appointment - I will in fact not be able to blog until later next week. I will be in a more rural area than London though so shall be intently watching the skies...

So the absence of posts won't be for much longer. In the meantime, with my recent mixed success at gaining access to the Open Minds site I have managed to see some of their latest articles at the time of posting.

I found the following amusing
http://www.openminds.tv/jill-tarter-comments-on-hollywood-aliens-943/.

Children stumbling in the dark?

There seem to be plenty of eminent scientists out there who think they have a handle on what E.T. would do if ever in contact with little old Earth. Stephen Hawking for example suggests that we shouldn't assume a super advanced non-terrestrial species would be benevolent and equates the encounter between them and us as something akin to "...when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

On the other hand, SETI astronomer Jill Tarter suggests that if E.T. visited Earth, “that would mean they would have technological capabilities sophisticated enough not to need slaves, food, or other planets.” She then offers her theory that “If aliens were to come here it would be simply to explore.”

Well my view on this is twofold:-

1.  IF they exist - and that's a big 'if' - THEY ARE ALIENS who may, as the word 'Aliens' suggests, be so utterly different to us as to be incomprehensible in terms of their intentions or motives. There simply is no point speculating about what such visitors' intentions are until they are actually here; and

Allen Telescope Array, SETI

2. IF they exist - and assuming for the moment that just one non-terrestrial species out in space is at least as advanced as us technologically if not more so - then logically it follows that it is already too late for us to concern ourselves about whether we should even engage in 'first contact'.  We have been broadcasting into space (first by radio and then latterly by other means) continuously for roughly the last ninety years. Any advanced non-terrestrials out there will pick up our transmissions in due course (assuming they don't perceive it as just 'noise').

Proponents of the E.T. hypothesis for UFOs will of course argue that they've already heard and are here...