Possible Alien Message Prompts Division among Earthlings.

First contact.  Yesterday at 3.00AM, the Arecibo Observatory (run by the SETI organisation) in Puerto Rico received the first ever conscious electromagnetic transmission from a non-human source.

Ron Neary was in charge of the satellite at the time.  “I [was] sat at the computer watching it scan the same incredibly narrow stretch of the electromagnetic spectrum (SETI radio antenna receive signals in the microwaves range of the electromagnetic spectrum) and suddenly it came through.”  Ron has published a picture online of the signal he saw, a white piece of paper with the characters “6EQUJ5” circled and the annotation “My God! It’s full of signals.”

Ron continued “I was just so pleased that I would be the one to break the news to humanity – all those years, man hours and money and we got this!” At this point, Ron showed the piece of paper again, waving it frantically. “See, see, don’t you see it was worth it?”

The reaction from humanity has been less than enthusiastic.  The SETI organisation has encountered resistance, such as in the form of Kristopher Coulomb, a Russian Computer Scientist. He believes that this is something we should fear, and not just because it removes the notion that humanity is special. He also warns that making further contact with a “technologically superior race” would be similar to “the effect Europeans had on the Native American population.”

The “Blue and Noble Planet” (BaNP) is a worldwide organisation with worries about Alien visitors.  Nicole Frinfig, a spokesperson, is worried that visitors to our “already full planet” will be detrimental to those “already here, and can trace their humanity back hundreds of generations.”  They have released a leaflet titled “Earth jobs for Earthlings”.  Black, White, The Other Colours, Rich, Poor, Stupid and Ignorant all united by a common hatred.

The third kind of resistance encountered is composed of elderly scientists who have formed the Bohr Society (named for the famous physicist).  Head of the Society, Eugene Murray, sent a letter to science journal Nature. It starts "When I were a lad we had only Carbon based life forms to study using nout but a magnifying glass, not these newfangled fancy aliens.”  He goes on to say "The year was 1947; I was posted to New Mexico...those were the days of aliens. You could buy a newspaper and visit the crash and still get change from a nickel... and we were happy.”

Not all of the responses have been negative; some have proclaimed that these beings from the heavens may indeed save us from ourselves if we do truly ruin this planet.  However, SETI have released a statement: “Although it may be a long time before we encounter aliens it is clear to see that we [SETI] have proved our usefulness”.

Liam
Welcomes our new alien overlords.