Vatican Astronomer comments on ET life

"An anonymous reader writes "There's an Astrobiology.net interview up with a Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, who also curates one of the world's largest meteorite collections. On the possibility of a non-terrestrial lifeform, he says initially 'I don't know', followed by three scenarios. First, he argues: 'We find an intelligent civilization and there's no way in creation we can communicate with them because they're so alien to us. We can't talk to dolphins now. In which case, we'll never know.' Secondly, he suggests: 'We find the intelligent civilization. We can communicate.' As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion. Thirdly: 'We find a dozen civilizations out there, and a bunch of Jehovah's witnesses go up and convert them all.' The question of whether an alien civilization might convert Earth to their religion, or become a religion unto themselves, is left unconsidered. This compares to the many reasons people give for hosting a SETI@home client, including that ET contact would unite humanity, challenge religion, or all of the above." "

posted by simoniker at slashdot
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/13/0023230

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whats interesting is that the Vatican has alot of connection to many conspiracies floating around. its strange to see someone within this organization to be so open about the ET subject.

another interesting thing to note is the fact he mentions dolphins, as if he knows they are of higher spirituality than some humans give them credit for, namely their nearly telepathic communications system.

this astronomer's three scenarios are quite interesting as well.

scenario 1 - i think this scenario is a safe-fall-back for this sensitive subject. i say this because it is abvious that advanced aliens use some form of telepathic communication, meaning Language is NOT a barrier, as they speak thought-to-thought, mind-to-mind.