Top messages to send to E.T..docxVIP

Top 10 messages to send to E.T. SAN JOSE, Calif. — Let’s face it. Communicating with aliens isn’t working out any better than persuading creationists to accept evolution. Scientists with the SETI project have been listening for decades, but so far not a peep from E.T. Anyone longing for alien contact has to settle for watching sci-fi movies or?Doctor Who. Consequently some of science’s alien hunters have proposed being less passive. It’s time, they say, to launch “active SETI,” with a new acronym: METI, for messages to extraterrestrial intelligence. “With active SETI? ... we take an active role in transmitting intentional, powerful information-rich signals to other civilizations in the hope of getting a response,” Douglas Vakoch of the?SETI Institute?said during a news briefing February 12 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. But some scientists — Stephen Hawking, for instance — are horrified at this prospect. Sending a signal to deep space will reveal our presence to possibly predatory civilizations. Betraying our location could trigger an alien mission of extermination, the naysayers fear. At the very least, they say, any messages should be sent out only after elaborate international discussions to determine whether to send a message at all and, if so, what the message should be. “Active SETI is an enterprise that deserves broad-based international discussion,” Vakoch acknowledged. But he advised against holding your breath until that issue reaches the top of the United Nations’ to-do list. Besides, “international discussions” aren’t typically very successful at resolving anything, such as what to do about most of the problems threatening the planet right now, let alone hypothetical invasions centuries from now. Any nearby alien empire, after all, would already know about Earth by way of old TV shows, like?I Love Lucy(or?Doctor Who,?for that matter). Even if such aliens were super intell