Let me start with something that happened just last week.
On June 9, 2026, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) released a new set of guidelines about contacting extraterrestrial life. Eight rules. And the one that got everyone’s attention? No one — no individual, no institution, no country — should reply to an alien signal without United Nations-level consultation first.
It sounds like something straight out of The Three-Body Problem. “Do not answer!”
But here’s the thing: the debate about whether we should send signals into space isn’t new. It’s been going on for decades. And both sides have arguments that will make you think twice about what you’d do if you were in charge of Earth’s “interstellar phone.”
So today, I want to walk you through both sides of this debate — and maybe answer the question: should we keep sending signals into space?
Part 1: The Case for Silence — Hawking’s Warning
The “stay quiet” camp has a famous spokesperson: Stephen Hawking.
The late physicist warned multiple times that contacting an advanced alien civilization could be dangerous. His most famous analogy: “If aliens ever visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”
Hawking’s logic is straightforward. A civilization advanced enough to travel across interstellar space would be far beyond us in technology. If they’re hostile — or simply don’t care about us — reaching out could invite disaster.
This is basically the Dark Forest theory in real life. Liu Cixin took the same logic and pushed it to its extreme: the universe is a dark forest, every civilization is a hunter, and the one who makes noise gets shot.
And here’s something interesting. The IAA’s new guidelines actually reflect this caution. They say that replying to an alien signal is like “signing on behalf of all humanity” — you don’t get to make that decision alone. You have to ask everyone first.
Sounds reasonable, right?
Part 2: The Case for Speaking — Why Silence Might Be Pointless
But here’s where the other side pushes back.
The “send signals” camp makes a simple argument: it’s already too late to hide.
We’ve been leaking radio and television signals into space for over a century. I Love Lucy has been our interstellar emissary for decades. Any civilization with technology advanced enough to threaten us would already be able to detect that leakage.
Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, put it plainly in a 2014 paper: any alien civilization capable of threatening Earth would also be capable of detecting our unintentional signal leakage. So restricting intentional transmissions wouldn’t actually keep us hidden — it would just hold back our own technological development.
Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), makes an even bolder argument. He says that if we’re afraid of hostile aliens, hiding is just self-deception. It gives up the initiative without actually providing safety. Instead, he argues, we should send a message of goodwill and let the universe know there’s a civilization here that’s willing to talk.
Vakoch also points out a logical flaw in Hawking’s argument. Hawking assumes aliens are advanced enough for interstellar travel — but somehow can’t pick up our regular TV and radio signals? That doesn’t add up. If they’re that advanced, they already know we’re here.
Part 3: The Real Story — We’ve Already Done It
Here’s something most people don’t know.
Humanity has already sent at least one intentional message into space.
On November 16, 1974, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico transmitted a radio message toward a star cluster called Messier 13, about 25,000 light-years away. The message contained basic information about humanity: the chemicals of life, the structure of DNA, a diagram of our solar system, and simple pictures of a human and the telescope.
It was mostly a symbolic gesture — a way to show off the telescope’s new radar transmitter. But the message went out. And it’s still traveling.
However, the chance of anyone actually receiving it is incredibly small. The beam was narrow, aimed at a distant star cluster that will have moved out of the way by the time the signal arrives in 25,000 years. The signal has only traveled about 1/1000th of that distance so far.
That’s the thing about space. It’s big. Really big. And a three-minute signal shot into the void is like dropping a message in a bottle into the ocean and expecting someone to find it.
Part 4: What’s Actually at Stake — The San Marino Scale
So if the debate is this old, what’s new in 2026?
The IAA guidelines are one thing. But there’s also a practical tool being discussed: the San Marino Scale. It’s a scoring system from 1 to 10 that assesses the risk of transmitting signals into space, based on signal intensity and the amount of information being sent.
The idea is that not all signals are created equal. Sending a weak signal toward a nearby star is different from blasting a powerful message across the galaxy. A risk scale helps people make more informed decisions — rather than just shouting “never do it” or “do it now.”
Some experts are proposing a two-step approach: keep listening at large scale (like the Breakthrough Listen project, which scans a million nearby stars), and only consider sending signals when there’s a transparent risk assessment and international consultation.
That sounds like a sensible middle ground. But it also means that for now, the debate is stuck. Nobody has the authority to speak for all of humanity — and nobody wants to take the blame if things go wrong.
Part 5: The Cognitive Bias Problem
Here’s something from a recent paper that I found fascinating.
Vakoch published a study in the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society arguing that our fear of sending signals is partly driven by cognitive biases — mental shortcuts that don’t always match reality.
He points to something called omission bias: we tend to assume it’s safer to do nothing than to do something. But that’s not always true. He compares it to people who refused COVID vaccines because they thought “doing nothing” was safer than taking action — which, as we saw, wasn’t the case.
He also mentions the availability heuristic: we overestimate risks that are vivid and easy to imagine. If you’ve seen a movie like A Quiet Place, where making noise gets you killed, that image stays with you. It feels real. But that doesn’t make the risk real.
So when we imagine aliens coming to destroy Earth, part of our fear comes from movies and books — not from actual data. And that fear might be making us overly cautious about sending signals that, realistically, probably don’t add much risk.
Part 6: The Fermi Paradox Connection
There’s one more angle to this.
Why haven’t we heard anything from aliens? That’s the Fermi Paradox. There are billions of stars, billions of years of time — statistically, there should be signs of intelligent life everywhere.
One answer the IAA’s new guidelines suggest is this: maybe the aliens are following the same rule.
From their perspective, we’re the aliens. Replying to a signal is like signing a contract on behalf of their entire civilization. Who dares to make that call?
Maybe the universe isn’t silent. Maybe everyone is just waiting for someone else to speak first.
Part 7: One Thought to Take Away
So where does that leave us?
I think the honest answer is: we don’t know. And that’s the point.
Hawking’s warning is real. Contacting a civilization we don’t understand carries genuine risks.
But the METI advocates are also right. We’ve been leaking signals for a century. If someone wants to find us, they probably already can.
The IAA’s 2026 guidelines aren’t saying “never reply.” They’re saying: “if you reply, do it together.” One country, one organization, one person shouldn’t speak for everyone.
That’s not a scientific answer. It’s a political one. And in a debate where the stakes are the survival of the human species, maybe that’s the best we can do.
If we received a clear signal from an alien civilization tomorrow — would you reply? Let me know in the comments.
