by Sean Keach March 18, 2019 (thesun.co.uk)
• Astronomers from around the world came to the ‘Observatoire de Paris’ (the Paris Observatory) for a bi-annual gathering to discuss the ongoing search for alien life. Many in attendance agreed that extraterrestrial beings simply don’t want to be found. “Past experience shows that any meeting of two civilizations is dangerous for both,” said astrophysicist Danielle Briot.
• Of course, that suggests that aliens do actually exist – and have spotted us from far across space. Scientists and sci-fi writers have suggested for decades that intelligent aliens are watching over us from above. “Perhaps extraterrestrials are watching humans on Earth, much like we watch animals in a zoo,” said Douglas Vakoch, the president of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), a non-profit that aims to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations. Douglas thinks it’s possible for us to signal our intelligence to an alien species, to provoke them into making contact with us, which would be far easier than travelling across space in search of alien life ourselves.
• Scientists have been sending off signals into space for decades. And yet we’ve had no response from a universe so vast that it seems impossible for alien life not to exist. “It seems likely that extraterrestrials are imposing a ‘galactic quarantine’ because they realize it would be culturally disruptive for us to learn about them,” said Jean-Pierre Rospars, the honorary research director at the Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique, who also co-chaired the METI Paris workshop.
• “We should expect to see more or less similar forms of intelligence everywhere, under favourable conditions,” says Rospars. “There’s no reason to think that humans have reached the highest cognitive level possible. It’s also possible that alien life may look very different from humankind – which may hamper our discovery process.”
• “The environment on an exoplanet will impose its own rules,” said Jean-Sébastian Steyer, a palaeontologist from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. “There is no trend in biological evolution. The huge range of various morphologies observed on Earth renders any exobiological speculation improbable, at least for macroscopic ‘complex’ life.”
Genius astronomers from around the world have descended on Paris for a bi-annual gathering to discuss the ongoing search for alien life – and some think aliens simply don’t want to be found.
Some professional stargazers attending the event admitted that they think aliens see meeting up with humanity is simply too risky.
“Past experience shows that any meeting of two civilisations is dangerous for both,” said Danielle Briot, an astrophysicist at the Observatoire de Paris.
“Knowing that, civilised extraterrestrials will not try to communicate with us.”
Of course, that suggests that aliens do actually exist – and spotted us from far across space.
Scientists – and sci-fi writers – have been suggesting for decades that ultra-intelligent aliens are watching over us from above.
“Perhaps extraterrestrials are watching humans on Earth, much like we watch animals in a zoo,” said Douglas Vakoch, the president of METI, a non-profit that aims to message extraterrestrials.
“How can we get the galactic zookeepers to reveal themselves?
Douglas thinks it’s possible for us to signal our intelligence to an alien species.
This could provoke them into making contact with us, which would be far easier than travelling across space in search of alien life ourselves.
“If we went to a zoo and suddenly a zebra turned toward us, looked us in the eye, and started pounding out a series of prime numbers with its hoof, that would establish a radically different relationship between us and the zebra,” the space boff explained.
“And we would feel compelled to respond.
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