If movies are anything to go by, meeting aliens rarely goes well for humanity. To stop us making a faux pas of cosmic proportions, scientists have been practicing by trying to chat to whales in their own language – and judging by the early results, we should probably beef up security around the Eiffel Tower and the White House.
Communication between humans speaking different languages is tricky enough, and that’s with us all using the same biological hardware. Alien life could not just have their own language but completely different modes of communication – they might banter by breakdancing, or convey an entire emotional spectrum through the volume, frequency, tone, smell, flavor and density of passing gas.
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So how could we even begin to prepare for what might be the most important meeting in human history? Scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute have started by looking much closer to home, exploring how we can chat to the intelligent life we already share the planet with.
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