Richard Carrigan, Jr., a physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory warns that scientiststs should think about decontaminating potential SETI signals to reduce the risk that the signals could carry harmful information similar to a computer virus.
Walter Simmons, a physicist at the University of Hawaii, together with his colleague, Professor Sandip Pakvasa, have come up with a clever scheme that would allow interstellar broadcasters to keep the coordinates of their home planet secret by taking advantage of advances in quantum cryptography.
According to Harrison, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Davis, if we detect a signal from advanced extraterrestrials, there?s a good chance that the basic principles of democracy play a role in their society.
A SETI Institute survey on people?s beliefs about etraterrestrials found, not surprisingly, that respondents projected characteristics on E.T. based on how they view their own life. For example, the study found that people who feel like the world is cold and cruel are more likely than other people to imagine extraterrestrials as being cold and cruel as well.
Seth Shostak explains why any extraterrestrials we come into contact with will almost certainly be more technologically advanced than we are.
Canadian defence department scientists have written the prime minister to urge him to regulate the efforts of private groups to communicate with extraterrestrials. The two fear that 'messages carelessly designed might put Earth at risk'. Dutil and Dumas are coordinating their own attempt to contact extraterrestrials as part of project Encounter 2001.
Researchers are debating the existence of life elsewhere in the universe -- and how meeting up with aliens might affect the Earth.