Just an alien message could destroy earth: researchers warn

Aliens might not need battleships to destroy earth, all they may need is a single message do the work. Researchers warn against opening any message from any extra-terrestrial society as it might wipe out humans.

According to a joint research by Michael Hippke, an independent scientist from the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany, and John G Learned, a professor with the High Energy Physics Group at the University of Hawaii, a message from aliens should be instantly deleted.

According to the research paper titled Interstellar communication, IX, Message Decontamination is Impossible. They write, "A complex message from space may require the use of computers to display, analyze and understand. Such a message cannot be decontaminated with certainty, and technical risks remain which can pose an existential threat."

The academics discuss how dangerous extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) is. They write, "While it has been argued that sustainable ETI is unlikely to be harmful, we cannot exclude this possibility. After all, it is cheaper for ETI to send a malicious message to eradicate humans compared to sending battleships."

According to researchers, if ETI exists, there will be both good and bad civilisations and though bad ETI might be less in number it is difficult to know for sure their intentions of sending a message. In fact, an ETI message may harbour several possible threats.

The researchers say, the message could come in the form of a computer virus that infected networks on earth when it was decrypted or an artificial intelligence that would then be able to take over our computing systems.