Alien search won't doom planet Earth, say scientists who want to contact ET
by Ian Sample, science editor, in San Jose from on (#2ZRQ)
Fears over new Seti plan to repeatedly broadcast greetings to habitable planets for hundreds of years dismissed as paranoia
Fears that a major program to contact alien life could spell disaster for planet Earth were dismissed as "paranoid" on Thursday by scientists who hope to beam messages to distant worlds from powerful radio telescopes.
Researchers at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) Institute in California want to broadcast greetings to potentially habitable planets in the hope of receiving a reply, but the proposal has met with serious objections from critics, including the cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who claim that yelling into space is reckless.
