Talking to aliens 'an OH&S risk', BBC TV presenter told

WHAT if aliens really do exist?
The thought is too much for BBC bosses to handle.
The media behemoth shut down a TV presenter's plan to point a radio telescope at a newly-discovered planet out of fear that aliens might answer back.
Professor Brian Cox said the BBC was concerned the experiment, to be staged live on air during his show Stargazing Life, broke the corporation's health and safety rules.
"We decided that we'd point the Jodrell Bank telescope at the planet (Threapleton Holmes B) that had been discovered by these two viewers (in January) and listen because no one had ever pointed a radio telescope at it and you never know," Mr Cox said on BBC radio.
"The BBC actually said, 'But you can't do that because we need to go through the regulations and health and safety and everything in case we discover a signal from an alien civilisation'."
"(I said), 'You mean we would discover the first hint that there is other intelligent life in the universe beyond Earth, live on air, and you're worried about the health and safety of it?'
"It was incredible. They did have guidelines. Compliance."

Dude, what? The damn planet orbits a star at least 600 LY away ; By the time we get any response that could be called a contact (if it happens at all!), we'll be living 1200 years in the goddamned future.

Dude, what? The damn planet orbits a star at least 600 LY away ; By the time we get any response that could be called a contact (if it happens at all!), we'll be living 1200 years in the goddamned future.

That's not contact. That's voyeurism.

"The BBC actually said, 'But you can't do that because we need to go through the regulations and health and safety and everything in case we discover a signal from an alien civilisation'."
"(I said), 'You mean we would discover the first hint that there is other intelligent life in the universe beyond Earth, live on air, and you're worried about the health and safety of it?'

Dunno, it's one of those things that aren't easy to predict, but at worst I think the upheaval would be short-lived. As I said to someone else, both everything would change and...nothing at all, because the aliens live so far away that you'd be having conversations over dozens of centuries.

Interesting fact - Orson Welles did a broadcast of the war of the worlds on radio back in the day. Tuning in the radio people heard him saying "The Martians have landed" or something along those lines. This became one of the biggest "hoaxes" in history as people did believe it was fact and not fiction leading to panic. So who knows what will happen. It could very well cause panic.

If this system were inhabited and lies 600 lightyears away from us, we will all be dead long before the return signal ever reaches Earth. Because of the scale of time involved here, it makes it impractical to establish and maintain neighborly relations between two interstellar civilizations. This raises the question of what the point is of ever hoping to do so besides the sheer knowledge that we are not alone in the universe. Unless we develop a way of feasible superluminal communication and transportation, I think that SETI and everyone else trying to make contact with aliens is just wasting his/her time and energy on an exercise in infutility. Obviously our current understanding of physics hasn't given us any way of doing such things--YET--but that may change hinging upon future discoveries.