Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking said this week that humans might be making a huge mistake by trying to make 'first contact' with alien species. Hawking is part of the "Breakthrough Listen" project. It's goal is to develop super sensitive radio receivers to listen in on alien civilizations. If they're there.

But there's another project called Breakthrough Message. It aims to create a transmission "representative of humanity and planet Earth" to send to an extraterrestrial civilization. They pledge "...not to transmit any message until there has been a global debate at high levels of science and politics on the risks and rewards of contacting advanced civilizations".

Professor Hawking thinks that's a seriously bad idea. He wants to eavesdrop on alien civilizations, but stay out of the conversation. In his mind, it's in our best interest to keep our heads down and our mouths shut. He says he worries that advanced aliens “will be vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria.”

Ouch.

Some people think it might be dangerous even to listen to an alien message. It's possible it could be an encoded message like a computer virus that, once in our minds, could kill us. Or worse.

But the whole Thing might be a moot point. We've been broadcasting everyThing from I Love Lucy to Star Trek into the cosmos for decades. If someone is out there listening, it's probably too late to shut up now.

See you next week,
Bobby