AN OXFORD academic urged caution as scientists proposed an update to the message beamed to aliens – warning that space messages shouldn’t be sent out ‘willy nilly’.

An international team of scientists have written a new binary-coded message to potential intelligent life in the Milky Way.

The message, called Beacon in the Galaxy, updates the Arecibo radio message transmitted to the heavens in 1974. The new binary code aims to create a ‘universal means of communication’ with alien life through basic mathematical and physical concepts, according to reports.

The researchers, who have published their theories in a new paper, suggest that the message could be relayed to space.

However, Dr Anders Sandberg of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, urged caution.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on Easter Monday: “The simple idea would be that either aliens might contact us and have good news or be helpful or they are dangerous.

“You could say, well, the risk equation, if something threatens the species that would weigh more heavily than the good news.

“And many people would say, of course, well we are a primitive young species and we’ve seen in earth’s history if we have a civilisation that is powerful encounters a more primitive society that has usually not turned out so well for the primitive society.

“That’s a bit simplistic but there are reasons to be concerned that maybe we shouldn’t just be sending out messages willy nilly.”

Asked by presenter Nick Robinson whether people simply didn’t take the search for alien life forms seriously, Dr Sandberg acknowledged that the ‘giggle factor has been thoroughly high’.

But he said that it would be a ‘good idea to figure out why the sky is empty’.

“Many people have a hard time bringing in the idea that searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence is a serious pursuit and might actually matter quite a lot for understanding our own options,” he told the Today Programme.

“I’m from the Future of Humanity Institute and it might seem strange that I have opinions about aliens.

“But the reason is that an apparently silent sky seems to give us some evidence about our own chances. Maybe it is that intelligence is a very transient thing and tends to destroy itself.”

In their paper, the Beacon in the Galaxy researchers acknowledged concerns that alien life could wipe out humanity.

But they added: “Logic suggests a species which has reached sufficient complexity to achieve communication through the cosmos would also very likely have attained high levels of cooperation amongst themselves and thus will know the importance of peace and collaboration.”

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