Stephen Hawking's Unfounded Fear of Extraterrestrials

In the news recently: The folks at Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have a plan to broadcast "powerful" radio messages out into the cosmos in an attempt to communicate with alien creatures on other planets.

This is news because SETI has always passively searched for evidence of life on other planets and this would represent their first active attempt to seek out aliens with their own messages.

Influential scientists are worried. If alien creatures find out about us here on Earth,...