The SETI project, which searches for extraterrestrial civilizations in order to possibly establish contact with them, appeared in 1959 with the financial support of NASA.
Then some scientists suggested trying to find “brothers in mind” who may be at about the same level of scientific and technological development as people.
However, the idea of a targeted search for aliens still belongs, perhaps, to Nikola Tesla, who at the end of 1896 achieved a radio signal transmission over a distance of 48 kilometers, and already in 1900 he caught a fairly powerful radio signal from space.
Tesla was so elated by what had happened that he involuntarily fell into a fantasy or even a mild form of insanity, claiming to have received a message from the Martians, who used Morse code to say: “One … two … three.”
Tesla began to regularly “listen” to Mars, hoping to intercept a new message and, if the opportunity presented itself, then immediately respond to “the inhabitants of the neighboring planet.”
However, Tesla’s attempts were unsuccessful, for two reasons: there is no intelligent life on Mars and the radio signal was actually caused by the volcanic moon Io successfully passing through Jupiter’s magnetic field.
But if there was still a progressive civilization on Mars, could Tesla’s actions be called correct? Is it worth contacting the inhabitants of other worlds?
Let’s say tomorrow NASA announces that there is a planet in orbit of a neighboring star, where very progressive creatures live, and we, using the universal language of mathematics, can make contact with them. Does the US space agency have such authority?
In theory, of course, NASA could send a message to the aliens and even relay our coordinates for a hypothetical rendezvous, but these actions would be considered a serious violation of international agreements.
According to the UN Charter, which was signed by all states involved in the study and exploration of outer space, if any of the countries (or a private project based on its territory) discovers aliens or receives a message from them, then an emergency UN meeting must be immediately organized.
At the same time, information should be made public, since an event of this level will concern absolutely every inhabitant of the Earth.
In the course of numerous meetings with the participation of representatives of all states and specialists from various fields of science, a decision will be made that will determine further actions.
So sociable aliens will have to endure until people decide what rules them – fear or curiosity.
