Aug 5
Hippie fools plan to endanger earth
Sir The plan by the television company RDF and the social networking website Bebo to use a radio telescope in Ukraine to transmit messages into space this October places our own planet in danger.
The intention is to make a television programme that will “represent humanity” and send signals across 20 light-years of space towards the recently discovered Earth-sized planet that orbits the star Gliese 518. No one knows if it harbours intelligent life.
While it may seem a harmless stunt, it will alert any alien intelligence in our region of space to our presence by making our planet much more prominent in radio wavelengths than it was. Radio signals from Earth, in the form of television transmissions and military radar, do leak out into space. However, such leakage is diffuse and not targeted like the planned transmission.
This would make us millions of times easier to detect. Since 1974, when the Arecibo telescope transmitted a message towards the star cluster M13, there have been a handful of such broadcasts with no discussion of their safety.
It is dangerous to assume that any advanced intelligent life would be friendly. Such a signal might expose us to malevolent aliens equipped with super weapons and no human-like morality.
Dr David Whitehouse, Farnborough, Hampshire
