Chapter 12: Encoding Our Origins: Communicating the Evolutionary Epic in Interstellar Messages

Even before the first search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) project was conducted, people have been pondering what reply we might send if some day we discover an extraterrestrial civilization. Some have suggested that the United Nations (U.N.) would be the international body of choice for deciding such a question, and indeed, that would seem one appropriate starting point. The challenge that the international SETI community has faced is gaining a space on the already full agenda of the U.N.; indeed, the preface to the existing SETI protocols endorsed by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) and the International Institute of Space Law explicitly acknowledges the difficulty of gaining the attention of the U.N. If some day we detect direct evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, all that may well change, but what are we do to in the meantime?

There is a natural alternative to the United Nations - a group whose discussions over the past decades already puts it in a position to recommend a coherent, consistent message that reflects broad-based, international consensus: the scientific community. To be clear, a solely scientific account of us would not capture the depth and breadth of human experience. For precisely that reason, over the past several years the IAA through its Interstellar Message Construction Study Group, in conjunction with the SETI Institute, has organized a series of workshops and conferences bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines - including the arts, music, humanities, theology, and law - aimed at identifying some of the many voices that should be represented in a comprehensive reply from Earth.