Scientists say it's time to contact aliens

Fears that a major program to contact alien life could spell disaster for planet Earth were dismissed as "paranoid" by scientists who hope to beam messages to distant worlds from powerful radio telescopes.

Scientists at a US conference have said it was time to try actively to contact intelligent life on other worlds, the BBC reported.

The call was made by the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence institute (SETI) at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose. But others argued that making our presence known might be dangerous.

Researchers at the Seti institute have been listening for signals from outer space for more than 30 years using radio telescope facilities in the US. So far there has been no sign of ET.

Seth Shostak, director of the Seti Institute, said that any society that could come here and ruin humans' whole day by incinerating the planet already knows that they are here.

Shostak also advocates beaming the entire contents of the internet, giving an intelligent recipient the opportunity to decipher the history of human culture.